Twilight of the elites - Trump, Sanders, and Brexit.

[Deleted]

Broadly I sortof agree with that article, but it's difficult to see the Brexit as "anti-establishment" when the pro-Leave campaign includes Boris Johnson, Rupert Murdoch and the Daily Mail.

This is a fatal mistake.

Those figure heads did no encourage the majority to vote to leave, they are just over exposed in the media.

It is most certainly anti-establishment, anti-eu, anti-centralisation of power.

The British people want de-centralisation of power, some national identity and to be able to determine their own path be it to prosperity or ruin.

[Bollocks]

So your view is that the people in the UK who voted for exit did it because they were the products of anti intellectualism and listened to the opinions of youtubers more? Is that why most people who wanted to leave were older? Because older people care more of opinions of youtubers? I honestly don't know if you're joking or serious.

I use youtuber as an example , but the same could be said with tabloids?

[Mihalik]

The peasants are committing collective suicide while the 1% looks on with a combination of bemusement and mild concern, and the peasants call it a "Revolution".

Funny.

[Deleted]

I use youtuber as an example , but the same could be said with tabloids?

Ok, fair enough. It does make sense then.

[Mihalik]

It is most certainly anti-establishment, anti-eu, anti-centralisation of power.

The British people want de-centralisation of power, some national identity and to be able to determine their own path be it to prosperity or ruin.

A good chunk of the Leave voters have no idea what the exactly they voted for. Another good chunk voted for Xenophobia and Racism no matter what, and another chunk voted Leave out of some odd sense of nostalgia for a time that never was but in their imagination.

Many more leave voters didn't vote leave from a sense of Britishness, but from a sense of Englishness, especially those from the Rust Belt.

Don't try to sell this for something it never really was.

[Deleted]

Interesting this was the tone I heard on NPR and the BBC. "A peasant Revolt". It is crude, but I do agree that it was mostly a lower class that got left behind with the wake of globalization. (And rest on their laurels and did not update their skill set.)

It wasn't the lower class that got hurt by the globalization. The poorest people in the world actually benefited from it. It was the middle class that got hurt, and is slowly dissapearing.

[Deleted]

And ever since we got involved, many of them have found a common enemy in the west. Let's be honest, many of the terror attacks of the last 30 years wouldn't have happened without our involvement in middle east politics.

You act as if Islamic extremists who want to conquer everyone don't exist.

They do.

[JohnBrown1917]

Nonsense
Brexit, Trump and Bernie are the byproducts of anti intellectualism. People who have been taught that the opinion of a youtuber is suddenly more important than an actual products expert. There is no "establishment" and that I thing is the only problem of our government, that it failed at teaching those fundamental toptics that would give them a broader image of what is their situation and why they are there.

Its rather arrogant to accuse those who disagree with you as anti-intellectuals. How does that make you better than those youtubers?
Coming from somebody who thinks of Trump as a joke, and does not care about the brexit.



And how does the US not have a problem with big corps having to much influence in the government/being allowed to donate to its candidates?

[Bollocks]

Its rather arrogant to accuse those who disagree with you as anti-intellectuals. How does that make you better than those youtubers?
Coming from somebody who thinks of Trump as a joke, and does not care about the brexit.



And how does the US not have a problem with big corps having to much influence in the government/being allowed to donate to its candidates?

Perhaps I did dismiss too quickly the establishment part or I did not provide a proper explanation. I'm refering to the attitude on blaming everything on the establishment as if it was some sort of boogeyman everyone accuses of. There are valid criticism to be made against it, but people come to turn everything to this establisment or "elite" to the point that they dismiss whatever opinion an expert has as part of the establishment. I've seen it with Bernie Bros and Trump supporters, and as for the youtubers part I should have added examples, but say: Thinking Atheist, Sargon of Akkad, 8 bit coin phyolosophy, Thunderf00t, etc.
Also I'm not dismissing them as anti-intelectuals, if they have valid points and something to back those statements with, rather than using the so called "common sense" in an attempt to discuss topics they have poor understandment of. For example Free trade and the TPP, their are legitimate concerns in regards to the TPP and the concept of Free trade in general, but most that I see is the same BS arguments that it violates sovereignity that is damaging the economy, that only the elites benefit.

[Cien]

How is it awkward for Brexit? Democracy took place and Brexit won.

36% of eligible vote isn't democracy, just like 24% electing a full tory government also isnt democracy, i wouldn't expect muricans to understand

[JohnBrown1917]

Perhaps I did dismiss too quickly the establishment part or I did not provide a proper explanation. I'm refering to the attitude on blaming everything on the establishment as if it was some sort of boogeyman everyone accuses of. There are valid criticism to be made against it, but people come to turn everything to this establisment or "elite" to the point that they dismiss whatever opinion an expert has as part of the establishment. I've seen it with Bernie Bros and Trump supporters, and as for the youtubers part I should have added examples, but say: Thinking Atheist, Sargon of Akkad, 8 bit coin phyolosophy, Thunderf00t, etc.
Also I'm not dismissing them as anti-intelectuals, if they have valid points and something to back those statements with, rather than using the so called "common sense" in an attempt to discuss topics they have poor understandment of. For example Free trade and the TPP, their are legitimate concerns in regards to the TPP and the concept of Free trade in general, but most that I see is the same BS arguments that it violates sovereignity that is damaging the economy, that only the elites benefit.

If the TPP is similiar to TTIP in that is allows a business to sue a country, and the trail happens behind closed doors, then yes, it does violate sovereignty.
This migth not go for Europa, but the 'elite' do have a ton of power in the US, with the amount of influence they have on the government by donating tons to the presidential candidates.

[Halicia]

But neither The Donald or Hillary will do this,

because neither of them are on the Supreme Court and can't do !@#$ about its decisions due to separation of powers.

There. Fixed the sentence for you.

[NYC17]

To fix this, overturn Citizens United, and Corporate Personhood (Corporations are people, my friend!)

But neither The Donald or Hillary will do this, though Hillary pays it lip service once every blue moon, when not in front of her corporate donors. The only one that has been talking about it is Bernie.

The only solution to it is a legislative one. There isn't enough political will in Congress to fix the problem. Hillary or Trump(lol) could lead the charge all they want but they'd find obstruction immediately.

This is the downside to Presidential election years. The nominees become the end-all be-all of everything political while the congressional candidates float under the radar, for the most part.

[Bollocks]

If the TPP is similiar to TTIP in that is allows a business to sue a country, and the trail happens behind closed doors, then yes, it does violate sovereignty.
This migth not go for Europa, but the 'elite' do have a ton of power in the US, with the amount of influence they have on the government by donating tons to the presidential candidates.

Nafta allows companies to sue countries under ISDS and the USA wine each case it has been sued for. The only cases in whi cases in which a company will succeed is if the government passes laws that damage them greatly wirh no proper justification.

[alexw]

I found this article interesting. Given the clientele HBR caters to, it seems that finally some elites are starting to actually get it. That they are literally going to have to save themselves from themselves. That it is in their own best interests to keep the bottom 90% happy and content and share the economic spoils more widely. Because if they don't the bottom 90% will eventually burn the system down around them.

https://hbr.org/2016/06/business-lea..._medium=social

Business Leaders Have Abandoned the Middle Class

Brexit seems to have finally woken the political and economic elites on both sides of the Atlantic to a reality they’ve been trying desperately, for years, to ignore: the middle class is suffering, and terribly.

In both the UK and the U.S., median incomes have been stagnant for decades. Meanwhile, people are experiencing a kind of vulnerability and insecurity without precedent in the modern history of rich nations. In the UK, living standards have fallen for all but the wealthiest. In the U.S., the majority of public school kids are now in poverty, the middle class is for the first time a demographic minority, and life expectancy is flat overall and actually fell for whites.

There’s no good name for this phenomenon of a middle class imploding while economies nominally “grow.” It’s not really a “recession,” which is just a few quarters of poor growth. Nor is it a “depression,” which is sustained negative growth. This new phenomenon of the middle imploding into the new poor, while the ultra rich get ultra richer has no name. And its lack of a name reflects the truth that the people who come up with names for such things are barely really aware of it at all.

But its namelessness doesn’t make it less real to the people suffering from it. They’ve grown enraged by a system that has abandoned them—one that won’t even acknowledge that abandonment. And that is why, across the globe, they are turning to demagogues.

Beneath the economic ruin lies a generation of failed leaders. The most emblematic of them is now of course David Cameron. He will go down in history as the man who broke up the EU, probably the UK, and plunged the country into chaos.

It is easy to point the finger at failed political leadership. But this is about failed corporate leadership as well.

The truth is that today’s business leaders have failed in the simplest, starkest, hardest terms. The middle class, which is the bellwether of prosperity, its truest measure, and the great creation of modernity (no, it wasn’t the iPhone) is vanishing under their watch. Even the so-called “rising global middle classes” in developing countries aren’t replacing them, really. (They don’t enjoy the same rights, protections, security, and quality of life as the dwindling middle classes in many wealthier nations. They have been named “middle classes” by pundits—but that is like calling both a supertanker and a canoe a boat.)

Brexit is easily the worst thing to happen to British business since WWII, and the worst thing to happen to global business since the great financial crisis. It is emblematic of a troubled new age: one in which system-shattering breakdowns are the new normal. And the truth is that rather than hoping futilely to avoid them (which you can’t), you’re better off helping prevent them (which you can).

To prevent such catastrophes from happening, business needs to play a more active, engaged role in creating the kind of thriving, vibrant economies that inoculate societies from self-implosion—because those implosions take businesses down with them, too. Brexits don’t happen in thriving economies; they only happen when the pie is shrinking. People who have good jobs — jobs that allow them to do something useful, that pay livable wages, that come with good benefits — who can educate their children, get the health care they need, and live lives that are decent and whole generally don’t blow up their own economies in a misguided bid for attention, justice, and vengeance.

It’s not enough just to let people’s lives roll downhill a little more slowly than the next business, and call it a job well done. You can’t CSR your way out of this while paying your senior executives more and more and paying your workers (relatively) less and less. The backlash from people who’ve been left behind by a broken model of prosperity is too sharp, too fierce, and too destructive. Just as it will be when climate change really accelerates, when the next financial crisis rolls around, when unemployed, education-debt-burdened young people reach their breaking point, and so on. The world-shaking costs of these great global risks are no longer nuisances that business can simply sweep under the nearest rug.

Brexit tells us something urgent. There will come a point when abandoned people are willing to see the whole playing field burn down, so that it can be level again. And they might burn you down with it.

[NYC17]

They could champion it, and have congress bring it up.

But neither party really want to see it end. People need to elect the right people into both congress and the presidency.

But The Donald and Hillary are not the right people to champion that cause.

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I think the bigger problem is that congress has a really low approval rating, but people like their local congressman/congresswomen. So the incumbents win reelection. Along with that, unchallenged, and gerrymandered seats are not at all democratic.

It's a bipolar situation. Yet people keep voting for status quo, hoping for change.

Right, but the down ballot becomes an extension of the presidential ticket. For the most part, people who hate Hillary aren't going to vote for a Democrat to represent them locally even if that person's platform works and aligns with their interests.