Unavoidably Political: Fear and Hate Win in the UK
Last night, the people of the UK made a historically bad decision. They listened to a bunch of people who sold them a bill of goods by manipulating them. Some people told them that they needed to be afraid that they were losing their jobs to asylum seeking migrants. They told them that they were losing their culture. They told them that the EU would take everything away from them. And because fear makes you easy to manipulate and breaks your brain, they listened. They ultimately let hate and fear win, and they voted to leave the EU.
Their economy is going to take a hit, and they'll end up losing more. They've deliberately abdicated the opportunity to lead Europe because they were afraid of the other coming in and taking over. Worse still, mostly this was older, frightened people in the UK who more or less ruined things for the younger generation who wanted to stay in. They said, "We don't care that you live in a connected world, that you want to reach out to others, and that you think being in the EU will make your future brighter. We're scared about our present, so we're denying you that future."
We have something very similar happening here. We have people afraid of the other. And a slick snake-oil salesman from New York is capitalizing on that. He's manipulating people using fear. He's telling them that we're losing our culture (a culture that has always been made up of taking the best parts of new immigrants coming here). He's telling them that we don't win. He's casting the entire world in a black and white, us or them dichotomy. And now, I am starting to get afraid.
I'm afraid that he's going to convince enough people to listen to him that they will conspire to steal my son's future from him. They they'll ignore the fact that we do live in a more connected world. That we all reap the benefit of that connected world, and that there are problems in the world that we all face that cannot be solved by us alone. I'm afraid that this spray-tanned, obnoxious, loud, willfully ignorant compulsive liar will trick enough people into making my son's future smaller and weaker than it should be.
Worst of all, I'm afraid that he'll make my son grow up wondering why it is that our country chose to pull back. To step away from being a leader, because they were afraid. That he'll think that this is somehow the way it should be. That we should react to fear by recoiling, rather than learning. So, then, what that means is that I guess, as they say, I'm with her. Because I'm sure as hell not with him.
Their economy is going to take a hit, and they'll end up losing more. They've deliberately abdicated the opportunity to lead Europe because they were afraid of the other coming in and taking over. Worse still, mostly this was older, frightened people in the UK who more or less ruined things for the younger generation who wanted to stay in. They said, "We don't care that you live in a connected world, that you want to reach out to others, and that you think being in the EU will make your future brighter. We're scared about our present, so we're denying you that future."
We have something very similar happening here. We have people afraid of the other. And a slick snake-oil salesman from New York is capitalizing on that. He's manipulating people using fear. He's telling them that we're losing our culture (a culture that has always been made up of taking the best parts of new immigrants coming here). He's telling them that we don't win. He's casting the entire world in a black and white, us or them dichotomy. And now, I am starting to get afraid.
I'm afraid that he's going to convince enough people to listen to him that they will conspire to steal my son's future from him. They they'll ignore the fact that we do live in a more connected world. That we all reap the benefit of that connected world, and that there are problems in the world that we all face that cannot be solved by us alone. I'm afraid that this spray-tanned, obnoxious, loud, willfully ignorant compulsive liar will trick enough people into making my son's future smaller and weaker than it should be.
Worst of all, I'm afraid that he'll make my son grow up wondering why it is that our country chose to pull back. To step away from being a leader, because they were afraid. That he'll think that this is somehow the way it should be. That we should react to fear by recoiling, rather than learning. So, then, what that means is that I guess, as they say, I'm with her. Because I'm sure as hell not with him.
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