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Saturday, June 25, 2016

Hyper Fears

Guardian UK: Trump and Brexit: parallel campaigns built on fear, anger and charisma - There are similarities between Trump’s Latino-and-Muslim-free vision of the US and ‘Leave’ campaign driver Nigel Farage’s goal to cleanse the UK of refugees
Despite this, both have shown an uncanny ability to appeal to the working man – mostly by stoking fears about immigration. Trump thinks Mexico is sending rapists to the US. Farage hasn’t been as clear about what he thinks the European Union is sending to the UK, but the fact he has been hawking a billboard showing a line of thousands of huddled, dark-skinned refugees offers a clue.

2 comments:

Glynn Kalara said...

There are similarities , but there are even more differences. The UK is 80+% white and the US is nearing 60% and that alone is a huge difference. Another difference is our election this fall is NOT a referendum on leaving anywhere, it's about leadership and who we want as our leader for the next four yrs. The Brexit thing was not specifically about leadership , although that will change as well because of it. The surprise outcome of this vote might be the exit of Scotland and Northern Ireland from the UK in the near future, both of which voted to stay in the EU.

Jim Sande said...

I think some of the fears behind the Brexit and Trump are similar - the fear of immigrants, the loss of income because the economy is now global and the educated have the advantage, and there's also a lot of just plain old basic ignorance involved just like with the Trumpetariat.