The Reasons for Brexit, Trump and the rise of Fascism

Posted on by Opher

There has been a huge swing towards extreme Right-wing policies in Europe and the USA. We have the re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan and White supremacists, heartened by the election of Trump, we have the resurgence of Fascist parties in France, Austria and Holland and left-wing/centralist governments being under threat from right-wing groups, emboldened by the potential break-up of the EU. In Britain we have had Brexit and now have the most right-wing government since Thatcher. Labour is trailing 20 points behind in the polls. Things look dire.

So what has gone wrong for the whole dream of equality and liberalisation? Is it over? What about empathy, compassion and equality?

Well if we are going to get back to a compassionate liberal society we have to look at the reasons why people have turned to fascists like Trump and believed the lies of Boris, Gove and May. Things have not been right. Mistakes have been made. The establishment has been complacent and has not addressed the underlying issues.

Here are some of the major issues that I believe should have been addressed and dealt with:

  1. The wars in the Middle East which have resulted in mass migrations of population and sparked fundamentalism and terrorism. (carried out ineptly and without thought to any future outcomes).
  2. Handling the mass migration with compassion and sensible policy so that there was not a huge influx of predominantly Muslims into Europe.
  3. Mass migration of Eastern Europeans into Britain and other more affluent countries as cheap labour.
  4. Globalisation and the loss manufacturing jobs to third world countries with cheap labour and costs.
  5. Automation requiring less skilled and unskilled workers.
  6. The working class loss of high-paid skilled jobs in the likes of steel, shipbuilding, mining, car production and their replacement with low paying jobs stacking shelves or unemployment. (Loss of income and self-respect).
  7. The influx of cheap goods from abroad (China and third world) on an uncompetitive market putting home manufacturers out of work.
  8. The corruption of MPs who have lost all respect with the public and are seen as just feathering their own nests.
  9. The vast inequality with the establishment imposing austerity on everyone in the lower strata while increasing their own pay and bonuses.

A great swathe of the public in Britain and the USA feel completely abandoned and disenfranchised. They can see no party representing them or saying that they will address these issues – so they vote for Trump, Brexit and fascists.

If we are going to get back on track these problems need addressing. They are complex and there are no simple answers but there are answers and they are not the vicious, divisive ones put forward by Trump or the economically damaging solution offered by Brexit.

War, mass migration and inequality need dealing with. Fundamentalism needs wiping out. The working class need valuing, given well-paid jobs and retrained in worthy careers. The old industries need replacing with non-polluting new industries.

Instead of funnelling all the money into profits for the extremely wealthy and bonuses for the overpaid why not funnel the money into public services and employ more nurses, doctors, teachers, teacher’s aides, social workers, counsellors and the like – reduce their hours and make the job doable – invest in the future – look after people properly – and make people happier. Increase pay, reduce hours, reduce class sizes, reduce waiting times, improve help for the elderly and ill – retrain the unemployed and displaced to do valuable, well-paid jobs that make people’s lives better. Invest in infrastructure to improve roads, rail and housing. Invest in Green technology.

There are plenty of uses for the money that would be preferable other than stuffing it in the bank accounts of a small elite to spend on yachts, penthouses and champagne.

Instead of ignoring the war and mass migration why not use the UN to put pressure on regimes, use soft and hard power, and fund it properly to do the job? Put a stop to people being driven out of their homes by slaughter, put the displaced in proper temporary housing, bring in policies to prevent overpopulation and provide work. Why not educate and give hope?

We are picking up the tab for a corrupt system where the establishment has looked after its own, sought to profit out of war, poverty and inequality and prefers division, chaos and war to peace, order and stability. They make more money out of it.

I think there is only so much that people will take. In the end they lose their cool and either riot or elect fascists!

The establishment stinks. Its greed, selfishness and lack of compassion is its downfall. Meanwhile we suffer with Trump, Brexit and May! We are swapping one stinking system for an alternative that is far worse! Fascism, as history demonstrates time and time again, always holds out bright hope and solutions, and always ends in pain and horror!

What fools we are!

61 thoughts on “The Reasons for Brexit, Trump and the rise of Fascism”

  1. Pingback: Sandbox Writing Challenge #74 — Help!!! | Impromptu Promptlings

      1. I know and it’s like we’re regressing instead of progressing even though we have so much more technology and stuff and could actually change the world if we all tried.

      2. I think it goes in stages and jumps. Maybe it has to go back and get worse before it can jump forward again? Maybe it needs a jolt to wake people up?

      3. What a load of shit. Post Trump Saudi Arabia most probably will sign a peace treaty with Israel, the 4th Arab Country to do so since the President assumed the mantle of American leadership.

      4. We’ll see. Short-term gain without a solution in sight is just empty. Until the situation is resolved with the Palestinians you have war.

      6. They have knives, they have guns, they have missiles, they have bombs. You are at war – armed soldiers everywhere.

      16. TUNISIAN MAN BEHEADS WOMAN, KILLS TWO MORE PEOPLE IN NICE CHURCH (Nice) — A knife-wielding Tunisian man shouting “Allahu Akbar” beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a church in Nice before being shot and taken away by police. President Emmanuel Macron said France would deploy thousands more soldiers to protect important sites such as places of worship and schools, as the country’s security alert was raised to its highest level. (Reuters, Oct. 30, 2020)

      17. FBI INVESTIGATING HUNTER BIDEN FOR MONEY LAUNDERING: REPORT (Washington, DC) — The FBI opened an investigation into Hunter Biden and associates in 2019 on suspicion of money laundering, a Justice Department official told Sinclair Broadcasting. The revelation comes after Tony Bobulinski, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, came forward with a trove of documents regarding the Biden family’s dealings with now-defunct Chinese energy firm CEFC. While Joe Biden has denied that he has ever spoken with Hunter regarding the latter’s overseas business dealings, Bobulinski claims the former vice president is lying. (National Review, Oct. 29, 2020)

      18. If Hunter has done something wrong he needs locking up. He could have the cell next to that other evil criminal Trump.

      19. The criminal hutzpa of Trump, getting 4 Arab countries to make peace with Israel; making personal diplomacy with North Korea, pulling US troops out of Germany, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, recognizing Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel and moving the U.S. Consulate/embassy to that Israeli city. How could 12% more Blacks and Hispanics could have consented to vote for Trump in 2020 than they did in 2016?

      23. Religious fundamentalism (Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Hindu) is a disease. Religion should be eradicated. It is evil.

      24. Torah took on “religious” colors only during the Middle Ages when Europeans made it illegal for Jews to discuss Torah as a political Constitutional construct.

      33. Bunk. You receive in kind what you give. European barbarian scum practiced oppression, murder and terror for over 2000 years … they do not now deserve respect b/c that’s the right thing to do!

  3. You know, it occurred to me as I was reading your post/list that the greatest hurdle is that there really ISN’T workable answers for some of those things. We often think we HAVE the answers. They sound good on paper or over coffee. But when we go to implement them they are as flawed as any other attempts to make things better. I’m afraid it’s just the way life is. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, but maybe what we need to be first is realistic? (Yes, I know. You’re going to hate this comment! 🙂 )

    1. I simply don’t agree with you Cheryl. I think there are answers to all of the issues. Not necessarily easy answers but certainly solutions to every problem. What we lack is the will – the will to think globally, the will to put in the money and the will to create a fairer future. We keep buying in to the capitalist dream. We still think in terms of nations and competing with other nations instead of cooperating and trying to help everybody. We still think it is OK for some people to cream off billions which others crawl in sewage and starve. If we don’t change that mentality then I do not think things can be solved. I think there are solutions to all the problems with the right will.
      Which of the above do you think is insoluble?

      2. Set the bar high and even if you don’t reach the height you can go a lot of the way! Sometimes desperation and necessity produce results you did not think possible. Maybe it needed a Trump in order to create the real need to change it for the good!

  6. The leaders of the world should at least try it the right way ONCE… after more than 2000 years of war, egoism, racism, sexism, intolerance, ignoring the peopke etc…

    1. Once would be nice JL. You never know it might herald a completely new, peaceful world?
      Maybe it takes a cretin like Trump to get things going? Maybe people are waking up?

      1. I don’t believe one sec in Trump & the hawks of the Pentagon. Continuing a 16 year-war (started as a revenge for 9/11 by GWB) will increase all the problems you’ve mentioned and create new ones. This awful decision, only to feed the greedy US War Business, will make things worse. Eisenhower warned America and the whole planet back in 1961 for the evil ‘military–industrial complex’. Since then America is/was at war EVERY SINGLE DAY somewhere in the world until this very day and will go to war for many years to come. Their nuclear power is endless and makes them the most dangerous country (led now by a macho narcist). So far only one country dropped the bomb (actually 2) with more than 300.000 civilains death. The world is on its way to destruction led by Evil America and followed by disastrous reactions from Middle East terrorists, North-Korea and Russia. I’m not religious but I pray every day for my children and grandchildren.

      2. That is a terrible indictment of America – and so true. The greed and arrogance is frightening.
        Sometimes the future does look bleak – but we do see signs that people are waking up.

  7. I agree with everything but the moniker, “Evil America”. The overwhelming majority of Americans are good, decent people. They have been duped by the evildoers at the helm. The military/industrial complex and the banks are at the root of the evil. They deserve the indictment, not the general citizenry. Great job of identifying the most serious problems facing this world, Opher.

    1. Thanks John – I agree with you – most people everywhere are decent and good – but we have a minority whose greed is creating misery.

      2. The politicians are either inept or corrupt. They seem to represent the interests of this greedy group – probably because without them the economy falters.

  9. “Complacent” perhaps – but I am more likely to say “complicit” about the establishment’s part in things not “being right” for a long time.

    But I will always assert that those who voted for these folks based on rhetoric they wanted to hear (vs. fact and voting record checking and well-reasoned comparisons) must shoulder a large percentage of the “blame” as well.

    Your points – ALL well taken – boil down to one central cause, in my mind: the rapid rise of unchecked Corporate Capitalism.

    “Instead of funnelling all the money into profits for the extremely wealthy and bonuses for the overpaid why not funnel the money into public services . . .” WHY NOT INDEED!

    Greed, pure and simple, as you say in your final paragraph – but lets NOT let folks off the hook who continue to vote for politicians who pander to it and profit from it.

    We may not be faced with *good* choices at election time (partially the fault of the voters as well) – but we can and must make the best choice possible and STOP voting out of angry reactionism — or refusing to vote at all.

    If we ever get this mess cleaned up so that we are headed in a better direction, I hope we’ve ALL learned a lesson that won’t need to be repeated in our lifetimes.

    Great op ed, Opher — jumped over from John’s reblog, btw.
    xx,
    mgh
    (Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMORE dot com)
    ADD/EFD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder
    “It takes a village to transform a world!”

    1. Thank you so much for your contribution Madelyn. I agree with you – the root cause is unbridled corporate capitalism. That is what we have to address.
      Welcome!!

  10. Dear Mr. President,

    Leading the Opposition to the Party in power obviously has its limitations. But the influence of Obama and Clinton, and the Bush family ended with their two terms as President, her 3rd major defeat, and low energy Jeb; during your first 4 yr term these once powerful folk sat, for the most part, upon the margins of the political arena. Your situation more closely resembles the Wilderness years (a reference made by Winston Churchill as a back bencher of Parliament) of Ronald Reagan. I remember the Reagan Opposition and his speeches he delivered by means of radio. Twitter, both it and Facebook now serve as a hostile political format. Rush Limbaugh, he’s a dying man. You can fill his shoes and give a vision of hope to the American people. FDR with his fireside chats accomplished this during the travails of the Great Depression.

    America faces hard times. Debt, the Federal debt, has reached its crunch. The RATS have no vision how to drastically reduce the size of the American government. Better for the house of cards to collapse under their treasonous regime. American society, our civilization, faces a new Hoover, an Administration comparable to that of the insanity of the syphilis infected brain of George III. That brain dead fool caused England to lose the American colonies – thank G-d! Biden, received a lot of honest votes by silly American reactionaries. From day 1 of your Presidency the treasonous DemoRATS sought to poison your good name in the eyes of the politically uninformed within our society.

    Mr. President, famine years – perhaps comparable to the plague during Yosef’s years as 2nd in command of the government of Par’o – years of Depression fast approaches America and the entire world. In the opposition you can shine a vision of direction and leadership that you could never have done while sitting as the Head of State. America must change its course. Incompetent Biden will attempt to throw money to solve a long term, post WW2, disease: the American empire which replaced the American Republic as Center Stage. Your ‘America First’ stands up to bat, so to speak, when the political curtain falls. National Debt and perfidious Government corruption, sticks to the DemoRATS like flies on shit. Humanity remembers the vision of the prophets as they sat as the vocal opposition to the misrule and injustice imposed by the ancient kings of Israel and Yechuda.

    The prophets, these leaders did not foretell the future, rather they commanded a mussar that applies to all generations of people who make fundamental bad choices, like the American people did when they chose Biden. Please Mr. President, it’s a tuma Yatzir to permit feelings of bitterness to drive your emotions!!!!!!! A wise man separates external events from personal internal feelings. Reactionary fools assume that what they feel determines and shapes the reality they live in. The Pelosi Opposition against your Administration, her attempt to impeach you exposed an illogical ad hominem irrationalism which dominated the DemoRATS mind and clouded their judgments. The curtain’s fast coming down upon the post WW2 American ‘policeman of the planet’ empire. Your leadership at this time has the potential to far surpass the Ron Paul Opposition to the GOP in the 4 years prior to his 2nd attempt to rule as POTUS.

    Unlike Obozo, that shoe shine boy who sat in the White House for two terms of Office, you have the Constitutional Right to run again for the Office of POTUS. Once you lived the life of a businessman, but you chose to enter the field of Politicians. You have set your course not just for yourself alone but for your capable children. This defeat before a moron, a bitter pill to swallow. But humility defined the spirit of Moshe, the man who served as the servant of HaShem. Command your children that they reject the reactionary narishkeit which dominated the treasonous DemoRATS throughout your first term of Office – do not permit the feeling and emotions you feel to “form & shape” your perceptions of the American political realities. Remember that European countries opposed your Government. The Biden Administration shall foolishly attempt to re-connect America to the European economy. The Ron Paul Opposition followed the leadership taken by Andrew Jackson. As President, who has yet to rule two terms of Office, American society needs to reject the model established by the Whig Prime Minister Walpole. The issue at stake: not socialism but rather Patronage!!!! The latter political concept of leadership holds that the Central Government has a “mandate” that determines the Corporate monopolies which dominate the domestic markets of the United States.

    The Democrat Wilson, through slight of hand, succeeded in getting Congress to establish the Federal Reserve. This accomplishment did not just happen. The post Civil War governments in Washington, specifically the radical Republicans, greatly restricted Lincoln’s ‘greenbacks’ in circulation and thereby concentrated wealth into the hands of the robber barons, which set the stage for Wilsons Xmas eve passage of the Federal Reserve. The Great Depression witness again a powerful restriction of the American money supply, this time by the Federal Reserve rather than post Civil War Congress. The ensuing Depression permitted Democrat FDR to concentrate farming ownership into the hands of great Corporate monopolies. These Corporate monopolies demand huge Federal monetary support. Patronage not only establishes Corporate monopolies but the Federal bureaucracies which protect these “to big to fail” Corporate monopolies – established by the Federal Government.

    The Walpole vision of Patronage shaped all post Civil War governments in Washington to this very day!!!! Mr. President, had you won this last election, the treasonous DemoRATS would have tried to provoke a second American Civil War. The first rule of governing: prevent your Country from falling into a Civil War. You must not permit yourself or your family from letting feelings of bitterness to color your perception of current American politics!!!!! Mr. President, let the American people express our extreme bitterness against DemoRAT perfidy. You as the leader of the Opposition must never permit neither you nor your capable family of expressing reactionary bitterness and rage. The Torah commanded Aaron and his children not to publicly mourn the dead of his two eldest children. Emotions must never shape political reality.

    Best Regards,
    your faithful servant
    mosc kerr

    1. It’s alright Moshe – he’s got enough blubber to survive a famine.
      I see his friends are all abandoning him – rightly so. They see what he is doing is simply wrong and dangerous. He’s been undermining society throughout, now he’s trying to incite insurrection.
      He’s an evil fascist. But he’s ensuring that he will be rightly ostracised.
      Nobody likes a bad loser who has hissy fits and tantrums like the child he is.

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