By Jonah Goldberg
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
It’s anyone’s guess how things will go in Thursday’s
referendum on British membership in the European Union, also known as “Brexit.”
Right now the polls are essentially tied at around 47 percent for and 47
percent against (not that British polling has a particularly good track
record). But win or lose, the fight over Brexit is symptomatic of a much larger
crisis facing out-of-touch elites on both sides of the Atlantic.
The European Union was the ultimate triumph of
technocracy. The smart set not only insisted that a common European currency
would work fantastically well, they insisted that doubters were knaves and
nuts. Then the waves of Euro-crises hit the continent, most notoriously in
Greece.
The smart set insisted that a common immigration policy
would be an unalloyed economic boon while dismissing any concerns about
possible social or economic upheavals. To disagree was to declare yourself not
only a crank but a bit of a racist. This species of political correctness led
government officials to turn a blind eye to countless problems, including the
notorious Rotherham sexual-abuse epidemic in which about 1,400 minors, mostly
white girls, were raped and trafficked by men of South Asian descent.
The European Union’s bureaucracy and paper-parliament
were set up to be as insulated as possible from the concerns of actual voters.
Representatives to the European Parliament are selected by party elites as a
kind of highbrow patronage. They invariably defer to the permanent bureaucracy,
which acts like a transnational cartel, one that happens to be composed of
governments. As Daniel Hannan, the rare Euroskeptic skunk to infiltrate the
garden party that is the EU parliament, put it, “faced with a choice between
democracy and supra-nationalism, the EU will always choose supra-nationalism.”
The rules flowing out of Brussels are in no way the
source of all of Britain’s economic and social challenges, but when diktats
come down about everything from the proper curvature of bananas to age
requirements for the usage of balloons, you can understand why some Brits might
be tempted to have their own version of a Boston Tea Party.
There are parallels aplenty here in the United States.
For generations, American elites, particularly on the left side of the aisle,
have insisted that democracy gets in the way of optimal decision-making. Stuart
Chase, an economic adviser to Franklin D. Roosevelt, wanted an “industrial
general staff with dictatorial powers” to run the economy. In 1962, John F.
Kennedy declared: “Most of the problems . . . that we now face, are technical
problems, are administrative problems.” These problems “deal with questions
which are now beyond the comprehension of most men.” Columnist Thomas Friedman
openly yearns for the American government to be “China for a day” so it could
overrule democracy and the rule of law in pursuit of “what works.”
This attitude virtually defines the Obama
administration’s approach to everything from climate change (the Environmental
Protection Agency, not Congress, destroyed the coal industry) to immigration
(even President Obama admitted his executive orders would be unconstitutional,
then went through with them anyway). Hillary Clinton’s disdain for the rules
regarding her server and e-mail, whether criminal or not, have the distinct
stench of aloof aristocratic arrogance (as does her family’s foundation).
The thing about the rule of unaccountable rulers is that
people will defer to them so long as they feel things are moving in the right
direction, economically and otherwise. But when their incompetence and
self-dealing seems to come at the expense of the public, the deference ends.
This is where the populism of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump overlap. Both ran
on very similar claims that the elite are in it for themselves. Both insisted
that their respective parties were “rigged.” Neither wants to get rid of
interventionist government (alas). Rather, they want government to be even
stronger and more activist for their chosen constituencies. Trump’s success in
the primaries was a direct result of the widespread sentiment — right or wrong
— that the “establishment” had different priorities on trade, immigration,
etc., than the rank and file.
No matter how Brexit turns out, and no matter who wins
the presidential campaign, this populist discontent isn’t going away any time
soon. In fact, it’s shaping up to be the new normal.
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