History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake...
What is the significance of the UK vote yesterday? It reenforced the proclivities of the Brexit referendum to be sure. Essentially, the country embraced an anti-immigrant, anti-European (the only democratic unit economically capable of resisting the U.S.) anti-progressive, anti-democratic future.
What does this mean for the UK? Looking down the road for the next 15 years or so, I think it means that Scotland will leave the UK to stay a member of the EU. It probably means that Northern Ireland will leave the UK and join Ireland for the same reason but also to continue Ireland’s path towards greater democracy and tolerance. It may mean (though this is less certain) that Wales will feel pressure to join these others and leave the UK. In any case Wales will certainly sue for greater autonomy further weakening the U.K. In short, the vote yesterday was a reaffirmation of a nationalist England that will be forced to become a client state of the US. I expect greater inequality there as the commons (the core of The Great Charter) are privatized. I don’t know what this means for the citizens of London, who do not wish to follow this self-defeating path. I suspect they too will sue for greater autonomy. The hinterlands may give it to them. In short, the vote was an exhausted, generalized throwing up of hands to an outside world made up of OTHERS and a turning inward to embrace the shelter of an insular self fully cathected into obedience by the propaganda of authority, the comfort of being with one’s own kind.
If we accept the notion that there is a political rhyme between what UK does and the US, what does this vote mean for us? In the same vein as the UK, the election of Trump signaled an anti-immigrant, sexist, racist, anti-science, anti-democratic impulse in the Republican party and in the rural states and given the undemocratic rules of the game here—the country as a whole. If this is repeated in November as the Johnson vote did with regards to Brexit, then looking down the road, what will happen? Certainly it does not entirely mean the same thing as the UK. The US is the most powerful country in the world and will not turn purely isolationist which would weaken its center and cause it to collapse. As any authoritarian knows, In order to sustain itself it must expand its territory constantly. Yes, it must press its military and economic advantages at every frontier abroad while simultaneously reproducing consent at home by inducing the nation’s populace to turn inward psychologically to become willing (enthusiastic?) accomplices for its external aggression. All of this happens as a reactionary response to the global ecological catastrophe. Rather than dealing with reality, turn inward, double down with any blowhard to be found, and march. Expect war, famine, dislocation, and disease. No doubt lots of money-making opportunities will be provided.
Perhaps such a vote will eventually foment the emergence of a new vortex nation (made up of former blue states, [joined with Canada and Mexico?]) that will shake itself off and secede (will it be able to avoid a civil war?) from the reactionary middle. This new entity (cognizant of our common heritage, our shared lives) will form a democracy predicated upon the great need to build a future that is consistent with scientific facts and one that embraces philosophical, economical, and ecological paradigms. From this acceptance of the facts on the ground and the embrace of all others in equality, and through the democratic practice of consensual truth procedures, genuine liberty may come to dwell.
Or perhaps before the shit hits the fan in the next election--rather than throwing our hands up too, we could just rise to the occasion and vote in record numbers for a true progressive and choose this latter path without all the ancillary bother.