I think racism was just one of the fears that
brexit played on. fear of europe (foreigners) taking over. fear of loss of identity. Fear that peoples lives were getting demonstrably shittier with poundlands and william hills replacing greengrocers and butchers. fears of people talking forrin when you walk down the high street, and asian newsreaders, and brown people at the post office and polish builders and whatever happened to the good life and open all hours?. Fear that life was changing for the worse.
It sold the impossible fantasy that somehow by a vote britain could return to some imagined past of a white empire, of a homogeneous society and cricket on the village green. It's claims of economic independence and strength appeared so laughably preposterous that remainers could scarcely credit that people could believe them, but perhaps some brexiters allowed themselves to buy into that as well. Brexit would never have succeeded if peoples weren't living lives of increasing shittiness and anxiety. That's when bullshitters with simple lies have the most success, like Trump and every populist before him. Of course it probably still wouldn't have got up without that doughfaced cunt cameron leading the remain camp, Corbyn's weak as shit fence-sitting throughout (for all the good it did him), and a certain sneery misapprehension by remainers that some intellectual economic arguments would carry the day, when it was really about dealing with scared disenfranchised people. Now it just means that britain is going to get shittier at a slightly faster rate than it was before. that's my 2p
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 19 Apr 2021, 16:40,
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Yeah
that is a good summing up of the situation.
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My Name was saying these words inside your head on, Mon 19 Apr 2021, 17:19,
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Yes, a festival of nostalgia.
Nostalgia is bullshit for people who can't take reality. Half reconstructed fragments of what seemed good.
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FeralCatMan Long ads need comments sections, Mon 19 Apr 2021, 18:48,
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I know it's rich of wealthy elites to moan about a 'liberal media elite'
But it's not without some truth. I don't think the political/media class really appreciate just how disillusioned and detached some people in some areas outside London are.
They're not necessarily left or right, but distrust and despise mainstream politics.
So yeah, when all the major parties get together and say "vote remain", people said "fuck you". I see it round here with the attitude to lockdowns/masks too. They absolutely refuse to believe politicians have their best interests at heart. Sure they're wrong about COVID, but I can see why their instinct is cynicism.
Genuinely I believe some of these people are (or were) apolitical rather than ingrained right-wing, but they're a gift to populists as you say.
(, Mon 19 Apr 2021, 22:03, Reply)
yeah, I agree
there was a strong element of "fuck the establishment, they're responsible for this shittiness" in the trump vote too, (though as with brexit I though they were backing the wrong pony if they wanted to rebel, but it was certainly sold to them as a way to do this). But if they weren't rightwingers to begin with they embraced those arguments as you do when you join a tribe. I saw it in Brazil, when people I knew who were centrists or centre right voted for the neo-facist bolsonaro, as they were fed up with 16 years of an increasingly corrupt left wing government and thought he would be tough on corruption. But fast forward a year and they'd taken on those extremist views by the mere act of joining that tribe. Attacks entrench views. And Bolso was having one of his ministers literally caught shoving bribe cash up his ass as the police raided his home
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Tue 20 Apr 2021, 1:04,
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