Friday, September 13, 2019

Trump's Voters and Brexit's Voters

I wrote this in 2016 about Trump. It works equally well in regard to Brexit.


Trump is not my ideal candidate. I did not back him in the primaries—indeed, there were others who I would have preferred. I am not telling you to vote for him or not to do so. You don’t need to hear what I think on this question because in a democracy the operating theory is that validly-registered non-felon not-institutionally-committed adult citizens can make up their own minds and vote (or not) how they like. That said: I do not see much good flowing from calling candidates or their voters (politically) ignorant, and it seems to me that promoting the contrary view can do a lot more long-term damage to our polity and to Western democracy than anything Trump has said to date. [See Trump, Academia, and Hyperbole.] 

It is a question of your willingness to actually share your political fate with the “rider on the Clapham omnibus” or, to mix metaphors, the “first four hundred people in the Boston phone book.” [See Escalation.]

Seth Barrett Tillman, Trump’s Voters and Brexit’s Voters, New Reform Club (Sept. 13, 2019, 3:55 AM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2019/09/trumps-voters-and-brexits-voters.html>.