Brexit Should Be Warning To #BernieOrBust Crowd Of Consequences Of #NeverHillary

Brexit Should Be Warning To #BernieOrBust Crowd Of Consequences Of #NeverHillary

At time of publication, the Dow Jones is down nearly 400 points in reaction to the shocking results of the Brexit vote in Britain, where voters narrowly chose to leave the European Union. And that’s just the economic impact here in the States. The pound, UK’s currency, is cratering, while markets across the world, and especially in Europe and London, have seen massive drops.

Now, let’s be completely honest here. The Brexit vote was completely about the fear of immigration. It had nothing to do with British voters feeling like they’re not getting enough out of the EU compared to what they’re contributing. It wasn’t about the overbearing bureaucracy and regulation of the Union. It was unrelated to concerns about leadership within the European Union. No. It was simply xenophobia and racism. Nothing more.

Voters who embraced Leave were doing so because of the fear of immigration, the fear of non-white, non-Anglo people making up a greater portion of Britain’s population. Polls show that the majority of those voting for the referendum were older and lived in largely homogeneous areas, meaning that they rarely, if ever, interacted with actual immigrants. Meanwhile, younger voters, those with more education, and people who live in areas with significant immigrant populations, voted to Remain.

It was a given that voting to Leave was based solely on irrational emotion, without a thought given to the ramifications of such a brash reaction. Not only were markets immediately impacted, but Prime Minister David Cameron, who was against Brexit, announced he was resigning, bringing forth a crisis of leadership that citizens were likely not ready for.

At the same time, Brexit’s lead cheerleader, Nigel Farage, admitted on live TV that one of the campaign’s promises was all a big lie, and that the National Health Service wouldn’t be receiving 350 million pounds a week after they leave the EU. And, to top it all off, both Northern Ireland and Scotland want to remain in the EU, and are now looking into separating from the UK. In the end, Great Britain may just be England and Wales, isolated from the rest of Europe and no longer seen as a global power.

Thus, Britons who voted based on fear are now faced with the consequences of their actions. The BBC had an amazing interview with a group of voters on Friday, in which one man who voted to Leave was shocked that the referendum passed. See, he thought his vote wouldn’t count, and that the country would be sensible and stay in.

 

“I’m a bit shocked to be honest. I’m shocked that we actually have voted to Leave, I didn’t think that was going to happen.

My vote, I didn’t think was going to matter too much because I thought we were just going to Remain, and the David Cameron resignation has blown me away to be honest.

I think the period of uncertainty that we’re going to have for the next couple of months, that’s just been magnified now.

So yeah, quite worried.”

Wow. Just, wow. And that gets me to the point of this piece. The same fever that gripped British voters — white nationalism, xenophobia and Islamophobia — is the very basis of Donald Trump’s campaign here. While the last few weeks have been fairly disastrous for him — the Judge Curiel comments, his reaction to Orlando, the Trump U fraud suit, his campaign is broke — he still has a very loyal and passionate base of followers. Sure, his poll numbers are sagging, but it is still four-plus months until the election, and it isn’t like Hillary Clinton is running away with anything.

And why isn’t she? There are a myriad of reasons we can discuss, but the main reason she hasn’t opened up a 15- to 20-point lead in the polls over Trump is due to the #BernieOrBust crowd. She’s seen as part of the ESTABLISHMENT by them. An oligarch. A corrupt, email-hiding, Wall-Street hugging, shrill, neo-con hawk who represents everything that Bernie is fighting against. For them, they are #NeverHillary. If they can’t have Bernie, they’ll write his name in, vote for Jill Stein, or maybe not even show up at all.

And, you know, there is something to be said about passion, about voting one’s conscience, about standing up for your ideological principles. But, not this year. First off, regardless of what the most dead-end Berners think, Hillary is going to run on a fairly progressive platform, thanks in no small part to Sanders. She may not be 100% lock-step with Bernie, but she’ll push for most of what he’s preached, and so will the Democratic Party as a whole.

However, beyond that, even if you think she’s nothing more than a center-right neoliberal who is just pandering to the left right now, she is at least someone who understands how government works. She realizes political norms and how off-the-cuff actions and over-the-top rhetoric from our leaders can send huge ripples in the international community. This is a person who spent her time as Secretary of State building relationships with other world leaders, traveling to their countries personally.

The thing is, you can’t always just hold out for the perfect. You can’t always say, ‘If I don’t get absolutely everything I want, then I’m going to do my best to burn it all down ao the revolution happens sooner.’ There are REAL-LIFE repercussions to a Trump presidency. See the shockwaves that are occurring immediately after Brexit? Now imagine that tenfold. That is what we are looking at right away with a Trump election, let alone what will happen long-term to this country.

Trump needs to be defeated, and defeated BADLY. I’m talking Walter Mondale levels here. It has to be a mandate of epic proportions, a statement saying America is not buying what you’re selling. Hillary has to defeat him by double-digits in the popular vote and turn traditional red states blue. It can’t be close, because if it is, Trumpism will still gain footing. Then, and only then, can Bernie’s political revolution even take hold. Because, if Trump somehow wins in November, and our country quickly sinks into a recession, nobody is going to listen to Bernie about the need to follow his suggestions.

Why? They’ll be too busy blaming him and his supporters for bringing us to the precipice.

Justin Baragona

Justin Baragona is the founder/publisher of Contemptor and a contributor to The Daily Beast. He was previously the Cable News Correspondent for Mediaite and prior to starting Contemptor, he worked on the editorial staff of PoliticusUSA. During that time, he had his work quoted by USA Today and BBC News, among others. Justin began his published career as a political writer for 411Mania. He resides in St. Louis, MO with his wife and pets.

7 thoughts on “Brexit Should Be Warning To #BernieOrBust Crowd Of Consequences Of #NeverHillary

  1. Justin, agreed. While never a buster, I knew they wouldn’t ever be convinced by insults, QUITE the opposite! Mockery and dismisiveness is fine against Trump, his nutty followers, or any creep the GOP may have chosen, for the simple reason that they were never going to become progressives, and never going to switch sides; but acting this way towards the people you absolutely need to convince is, frankly, empty-headed, and anyone who does it is ALSO helping Trump get elected. A good many Trump-like HRC supporters are still, unbelievably, doing this like a fire hose (!) only, if anything, further entrenching these voters. If its as important as I believe it to be, for the reasons you’ve stated (and more), than you know what I’m saying has the ring of truth. Respectful arguments, in spite of the desire to deride, are the only thing that might be at all convincing. Most HRC supporters will ever get this, from what i’ve seen, and also won’t take any responsibility for a possible (though, I still think, not-likely) Trump presidency. But they are, because they know better (or should). Does it really matter (?) if the end result is a triumphal Trump? The ubiquitous laugh-now-regret-it-later mockery of Sanders voters needs to be going down. Soon.

  2. * my apologies for my numerous subject/object mistakes, and other grammatical errors and typos (e.g., “ever” should have been “never”). Hopefully I was not unclear enough to be misunderstood. In part I’ll blame it on my iPhone’s hated “spell-suggest” function, but really, that’s my fault, too.

  3. Hillary is not and has never been liberal or progressive. Her lies aside, look at her voting record in lock-step with George W Bush apart from women’s rights. War, prisons for profit, anti-gay rights and economic austerity yet unregulated banks , Wall St. and corporate welfare. Democrats knew she is unethical so they documented in DNC docs released by guccifer 2.0 they needed to muddy the water online with paid attacks such as this nonsense comparing the EU to an untrusted politician under FBI investigation for treasonous espionage via unsecured top secret emails. She, DNC and Clinton foundation have all been hacked so her security clearance was clearly misplaced. Never Hillary for these reasons, Trump, her friend, was a Dem donated to her but has never done the arms to Saudi and mid-east countries destabilization and killing thousands. So vote Bernie or an inexperienced neo-nazi or an 8 year experienced warmonger.

  4. Rab, you are one of the voters he was talking to–go ahead and be on your high horse and vote for Bernie in protest–let Trump win and not only you but the rest of America will have to live under the disastrous consequences. I won’t even bother to address your misinformation about Hillary Clinton–she is the most qualified of the bunch and I, for one, am sorry that you can’t see it.

  5. I can’t help it, Rab–I can’t let your sad grasp of history go without a response. First of all, Clinton and Sanders voted together 93% of the time when she was in the Senate. And you haven’t been paying attention to stands and votes if you can say that she is not liberal or progressive–but she is also a realist–unlike your candidate who prides himself on his principled purism, she realizes that at times, you get as much as you can and live to fight another day. I have no idea what your rant in the middle is about so if you would kindly explain what you are taking about and then point me to the pertinent verification. Your last comment is what really makes me livid–of all the things she was not during her time as Secretary of State was a warmonger–I’d really have to see some verifiable evidence to convince me to the contrary

  6. Brain, I wish I knew what you were talking about–maybe you and I live in different circles but I have yet to hear any of the Hillary Clinton supporters I know make a disparaging comment. And I have always tried to make considerate comments of him. I have no idea where you get the idea of “ubiquitous laugh-now-regret-it-later mockery of Sanders [sic] voters” is coming from. I do think that as time has gone on and as it has become more apparent that he will not be the candidate that he has become more strident in his speaking style. At this point when he is so wishy-washy in his support of Hillary Clinton, I do wish he’d do that honorable thing, as HRC did for POTUS 8 years ago, by conceding and sincerely endorsing Hillary Clinton for President–and ask his followers to do the same.

  7. So full of shit I can smell it from my laptop. Nicely promulgated propaganda tho. Kudos on your staunch neo-liberalism. The upside is, you and George Will can now vote for the same Presidential candidate. Me? I’d rather vote for a liberal.

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