Ins vs Outs - EU and beyond

[ommmward]

unherd.com/briefings/forget-left-v-right-v-outs/

This is an interesting take on the current political situation. He seems to argue, towards the end, that those of us who benefit from globalisation, migration etc (and the politicians who we chose to represent us) are going to have to begin to listen to the concerns of those who don't benefit from those things, and adapt our cultures in order to accommodate them.

In a way, it seems odd to me, because Trump won the election, and Brexit, and the 2017 UK election (where both main parties promised to honour Brexit, so they saw it as something to accommodate, even if they disagreed with it) - shouldn't it be the "out"-ers listening to the "in"-ers and hearing them, since their world view isn't represented through what Trump and May and their teams are doing. But I think he's arguing that the "in"-ers tend to be the (comparatively) wealthy, in terms of opportunity and education if not in loadsamoney lifestyles, and it's listening to the less advantaged "out"-ers that should be going on, whoever is actually in power (and Trump got in power because he said he'd listen to the "out"-ers, regardless of whether he actually IS listening to them or not).

Sorry for vague ramblings - maybe someone on mumsnet gets as interested by this article as I got, and would like to say something more coherent about it! :)

I'm not sure this argument holds for Trump tbh.

The Trump vote wasn't highly correlated with low income and lack of opportunity, since US black and Hispanic people from low-income, low-opportunity working class backgrounds either didn't vote, or voted heavily in favour of Clinton. And despite the noise from never-Trumpers, mostTrump voters were just regular Republican voters - on average, whiter and more privileged than the general population.

Likewise Brexit may have attracted some low income, low information voters (perhaps more so than Trump) - but the core brexit demographic was nevertheless older voters and Tories.

It might be true that the left-behind voters swung the vote in both cases, but neither Trump nor Brexit would have prevailed without their core support from older, white, middle (and higher) income people.

I'll take Mistigri's point and add to it. This is very much now a white out versus everyone else in.

As demographics change there are cries of frustration at a changing world from those who are out and want to stay out. Its not just economic change that people are having to adjust to. Its also social change. There are people out there who just dont like black people, LGBT people or anyone not like them. It is those people who are swept along in nationalism as well.