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Have the Right and Left Converged?
To my surprise, and somewhat to my puzzlement, the American right seems thrilled by Brexit. And so does the American left. For very similar reasons. Indeed, the reasoning seems so similar that it’s hard to tell the editorials apart: If you didn’t know the ideological leaning of the publication, you wouldn’t be able to guess. Broadly, both right and left think this represents a blow against globalization; the proper comeuppance for pointy-headed elites, academics, bankers, and journalists; a victory for people everywhere who think immigration is out of control; and a rebuke to European snobs. I think all of that’s incorrect — and both sides are wrong — but help me to understand what’s going on with the American right that it sounds the same, these days, as the left. Perhaps we’re not as polarized as we think?
For evidence that they sound the same, here are some recent opinion pieces about Brexit. Try to guess if the author is right- or left-leaning:
- The failure of the economic arguments to sway the vote may spell the end of economic rationalism which began with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. It may be that the vote against the EU was in part a protest vote against the long term changes in economic structure of the UK economy which has destroyed many working and middle class lives. … Insofar as the decision represents a retreat to economic nationalism and closed borders, it may highlight the diminishing appeal of globalisation. Free movement of goods and services, lowering of trade barriers and cheaper foreign labour has not benefitted everybody. Conservative American politician Pat Buchanan’s observation in Pittsburgh Post Gazette on 3 January 1994 remains uncomfortably accurate: “ … it is blue collar Americans whose jobs are lost when trade barriers fall, working class kids who bleed and die in Mogadishu … the best and brightest tend to escape the worst consequences of the policies they promote … This may explain … why national surveys show repeatedly that the best and wealthiest Americans are the staunchest internationalists on both security and economic issues … ”
- I am enjoying the tantrum of Britain’s elites as much as anyone. From listening to the BBC on the radio, it seems like Britain’s fanatically pro-EU elites are building an alternative universe where they ignore survey research that shows little support for a second referendum, and instead focus obsessively on anecdotal stories about Leave voters begging forgiveness from bankers and professors. Forgive them oh Chancellor Merkel, for they know not what they have done. …
- I’ve been watching the TV coverage to get my fill of MSM reaction. And what you say of [Gillian] Tett [of the Financial Times is typical of what Lambert rightly labels the credentialed class — that 5% (some would put it higher at 10 or even 20% but I think the real paid-up members of the credentialed class are in that bracket) who explain to the proletariat what the elites are doing and Why It Really Is In Your Best Interests — they are simply struck dumb. There’s something you don’t see every day.
- Most of all, Brexit is the consequence of the economic bargain struck in the early 1980s, whereby we waved goodbye to the security and certainties of the postwar settlement, and were given instead an economic model that has just about served the most populous parts of the country, while leaving too much of the rest to anxiously decline. Look at the map of those results, and that huge island of “in” voting in London and the south-east; or those jaw-dropping vote-shares for remain in the centre of the capital: 69% in Tory Kensington and Chelsea; 75% in Camden; 78% in Hackney, contrasted with comparable shares for leave in such places as Great Yarmouth (71%), Castle Point in Essex (73%), and Redcar and Cleveland (66%). Here is a country so imbalanced it has effectively fallen over …
- Yes, Brexit was a rejection of Thatcherism and the rest of the neoliberal twaddle … but that doesn’t mean Scotland would actually be better off in 2020 in the EU separate from UK. …
- Stafford, Cannock, Wolverhampton. Different towns, same message: “There’s no decent work”; “the politicians don’t care about us”; “we’ve been forgotten”; “betrayed”; “there’s too many immigrants, and we can’t compete with the wages they’ll work for”. Nobody used the word humiliation, but that’s the sense I got.
- The current panic reveals a clique of embedded London journalists. The debate, such as it is, has been entirely antagonistic, veering between scaremongering and sanctimony. Often I wonder who is being addressed. A lot of us are not. … When people say: “Why is my pay so low? Why can’t I get a doctor’s appointment? Why is there no school place?”, the answers cannot merely be abstract nouns such as “austerity” or “globalisation”. We may as well blame the weather.
- Brexit is an expression of English — more than British — nationalism and is part of a decades-long decline in British unity. But the England that wants out of Europe is the England of vanished industry in the north, rural poverty in the southwest and people clinging to middle-class lifestyles in the suburbs of once-great cities that feel increasingly alien to them. Scotland has shuttered factories of its own, of course, but frustration at that fueled Scottish nationalism. English nationalism was reinforced by resentment of Scottish nationalism. But it grew and took on a populist character in reaction to real problems that seemed to have been brushed aside by many leaders in all major political parties. Brexit is a rejection of “Cool Britannia,” the 1990s branding of a cosmopolitan, creative and united Britain as a part of a happy vision of globalization.
- The Remain campaign tried to tamp down this anger with lectures, talking down to the rubes in the backwoods and explaining how they didn’t know what was good for them. This has been pre-eminent rhetorical technique among globalization enthusiasts for decades: that they would fix everything if the public would only listen. What they have fixed is a transition of wealth into financial centers and corporate coffers, and a denuding of societal character in favor of a global monoculture …
- A restless, beaten-down public has drawn the first blood in a rebellion against a neoliberal economic orthodoxy committed to globalization that has sucked the life out of whole communities and blighted the future of a generation. …
- The nerve of the leader of one of the world’s oldest democracies to actually let the voting public decide the future of the nation. … Cameron surely would have been much smarter to follow the lead of the political elites in other countries and to ignore the rising hostility to a union that seems to be stifling progress rather than increasing prosperity for all. Instead, he committed the unforgivable sin of allowing democracy to function, a debate to be held, and voters to choose. In doing so, Cameron has opened a Pandora’s box of insurgency against the political elite in Europe.
Tell me which quotes sound like they came from rock-ribbed American conservatives and which sound like they came straight off Noam Chomsky’s website.
After that, tell me what you think it means that it’s so hard to tell. Is it possible that the American right and the American left have found an issue about which they agree completely?
Do you think these views actually have anything to do with Britain or Europe? Or is the whole thing just a giant political Rorschach test?
Published in General
Claire, most of us are confused at your confusion. The British voted in favor of telling foreign bureaucrats to leave them alone. They chose self-rule an over out of touch, supranational, one-size-fits-all monstrosity that most of them never wanted to join in the first place.
What is the conservative argument for globalism? What is the conservative argument for allowing foreign bureaucrats to have veto power over a nation’s laws? What is the conservative argument for letting France and Germany regulate British commerce?
If you don’t get why national sovereignty is a good thing, maybe you’re more assimilated than I gave you credit for.
Miss Berlinski, I have long been awaiting the time to come to unveil my thoughts on Kojeve’s famous memo on the Latin empire. It seems like the time is about ripe. I do not believe Germany can lead the EU–it can only provide a kind of seriousness about the ugly, but necessary stuff. It cannot but arouse great resentment & even hatred on the continent, forcing in all small or weak countries a choice between self-government & good government. In short, it is France or bust–& if France stays socialist, it is bust.
I hope you know my instinct is always to defend your views, as far as I can entre into them at least, & this occasion is not different. It seems to me you neglect the importance of popular sentiment when you consider whether or how the EU could be made to work. The people running it cannot do that & do not wish to do that–to make it work, that is, because of the great political risk of involving the various peoples of Europe in the matter.
So long as the EU is represented in all political troubles as a conspiracy of foreigners, there is no future. I will say again–these times are the apex of institutional coherence, continental political solidarity, & support of the national political classes for the EU. It does not get better from here in terms of governance; it is either serious changes or a slow, & then sudden, decline.
Well no, it wasn’t. All the EU member states had to ratify the Treaty before it could enter into law. The ratification process wasn’t the same from country to country because each country has and maintains its own constitutional arrangements and political processes. But every one of the EU member states is a democracy. There’s no meaningful sense in which the signatories were forced to assent to the treaty.
The French and Dutch shot down the idea of establishing a European constitution by replacing the existing EU treaties with a single text. And thus the constitution was never accepted, even though in some absolute democratic sense, it had majority support: The majority of the member states already had ratified it (mostly through parliamentary ratification, although Spain and Luxembourg held referenda). But EU treaties have to be approved unanimously, so that was never passed. If anything, the democratic standards are in excess of any other federal arrangement I can think of.
Almost all the referenda that have been held in the history of the EU have been approved, often by overwhelming majorities.
Claire – the US opinion aside, why do you think the Brits went this far? I don’t think it was an overnight decision – but a long, difficult one with consequences – they know it will be painful for years to come – and why are other European countries contemplating it? When you understand that, you won’t be so surprised why so many Americans support them. This is the reason why we are having an election year like no other.
PS – This might be a good time to hop on that high speed train and spend a couple days interviewing those that voted while it is fresh, for the book – it’s part of the wave of changes coming and you are in the front seat of history!
This seems to me to be saying that if all the signatory countries decide to changes the EU Constitution without consulting their people after that consultation is proven unworkable–that is fine, because it observes forms.
This kind of reasoning is unbearably defensive, unmanly, & not likely to persuade any of the people who already have hardened their hearts to the EU–but it is also a way to neglect the great political need for popularity in the EU. No one would have dared to speak so publicly in run up or aftermath of any of these great proposed changes. This is not politics…
Americans have an expression about what you may do to a man’s leg & call it rain that I cannot repeat here.
Whence, in Heaven’s name, the puzzlement? I’m sick of bureaucracies of technocrats telling people how bent should be their bananas, or how salty should be their chips.
I couldn’t disagree more, and I’m more interested to hear why you think this than I am in parsing punditry.
“That’s codswallop, Harry.” A stopped clock is right twice a day. This could partly be the result of a much-too-simple, one-dimensional political spectrum. There are bound to be unimportant, surface details about which they agree from time to time. It’s the fundamentals that matter. Leftists tend to be collectivist nannies; Righties tend to want to be left alone.
Here is the argument Margaret Thatcher made:
So what’s changed? Thatcher used to be considered a conservative.
Some things have changed; others have just been revealed.
Am I reading the website linked wrong or was that speech was made in 1975?
If so one of the things that’s changed is the Treaty of Maastricht which she opposed.
I think the ultimate answer is “no.”
I don’t know’em all, but 8 sounds like the thing Mr. Tyler Cowen, a sort-of friend of Leave who is still staunchly for Remain. He’s a libertarian economist / law prof. at GMU.
Or maybe the stuff I’ve been reading is getting confused in my head…
The self proclaimed populists right and left are merely the loudest among those celebrating Brexit. While I am glad that Britain will be free from EU regulations and able to control its borders, I care not at all about the symbolic struggle against “elites.” The post-brexit UK will have elites, hopefully better ones. I’m mostly looking forward to a stronger special relationship and Commonwealth as well as Britain’s renewed ability to trade freely with the rest of the world outside Europe. John Yoo’s suggestion that Britain might join NAFTA is a perfect example and would surely be considered a betrayal by the populists. This I’d think is a saner more old fashioned form of “globalism”–I hate that we’re actually using that term now. Brexit should be judged on its merits not the class obsessions of those supporting it.
I think the issue that swung it was the refugee crisis. Cameron was probably correct to think Britain would vote to remain when he promised to put the issue to a referendum, but that was before the massive refugee influx began. I don’t think it would have passed had it not been for that. My sense is that this was the issue that tipped it over.
The other issue is that Britain just hasn’t recovered, economically. London (which voted to remain) has obviously prospered, but outside of London, Britain has suffered from de-industrialization, and it seems people outside of London really felt they’d been left to die by city-slickers.
That said, the North-South divide between “stay” and “leave” is very striking, and suggests there’s more going on. That divide always characterized Labour v. Tory, but it became much more acute under Thatcher. Blair and Brown presided over a public spending binge that benefited the north disproportionately. But obviously, the Conservatives cut back on this, and coupled with the effects of the economic crisis this widened the social divide along geographic lines. I think there’s been a rise in English nationalism: That’s the only force that could explain why the vote was so starkly divided.
I’m not sure how relevant this is to the US elections. There seems to be some rhetoric in common, but are the similarities real or imagined? I don’t know.
We used to call it “capitalism.”
I seem to remember that the final word from Thatcher on political union was something along the lines of “No, no, no, no, no!!!”
Thatcher, of course, is still considered a conservative. Brexit was a reflection of that no, no, no.
Other than our own, you mean?
[Edit: By “our own”, I mean that of the United States.]
If you’re looking for an English translation, the one at Marxists.org isn’t bad. E.g.
Of course she did — that’s a large part of why Britain escaped the single currency. And her opposition led to her being forced to resign. But obviously this referendum wasn’t about that, since Britain did stay out.
No, she never once suggested withdrawing in toto from the EU. She opposed a monetary union, and the UK never joined it.
I read French, but you are kind to help.
I believe, for the use of an American audience, I might prefer the translation available somewhere on hoover.org. I don’t have the thing at hand, sorry to say-
You only need 3/4 of the states to amend the US Constitution. EU requires unanimity.
In this context, I cannot credit that argument. Why would a bunch of free-trading profiteers need such an oppressive ruling body?
Hear this: real free markets encompass tariffs and like the internet routing around censorship perceived as damage, a market prices in tariffs as cost.
Similarly, free-floating exchange rates reflect health and soundness of policy as well as appetites for risk among free traders.
The EU is a vast price control regime with aspirations to dictatorship of the proletariat “for your own good”, a la Hillary Clinton.
What sort of conservative cannot see through this?
She didn’t suggest withdrawing from the EU because it had not then reached a de facto state of central regulatory bureaucracy continually issuing mandates Washington-style.
Your reliance upon Thatcher for your position 25 years after her resignation and 3 years after her death is misleading. You are entitled to point to her arguments to bolster your case, but your insinuation that support for Brexit is a denial of Thatcher’s conservatism is mere rhetoric.
Don’t you mean EUnanimity?
I assumed you did. I meant for your American audience. (The Marxists.org one is based on the Hoover one which is based on a doctoral dissertation, I think.)
I can’t speak to its aspirations. Agriculture and pharma are both subject to price controls, but no more so than in the US. What other prices does it control? (It’s been responsible for eradicating a lot of price controls, too.)
Right. A quote to the effect that “the old order is crumbling due to hubris” is not a value judgement, but an assessment. It could be said through bitter tears, or between great heaving burps of laughter.
It’s like the time-tested George W. Bush era question, “Do you approve of the way the War on Terror is being conducted?” My answer would usually have been “No”, because we are not pursuing it seriously enough. That would have been reported as disapproval of Bush’s “involvement” in the war at all, which is 180 out.
Yes, indeed–we are of one mind here, I’m pleased to say!
Which is why I posted that Obama (whose Middle East policy created ISIS) is responsible for Brexit.