LogFAQs > #956543247

masterplum posted...

They really did not. You can tell based on how the sentiment of trump isn't exclusive to the US. Other countries are facing similar challenges (see Brexit as the most obvious)

Trump just made them obvious to people living in bubbles

Of course, while there are similarities between Brexit and Trump largely in terms of fact-free campaigning and the likes of Cambridge Analytica, they are pretty different in terms of motivation and result.

There was no actual single reason for people to support Brexit. At the end of the day the reason a popular Brexit deal was impossible was the fact that everybody who wanted Brexit had a different idea of what it meant. You cant look at it and say well, immigration because less than a third of Brexit voters listed immigration as a top issue. This is the only way it was able to succeed - Brexit was never defined, do it could get a large coalition of people who wanted different things. It was a range from protectionists to globalists to liberals to communists voting for it. The end result is a deal which almost everyone hates as nobodys issues were fully addressed leave or remain. And of course it is much longer term damage than nearly anything a President can do.

Now contrast that with Trump, who was very clear about what he wanted to do. Voting coalition-wise it was the same group that always voted Republican by-and-large, and his policy platform was just the extension of what Republicans have been drifting towards for decades, which is fascism. It is telling that everyone in the UK hates Trump, even hardcore Brexiteers view him unfavourably and for a time his approval ratings there were worse than Putins, so Id say his sentiment was very unpopular.

So no, they are not comparable. Of the two Brexit is a much bigger anomaly as it was a referendum (already very strange, only three national referendums in UK history) in which the winning side was effectively tricked into voting for something terrible with no actual definition as to what it was. Trump on the other hand was just far right party in two-party system goes mask off, not all that surprising. Also Brexit will probably have much worse impacts long-term.

With that said, Trump is not a global oddity. Erdogan, Orbn, and Bolsonaro are all effectively the same. In particular it was Erdogan that started this new model of tinpot dictator that Trump would crib from. So I guess I agree Brexit is just a bad example.

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