Are Americans Dumber Than Englishmen?
Putin worked hard to get Britain to do Brexit and just as hard to get the U.S. to put Trump in the White House. Both were gargantuan victories for the Kremlin, colossal failures for the West. In the final hours of 2023, Politico’s "Playbook" gang— Eugene Daniels, Rachel Bade and Ryan Lizza— noted that “[W]e can all look forward to a very quiet, calm year that could (1) see a rematch of the last presidential election, (2) find the Supreme Court deciding if a former president should be tossed off state ballots for being an insurrectionist, (3) feature that same former president prosecuted on nearly 100 charges and (4) witness the current president get impeached for unknown reasons. It’ll be a super easy year, y’all.” Putin’s relatively small investment is still paying big dividends.
There’s a big difference, though, between the U.K. and the U.S.A. Most Brits at least now know they made a disastrous mistake. American voters are actually considering putting Trump back into the White House to end democracy once and for all. “A clear majority of the British public,” wrote Toby Helm over the weekend, “now believes Brexit has been bad for the UK economy, has driven up prices in shops, and has hampered government attempts to control immigration, according to a poll by Opinium to mark the third anniversary of the UK leaving the EU single market and customs union. The survey of more than 2,000 UK voters also finds strikingly low numbers of people who believe that Brexit has benefited them or the country. Just one in 10 believe leaving the EU has helped their personal financial situation, against 35% who say it has been bad for their finances, while just 9% say it has been good for the National Health Service, against 47% who say it has had a negative effect.”
Many Americans are living in a Trump/Fox-engineered delusion that life was better under Trump. And in November a CBS News poll found that 45% of Americans believe they’d be better off financially if Trump gets back into the White House. Rationally this makes no sense at all:
The U.S. has added over 13 million jobs since Biden took office, with the unemployment rate at 3.5% in December, near a historical low. Meanwhile, a recession has been averted and the stock market is up over 11% since Biden's inauguration. On top of that, inflation has been trending downward in recent months. While it reached a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2023, it has since steadily declined. The latest Consumer Price Index report, released in December, showed a year-over-year inflation rate of 3.1%, significantly lower than the peak with oil and gas prices retreating significantly and bringing down energy costs and overall inflation. And surging real estate and stock prices have contributed to a rise in household net worth.
None of this has sunk in, while in the U.K., most voters are ready to toss out the Conservatives in a big way, in part because only 7% of people think Brexit has helped keep down prices in UK shops, against 63% who think it has been a factor in fueling inflation and the cost of living crisis. “The poll suggests that seven and a half years on from the referendum the British public now regards Brexit as a failure. Just 22% of voters believe it has been good for the UK in general.”
The Vote Leave campaign led by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove had promised that Brexit would boost the economy and trade, as well as bring back $445 million week into the National Health Service and allow the government to take back control of the UK’s borders.
James Crouch, head of policy and public affairs at Opinium, said the perception of Brexit being handled badly and having had negative effects on various aspect of UK life appeared to be spreading: “Public discontent at how Brexit has been handled by the government continues, with perceived failings even in areas previously seen as a potential benefit from leaving the EU.
“More than half (53%) of leave voters now think that Brexit has been bad for the UK’s ability to control immigration, piling even more pressure on an issue the government is vulnerable on. Despite this, Brexit is likely to be a secondary issue at the next election compared to the state of the economy and the NHS, which are the clear priority for voters.”
Robert Ford, professor of political science at Manchester University, said that while there was now evidence that negative perceptions of Brexit, particularly on the economy, could have an effect on votes at a general election, Brexit was very unlikely to play such a direct role as it did at the last two general elections.
Ford said: “Voters’ attention has shifted decisively elsewhere, with leave and remain voters alike focused on the domestic agenda of rising bills, struggling public services and weak economic growth.
“The appeal of ‘Get Brexit Done’ was not just about completing the long Brexit process but also about unblocking the political system and delivering on other long-neglected issues. Brexit got done, but this has not unblocked the political system, and troubles elsewhere have only deepened. Many of the voters who backed the Conservatives to deliver change now look convinced that achieving change requires ejecting the Conservatives.
“This shift in sentiment may be particularly stark among the ‘red wall’ voters who rallied most eagerly to Johnson’s banner four years ago, but have been most exposed to rising bills and collapsing public services since. The final act of Brexit may yet be the collapse of the Brexit electoral coalition.”
One of the key claims of the Brexiters was that leaving the EU’s single market and customs union would usher in a new era of global trade for the UK based on trade deals with other parts of the world. Many voters now seem to have concluded that Brexit has in fact been bad for trade. Some 49% think it has been bad for the ability of UK firms to import goods from outside the EU, while 15% think it has helped.
