Why Remain Lost

~ Clarissa

Remain could have and should have won. There was no reason for it not to take those couple of percentage points that made all the difference. But the campaign was run in an idiotic way, denying the obvious, straining to insult everybody who was not 100% a remainer, and slipping into an off-putting self-righteousness. The result is a predictable loss at the polls.

Of course, the EU is kinder to those who embrace fluidity, be they from a poorer or a richer member of the union. Of course, it’s more cruel to those who stay put. Its whole point is to erode the nation-state and embrace fluidity. Denying that is deranged.

Of course, many intra-EU migrants come to the UK to enjoy its more robust welfare system. Denying that is also deranged. I only spent a week in the UK last summer and still managed to meet just such a migrant who gladly shared the strategy he and his friends use to benefit from the UK welfare. This is a fact of objective reality, and one can scream one’s head off, accusing everybody who notices it of being a racist, without achieving anything productive.

All of these hysterical outbursts (“You are a racist! You are a hateful bigot! You are murdering me by having opinions! Your support for Hillary means you want my relatives to die!”*) scare people away and lose elections and referendums. The only workable alternative is to accept that the opponent is as human as you are and try to find the kernel of truth and reason at the base of his or her opinions. Of course, there are irredeemable crazies and bigots, but they are not the entire 52% of those who voted Leave.

There is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that if Remainers had stopped vociferating “Racist! Xenophobe! Old fart!”, they could have turned the vote to their advantage. Let’s learn from this sad debacle and avoid it in our own election. Let’s give a wide birth to the “Every Hillary supporter is a murderer of my relatives” freaks**.

* These are all direct quotes. I invented nothing.

** It’s a very real online outburst I witnessed. And what’s really sad, not a single person told this freak to stuff it.

Unknown's avatar

Published by Clarissa

14 thoughts on “Why Remain Lost”

  2. “You are a racist! You are a hateful bigot! You are murdering me by having opinions!”

    I’m not sure which campaign you’ve been following but these are charges levied upon Bernie and his supporters, not just by random online people, but by her campaign surrogates.

    Bernie doesn’t care about black people. Or women. Berniebros are vicious, sexist, mansplaining assholes,etc.

    Bernie’s support among white people in West Virginia was spun off as a huge liability, and the people who voted for him cast off as racist troglodytes. I love how caring about the plight of blue collar voters, or even listening to the lefties in your party is a huge no-no tantamount to a sin, but seeking the endorsements of actual fucking neocons from the other side is just ‘making the tent bigger’.

    Forget Bernie, he’s done. What you’ve just written is excellent advice for the Clinton campaign going forward.

    Hank Paulson, who presided over the 2008 crisis, just wrote an op-ed saying he’ll vote for Clinton. Among the reasons he gives is that Trump won’t touch Social Security and Medicare, and won’t do anything in the way of ‘entitlement reform’ (read: dismantling social services). Of all the reasons to dislike Trump, this piece of shit, who is still regarded as an expert on the economy, chose that. Will Clinton clarify?

    Like

    Reply

    1. Of course, idiots who were clamping onto every innocent word Bernie said to declare him a racist, a sexist, and a devourer of plump little babies are freaks. I’m exhausted by their idiocy. The most recent pearl clutching incident was when Bernie closed his eyes at the Memorial Day ceremony. The freaks went nuts. So stupid.

      And Hank Paulson, please. Don’t even mention him to me. I detest this tool. I begin to retch whenever I hear his name. I can believe in almost anybody’s basic humanity. Almost anybody’s. Paulson, Summers and Greenspan are an exception.

      Like

      Reply

  3. Dan Miller has a point in that some well-meaning people voted for Brexit using reasoning based on the lack of democracy in the EU. While this is broadly correct, the EU does have some value and calling it a tyranny is blatantly preposterous.

    However what we in the UK are left with is a divided nation, divided more than ever by class. Cameron (who is responsible for starting the whole process and failing to recognise its seriousness) is on his way out and other, more right wing Tories will be in power for the foreseeable future. They are less interested in democracy than in aggrandising their own class. The Labour Party who should represent the working classes can’t win without Scotland, who are now mostly nationalist.

    It’s also a class thing in that, regardless who voted for what, the middle class/middle aged are now being blamed in social media, while the wealthiest can carry on regardless. They don’t give a shit if they are approved of or not, they know they are in charge, if not actually in control right now.

    I’ve never been less proud to be British.

    Like

    Reply

    1. I wouldn’t blame the British people for this exclusively. The EU has done absolutely nothing in all these years to foster emotional attachment that could rival the nation-state attachments it was asking people to abandon. And you can’t ask for everything while giving nothing.

      Like

      Reply

  6. I thought Merkel’s immigration stance greatly contributed to panic regarding too numerous immigrants and thus to Brexit, but Kevin Drum thinks Merkel’s treatment of Greece was a bigger factor:

    \ Merkel had a choice: (a) punish Greece for running up unsustainable debts and lying about them, or (b) accept that Germany bore much of the blame itself for the crisis and that Greece had no way of rescuing itself thanks to the straitjacket of the common currency. The former was a crowd pleaser. The latter was unpopular and would have required sustained, iron-spined leadership. In the event, Merkel chose to play to the crowds, and Greece has been a basket case ever sinceβ€”with no end in sight. It hardly went unnoticed in Britain how Europe treated a country that was too entangled with the EU to either fight back or exit, and it made Britain’s decision to forego the common currency look prescient. And if that had been a good choice, maybe all the rest of “ever closer union” wasn’t such a great idea either.
    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/06/let-us-now-figure-out-who-blame-brexit

    Like

    Reply

    1. I’d say it was a combination of punitive treatment of a supposed ally (including the de facto setting aside the results of two elections) and the can’t-do-enough attitude for (mostly) economic migrants who have no hope of ever actually being net contributors to European economies.

      Oh yeah, she managed to give Erdogan (crazy Islamist dictator) unprecedented leverage against Europe.

      The EU collectively has not done a single thing that a sensible country would want to be a part of for some years now.

      It’s a shame because if the EU were actually pro-Europe (as opposed to pro random third world spongers) then it could be a force for good but it isn’t and it isn’t and hopefully the brexit vote will shake the right people up.

      Like

      Reply

      1. \Oh yeah, she managed to give Erdogan (crazy Islamist dictator) unprecedented leverage against Europe.

        I am afraid Jews will be blamed for Erdogan too, while German behavior will be ignored:

        Turkish journalist Tulin Daloglu argues that while Israel and Turkey get closer with an expected reconciliation deal, Turkish democracy is in danger; The reconciliation deal will only strengthen Erdogan, and weaken Turkey’s democratic institutions.
        …
        Even with the opposition’s long-standing disarray, Erdoğan’s aim of changing the constitution still faces challengesβ€”and the agreement with Israel will give him what he wants. The democratic values of freedom of the media, freedom of assembly and justice will prove to be the losers against the material calculations of the Israeli gas that awaits Western markets.

        Israel could still achieve its materialistic gains if it waits until Erdoğan presents his constitutional proposal to the parliament. The AKP claims they will do so before the end of the year, and in that respect, it shouldn’t matter whether Israel normalizes its ties to Turkey today or in six months after waiting those six long years. In the end, Erdoğan’s Turkey won’t cease supporting Hamas, and it won’t change its mind on the Jewish state. Even the cold-blooded calculation of interests demands that an Israel that helps Erdoğan will only elevate his efforts to crush his country’s secular-liberal camp, who are indeed the most-needed partners of peace and stability on both sides.
        http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4820150,00.html

        Like

        Reply

    2. “In the event, Merkel chose to play to the crowds, and Greece has been a basket case ever sinceβ€”with no end in sight. It hardly went unnoticed in Britain how Europe treated a country that was too entangled with the EU to either fight back or exit”

      • This is frankly ridiculous. And not only because Greece has been a basket case for much longer than anybody has known Merkel’s name but also because attributing Brexit to Greece is akin to studiously avoiding a dozen elephants in the room.

      Like

      Reply

      1. “attributing Brexit to Greece”

        Yeah, I doubt that a single British voter identified with the situation in Greece when casting his/her vote. The fact that two countries as disparate as the UK and Greece were even linked together in a single economic union shows the ultimate folly of the EU concept.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

Leave a comment