Tag: brexit

So Donald Trump just about won the US elec­tion, continu­ing the exhaust­ing and depress­ing down­wards traject­ory of 2016, and the continu­al rise of the far right to power. Brexit and the elec­tion of Trump show how good the Right are at times of econom­ic hard­ship in convin­cing people their prob­lems are caused by foreign­ers and the Other, rather than that they’re living in a system designd to make the rich become rich­er, and keep a perman­ent pool of people desper­ate for work to drive down wages and condi­tions. Saying “oh it won’t make much differ­ence” after events like Brexit or Trump winning is some­thing you can only say if you and every­one you know and care about don’t fall under the categor­ies of people such as POC, Muslims, women, poor people or immig­rants whose lives are about to become so much more diffi­cult. People always think “oh that doesn’t mean my friend/​wife/​neighbour/​workmate, they’re talk­ing about those weird threat­en­ing strangers, not those nice people I know”. It does mean those nice people you know.