Althouse: "The vote to Leave amounts to an outpouring of fury against the 'establishment.' Everyone from Barack Obama to the heads of NATO and the IMF urged Britons to embrace the EU."

June 25, 2016

"The vote to Leave amounts to an outpouring of fury against the 'establishment.' Everyone from Barack Obama to the heads of NATO and the IMF urged Britons to embrace the EU."

"Their entreaties were spurned by voters who rejected not just their arguments but the value of 'experts' in general. Large chunks of the British electorate that have borne the brunt of public-spending cuts and have failed to share in Britain’s prosperity are now in thrall to an angry populism."

Say the editors of The Economist.

People are stopping taking instruction from the elite. The elite are terrified — at least for themselves and their own power — and they must struggle to find a way to convey that terror to the common people, who seem to be coming to believe that it's all been a big con. The main argument the elite have for the people is: If you don't stick with us, you're doing populism — you're in thrall to angry populism — and populism is bad and wrong.

250 comments:

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Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: "It doesn't matter what anyone thinks."

And that's the ball game, fans!

Time to mow the lawn.

No, the ballgame is your refusal to read and idiotic pretension to believing that Hitler's oratory and grievances (realistic or otherwise) were not material to WWII.; 6/25/16, 5:32 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: This is the kid I must have been thinking of.; 6/25/16, 5:39 PM
buwaya said...: The family spends a week or two in Britain every other summer or so. We were always anglophiles, and my wife and daughter especially so. You cant keep them out of London.
On my side, dad and grandpa worked most of their lives for a British trading co., one of the Asian "Hongs", and my aunt married an Ulsterman working for Jardines. So we were soaked in British stuff from Hongkong and Singapore. Cadburys and Enid Bkyton, the works.; 6/25/16, 5:55 PM
ken in tx said...: Hagar is right. The Brits do consider themselves to have a Constitution. It is just not contained in one written document. It is based on documents like the Magna Carta, traditions and customs embodied in the Common Law, and acts of Parliament. The House of Lords is supposed to be the special protector of the British Constitution.; 6/25/16, 6:21 PM
Michael K said...: "my aunt married an Ulsterman working for Jardines."

Have you read Clavell's novels about them ?

The MacDonald's fry cook wants to know if anyone has been to Britain.; 6/25/16, 6:28 PM
Robert Cook said...: "What sticks in my craw is Cookie trying to insinuate that a political ideology that bases it's core beliefs on the Bill of Rights has anything to do with National Socialism."

WTF?! I am making no comparisons with Naziism and the Constitution's Bill of Rights. The depths of your obtuseness apparently are fathomless.; 6/25/16, 6:28 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: It is based on documents like the Magna Carta...

Only two or three of those dozens of clauses are still operative.; 6/25/16, 6:39 PM
buwaya said...: Clavell, yes certainly. It was required reading for Asian expats you know. Our kind. That was our mixed up world, and still is, whats left of it. Six or seven cultures and nationalities in a family history of exoticism and drama. Pity we havent a writer in the family, we could have trumped Clavell.; 6/25/16, 6:43 PM
Phunctor said...: When the Economist boldly if belatedly joined the consensus-based scientific community I realized that it had adopted a different language, in which "fkn !Science!" means "popularity contest", and I could no longer benefit from reading it. C.P Snow was more even smarter than we thought.; 6/25/16, 6:46 PM
Phunctor said...: Koff koff most unkindest lack of an edit function. I meant to do that.; 6/25/16, 6:48 PM
buwaya said...: This is what comes of typing on a phone.; 6/25/16, 7:00 PM
grackle said...: Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party was a socialist movement. If private ownership and/or ownership autonomy is bypassed, attenuated, dissolved or otherwise done away with and the government dictates what is produced, how and when it is produced and controls distribution, then what you have is socialism, no matter how you want to slice it.

Readers, we must remember that as long as private ownership is allowed then that system is NOT socialism, although it may contain socialistic elements, such as our own Social Security and other government-distributed benefits.

The litmus is always private ownership/autonomy. If you have it, you have some version of capitalism – if you don’t you are looking at socialism.

By this yardstick Europe is not yet “full” socialist(you never go full socialist :-) since the European nations continue to allow private ownership. But it’s trending that way if, for example, the British are forced to comply with standards imposed from Brussels.

Brexit is in a real sense a revolt against the European socialistic trends since WW2, which was affordable for the Europeans up to now in part because of a generous subsidy from American taxpayers. Not having to finance credible militaries while we protected them with NATO was another revenue booster for the European economies.

And “Globalism?” It is an effort, mostly unintentional, mostly well-meaning, to impose a worldwide socialist system upon the free nations of the world. The elites truly believe International “law,” international “courts,” open borders, cultural relativity, political correctness, artificial, border-dissolving, culture-ignoring “unions” such as the EU, decisions made from a central authority, etc., is what is “best” for all of us – it all feeds upon the same naïve impulse.; 6/25/16, 7:06 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Only a total fool who never took an intro Econ course doesn't know that Hitler allowed lots of private ownership.; 6/25/16, 7:17 PM
tim in vermont said...: Or, Robert, it is remotely possible that you are missing a point...

Naah!; 6/25/16, 7:17 PM
tim in vermont said...: He allowed private ownership but demanded that that the interests of the state be foremost. So basically he allowed them to keep what he thought they should have in return for this.

This is not really ownership.; 6/25/16, 7:22 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: This is not really ownership.

It's also a far cry from socialism. Let alone the abolition of private property.

And a reflected story occurred under FDR, or really under any warring party. That's what people did back in the days when patriotism actually meant something. The war effort was respected.; 6/25/16, 7:29 PM
tim in vermont said...: Socialists, national and international, are like Creationists. Creationists are in complete denial that something as intricate, well regulated, beautiful, and diverse as a rain forest, for example, could come into existence without a designer. They mock the "invisible hand" of natural selection.

Socialists are in denial that free markets and the "invisible hand" of supply and demand can create a vibrant economy. They mock the economic liberals' concepts and imagine that there are certainly self motivated designers behind it all. It cannot be any other way!; 6/25/16, 7:30 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: The invisible hand is jerking you off.

Only it's not some "invisible hand". It's the hands of a crony corporate elite whom you elevate above all the rest of the economy.

And it's writing our laws and pulling your strings.

And that's the way you like it. Why? Because you imagine a greater evil that doesn't exist.

You're just a serf fighting for your lord's rights at the table of the king. Not your own. But I guess, your lord has more fingers in the invisible hand than you do, so all is good. Or so you tell yourself.; 6/25/16, 7:40 PM
Gahrie said...: Only a total fool who never took an intro Econ course doesn't know that Hitler allowed lots of private ownership.

Sure he did. He just didn't allow the owners to make any actual decisions. In other words, he did exactly what the current Socialists/Progressives dream of doing in the United States.; 6/25/16, 7:40 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Creationists are in complete denial that something as intricate, well regulated, beautiful, and diverse as a rain forest, for example, could come into existence without a designer.

Crony capitalists like you most certainly believe in a designer. A group design project led by the most powerful companies in the DJIA.

The little companies are told to have no role in the design.

So we know who the designers are.; 6/25/16, 7:43 PM
Gahrie said...: Hagar is right. The Brits do consider themselves to have a Constitution. It is just not contained in one written document. It is based on documents like the Magna Carta, traditions and customs embodied in the Common Law, and acts of Parliament.

This is true.

The House of Lords is supposed to be the special protector of the British Constitution.

Which of course is why the British Left is so eager to eliminate it.; 6/25/16, 7:43 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: He just didn't allow the owners to make any actual decisions.

You can keep twisting the definition of the word "ownership."

That doesn't change the definition. But maybe you're one of those progressive designers of the English language.; 6/25/16, 7:44 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: "The House of Lords is supposed to be the special protector of the British Constitution."

Which of course is why the British Left is so eager to eliminate it.

I think it would be great to keep it, as long as guys like you get to have a seat at their feet in a sunken mini-chamber called "The House of Serfs."

It would be the perfect title.; 6/25/16, 7:47 PM
tim in vermont said...: Only it's not some "invisible hand". It's the hands of a crony corporate elite whom you elevate above all the rest of the economy.

And it's writing our laws and pulling your strings.

And that's the way you like it. Why? Because you imagine a greater evil that doesn't exist.

You're just a serf fighting for your lord's rights at the table of the king.

Well, sure, as long as state fellators like yourself keep working to increase the power of the state, the wealthy are going to seek to corrupt that power and politicians are going to play along, because the more power they have, the more they are worth in filthy lucre to the moneyed classes.

But like I said, you can't even entertain the idea that a free market economy can exist. It is too far for you, just like a Creationist can't entertain the idea that something like the Universe could happen without a designer.; 6/25/16, 7:53 PM
tim in vermont said...: You can keep twisting the definition of the word "ownership."

That doesn't change the definition.

LO Fucking L. Just like the "Republicans" in the Spanish Civil War were members of the party of Lincoln and the "Liberalism" that Mussolini ranted about was that of the American left of center in the several decades.

If there is no word for a concept that exactly applies in your dictionary, that concept must go unspoken? I hear that a bullet from Big Brother just opened up a job at the Ministry of Truth, some guy named Winston Smith was doing it. You would be perfect.; 6/25/16, 7:57 PM
Bob Ellison said...: Power and money. It's all about power and money. Doesn't matter whether you call yourself a capitalist or a socialist. Power and money.; 6/25/16, 8:11 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: I think the job of the government is to do the consent of the governed, and as long as there are more working folks than financiers and billionaires, the government should be focused more on the former's concerns than the financiers and billionaires.

You are a rank fool to pretend that government is what makes it possible for the wealthy to control the government. That's as dumb an argument as saying that slavery wouldn't exist if there won't so many darn Africans to enslave. Wealthier people would exploit everyone else with or without government. In fact, if there weren't a government, whoever had the most resources would just declare themselves the government. Talk about being conservative. You'd have to be a dummy to deny that.

And of course, quoting fiction to make your case just proves how out of touch you are with basic reality.; 6/25/16, 8:39 PM
Rusty said...: Rhythm and Balls said...
This is not really ownership.

It's also a far cry from socialism. Let alone the abolition of private property.

Of course Beyer, I.G. Farben and the Krupps etc. were all privately held companies, However there was only one customer, the state. Effectively amounting to the same thing.; 6/25/16, 8:49 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: So long as I get to call the Republicans in Congress national socialists I'm cool.; 6/25/16, 8:50 PM
grackle said...: Only a total fool who never took an intro Econ course doesn't know that Hitler allowed lots of private ownership.

Readers, what Hitler put in place was de facto socialism – socialism that had to be disguised under a neutral alternative terminology because the National Socialist German Workers’ Party during Hitler’s rise to power was in competition with the communist movement in Germany and thus had to invent phantom “differences” in order to seem to set it apart from the communists. Propaganda for the masses – nothing more.

In reality the “owners” were simply caretakers for the Nazi state. To disobey Hitler’s authority would be to receive a visit from the SS and a one-way ticket for the “owners” and their families to the nearest death camp.

It's also a far cry from socialism. Let alone the abolition of private property.

Socialism only requires that the means of production be controlled by the state, NOT the total “abolition of private property,” although certainly some more severe examples of socialism might do so in some instances. Subject citizens can be allowed to own homes, vehicles and other property, for instance, and still labor under a system of socialism.; 6/25/16, 8:51 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Wealthier people would exploit everyone else with or without government. In fact, if there weren't a government, whoever had the most resources would just declare themselves the government.
You should take a poli-sci 101 course, R&B. Then you wouldn't be so ignorant. Probably.; 6/25/16, 9:30 PM
Michael K said...: "Hitler allowed lots of private ownership."

Somebody doesn't know the definition of Fascism.

We now call it "Crony Capitalism" but there is very little capitalism about it. It involves government picking winners and losers and "owners" seeking favor of bureaucrats, whether Nazi or Democrat, or if the truth be known, some Republicans.; 6/25/16, 9:59 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: In a fascist state, the interests of the State trump (hah!) all. If it serves the state for you to have private property, the state will allow you to have private property.
Mussolini started out as a communist internationalist. He is supposed to have come up with fascism from his experience as a labor leader. He found that the bonds of nation and social class were stronger than the abstract idea of a brotherhood of workers. On the other hand, Hitler got rid of trade unions because he felt they had been corrupted by Russian-style international socialism, and could never be completely loyal to the German state.; 6/25/16, 10:28 PM
buwaya said...: Mussolini got converted by the semi-insane meme of Italian nationalism, leftover from the 19th century, a religion for the anticlerical bourgeis. D'Annunzio was its last and greatest high priest. Mussolini got into no more wars of expansion than the previous Liberal Italian governments, and in the end he probably got fewer Italians killed.; 6/25/16, 10:45 PM
Phil 314 said...: "You may not be an "elite", Phil. But, you are not as smart as you think you are."

Agreed; 6/26/16, 1:25 AM
Terry said...: Blogger buwaya puti said...
Mussolini got converted by the semi-insane meme of Italian nationalism, leftover from the 19th century, a religion for the anticlerical bourgeis.
Mr. Puti, I am reluctant to blame national history for nationalism. Italy was an independent nation for decades when Mussolini designed fascism. If any European nation 'deserved' to become hyper-nationalist, that nation was Poland, not Italy (and not Germany).; 6/26/16, 2:56 AM
grackle said...: In a fascist state, the interests of the State trump (hah!) all. If it serves the state for you to have private property, the state will allow you to have private property.

My version:

In a socialist state, the interests of the State trump all. If it serves the state for you to have private property, the state will allow you to have private property.

See how that works?; 6/26/16, 4:38 AM
tim in vermont said...: You are a rank fool to pretend that government is what makes it possible for the wealthy to control the government. That's as dumb an argument as saying that slavery wouldn't exist if there won't so many darn Africans to enslave.

Finally! An argument!

A government with with limited powers is less worth controlling. The more powerful the government, the more desirable it is to control it. This is your essential paradox. You think that by making the government strong, you make it able to do the people's will and to take on private interests that would subvert it. Experience shows us that this is not the case.

You really want a powerful government in order to control the behavior of others. You have this fetish for dictating how other people live, even people in red states, for example, that you heartily despise. You seem to believe that if you just make the government powerful enough, it will be free of all of this corruption and able to do the will of the people. Nope. It just gets to buy bigger server farms to monitor our communications, to write more laws and regulations, which of course favor one and disfavor another, making it more and more imperative that powerful business interests get hold of the levers of government power.

I don't have an answer, I would just like to slow the process. I think that it is inevitable that the government will be completely corrupted and our short time of liberty and enlightenment will come to a close. Look at the IRS and how it uses its near absolute power to punish opponents of the regime. It's just a symptom. 50 years ago people were horrified when Nixon only tried to do the same, now people make excuses for the IRS.

A less powerful government is both more responsive to the desires of the people, and less intrusive into people's lives. You can't buy this argument because you *want* the government to be intrusive into people's lives. So instead you pretend that if you just control money from "corporations," government won't be corrupted.

Well how do you control, for example, Tyson Chicken, who got shaken down by Hillary Clinton, who had them buy both sides of a large number of cattle trades, give Hillary the winners and kept the losers, meanwhile, and against the law, lost the records that would have proven her incredible luck in that market? We know, after winning six coin tosses in a row in Iowa, that Hilary is a very lucky person, but that beggars belief!

Is there outrage? She is worshiped by the big government types! When she destroys the evidence of whom she met with as secretary of state, and deletes 30K emails, the standard for deletion being that if the name of the recipient was not on a list she approved, it could not be important. What do we get? Outrage? No, we get apologies for her behavior from types like yourself who claim that if whatever scandal goalie the president has appointed to head the "justice department" exercises "prosecutorial disgression" that laws must not have been broken. You have made the claim that us plebes cannot possibly understand the issues involved.

Well, if your side shows itself unwilling to police the powers that you willingly hand over to the government, forgive me for preferring that they not have the powers in the first place.

And of course, quoting fiction to make your case just proves how out of touch you are with basic reality

Ideas and concepts are ideas and concepts. If you think that no concept from fiction can be applied to real-life analysis, I guess that is of a part with your belief that the dictionary is the final arbiter of what concepts can and cannot be discussed. We were discussing the use of language. Orwell was a master of language. I think his ideas on the subject carry weight.; 6/26/16, 7:03 AM
buwaya said...: Italian nationalism got more extremist and fanatical after unification and the creation of the Italian state. "Italia irredenta" was still out there, Trieste and Trentino, and a great deal else that the nationalists insisted on having in spite of what the locals desired. This got Italy into a great deal of trouble, such as an expensive and unproductive colonial empire to deflect these urges and ultimately into WWI, for no good reason.; 6/26/16, 7:18 AM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Ok. So you're all a bunch of Nazis, then. Or is it just Nazi defenders?

That's good. And very uncommon.

I'm glad that we've got Republicans like grackle, Rusty, Michael K, and maybe even tim in vermont, willing to stand up for the political movement with which they so naturally and thoroughly affiliate -- were it not for that pesky issue of directing the property and industrial capacity that REMAINED private, into war aims - as all involved parties to a conflict as disastrous and omnipresent as WWII had done.

That's rare. I'm glad you're all here to do it.

Nazi industrialists everywhere salute you. Stand up for your lords, young serfs!; 6/26/16, 10:03 AM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: A government with with limited powers is less worth controlling.

A person with less property is less worth stealing from.

A person with less real estate is less worth vandalizing.

A person not making much use of their life is too pitiful to kill.

And so on. Go poverty and lifelessness!

I don't have an answer...

No shit. You don't even have an argument, as that flimsy motto of yours above so clearly proves.; 6/26/16, 10:07 AM
tim in vermont said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/26/16, 10:19 AM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: I realize you have a lot of trouble making basic arguments, tim. But you don't need to project that shortcoming and all the insults it brings to your mind onto me.; 6/26/16, 11:37 AM
Alex said...: It's not xenophobia if your fears are founded in truth.; 6/26/16, 12:52 PM
tim in vermont said...: I apologize for that comment I deleted, R&B. I didn't really believe it.; 6/26/16, 1:20 PM
grackle said...: Ok. So you're all a bunch of Nazis, then. Or is it just Nazi defenders?

Is this what passes for debate on the Left? So sad, so trite, so MSM talking-pointy but kind of what I expected. Take note, readers.; 6/26/16, 4:38 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Thanks for being honest, Tim. It happens to the best of us.

Grackle, OTOH, won't even believe that an Israeli paramilitary organization engaged in terrorism when its not even controversial for Israelis to accept that. So at least you're an honest person interested in actual debate, wherever the chips may fall, unlike him.

Be grateful for that. It makes you a much better person than he is.; 6/26/16, 6:35 PM
Jon Ericson said...: Ballboy looks like it put down the pipe today! Huzzah!; 6/26/16, 8:31 PM
grackle said...: Readers, I readily admit a lot of folks are better people than I am, tim in vermont probably one of them.

Be that as it may … I do not see how pointing out that Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party in fact constituted a de facto socialist regime is an indication that I’m a Nazi or that I support Nazis.

As with every other socialist regime, the means of production was controlled by a central governmental authority.

Any who opposed Hitler, even from prominent families, were executed, as was the fate of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, son of Carl Canaris, “a rich industrialist.”

Canaris was humiliated before witnesses and then executed on 9 April 1945, in the Flossenbürg concentration camp, just weeks before the end of the war. He was led to the gallows naked.

http://tinyurl.com/gwnvump

Not that any German factory owner ever joined any German resistance movement that we know of. They were apparently fine with taking over Jewish-owned industrial sites, accepting slave labor and all the rest. Sure, Hitler controlled their production but they were getting rich! Crony socialism.

However, I believe the reason that so many prominent German industrialists were not penalized or received relatively light sentences during the post-war hearings and trials was probably a tacit understanding by the prosecutors that for them to have resisted would have meant their certain death.; 6/26/16, 8:48 PM
SweatBee said...: I lived there for a while in the 00's and still have friends there.

You definitely couldn't buy crackers there at the time. I don't care for the texture of raisinettes, so I don't shop for them.; 6/26/16, 11:22 PM