The British Exit from the E.U. - To Be or Not to Be?

Here in the USA the most vicious presidential election of the 20th and 21st Centuries is blessedly closing.  It has been the most horrid in my life time with Trump supporters chanting at his rallies that Hillary Clinton be locked up for her email controversy. It has been a toxic campaign, and one that will continue to divide this nation.  

So perhaps our American readers have not noticed that a British court this past week stated that only the House of Commons can initiate Article 50 to allow the U.K. to exit the European Union.  This Kingdom, so vital to the world as a bulwark of civilized behavior, is now engaged in bitter, divisive and ugly debate over the validity of that court decision.  Our regular correspondent, Terry Field, a learned Englishman who lives in France and Florida, provides this Sunday morning an article worth your time.  He covers many 'bases' including reflections on his fellow Englishman David Lott's recent views on Brexit and western foreign policy.

I trust our readers welcome this dialogue challenging us to remove ourselves, at least for a time, from our respective 'world view' cultural corners.  - Glenn N. Holliman

Reflections while on a Florida Sojourn by an Englishman - Terry Field

The intellectual violence overwhelming England at present is almost unprecedented. There appears to be a collapse in the cohesion of the mind of the nation. This is new, and not seen before. Certainly not since the 1930’s, when the competition between communism and capitalism for the mind of the nation raged unchecked. Terry Field below right.

The forces supporting brexit appear to be intent on ‘sweeping aside’ those persons – almost an equal number at the point of the referendum – with accompanying violence of language and stridency of attitude that continues to surprise. This form of social violence carried all before it for the months after the vote, and the Houses of Parliament seemed cowed, and unsure of their right to think independently of the plebiscite.

That is how the new unelected Prime Minister Teresa May has characterised that matter. The vote should be the force for total acceptance of a radical break with Europe; Parliament should rubber-stamp it and its potential to limit or modify the process would be removed by dictat.

The court, having decided this to be unsupported by law, the rage of indignation against these venerable judges has been vicious and unconstrained.

Never mind the sovereignty of the Parliament, never mind the rule of law, never mind wise considered judgment – these lawyers are constraining the ‘will of the people’ and are an enemy to be confronted.

The rage dominates the populist press. The Telegraph – a supposed ‘newspaper of record’ screamed ‘the judges against the people’.

Yet 52% voted to leave; 48% to stay.

After a campaign of grotesque lies and distortions by the Brexit camp; suggesting ludicrous moneys would flow into the bankrupt National Health Service from the funds saved – to be promptly retracted by Nigel Farage (leader of the United Kingdom Independent Party) and others after the vote result.  Nigel Farage below.

This preamble is needed to add context to the article by the correspondent from UKIP.

The article suggests a potentially violent response if the leave group -52% of the vote only – does not get the interpretation its most radical members place on the vote. But here is the rub.

We have in Britain an ancient and respected representative parliamentary democracy, charged with holding in it hands all the legislative power of the State. It is there for correct that Parliament should and has the authority to analyse the entire process of suggested exit from Europe proposed by the new government. It is not to be bypassed. Not to be ignored.

The plebiscite was an opinion, incapable of being interpreted by any faction, and that includes this government, independent of Parliament.

Should the extreme Brexit faction choose the apparently threatened violent response, we have in Britain a police, a judiciary and a prison system that can act to protect the nation from violent insurrection.

The article refers to the continuing failure of the United States to ‘win any wars’ – presumably since 1945.

As I recall, the world was convulsed by a cold war from 1945 to 1986, and it could be argued that is has been re-started in recent years.

I would consider it a gross insult to the dead of Britain and the United States to suggest that the recovery of the Korean peninsula was not both a victory and morally right. I would similarly consider that the support of the nationalists in China and the protection of Taiwan was and is morally right and a limited success.

Vietnam and the Middle East are different categories, and cannot be considered either successful nor morally unstained; yet who when Russia fed arms to Vietnam and the Soviet expansion into Africa was radical and threatening could unequivocally say the war was not an understandable reaction after Dien Bien Phu. Easy to say today it was a dreadful error. Not so easy at the time, and I suggest the writer of the article who so readily dismisses the American actions since the war with such gross contempt had any greater wisdom to offer at the time.

Wars are, in general, not ‘successes’ or ‘failures’. Only a military man of intermediate rank thinks they either should or could generally be so. War is an extension of civil action, and has, normally, limited objectives. That the cold war threw up many ‘proxy wars’ is undeniable. Those wars were dreadful. The assaulted peoples suffered dreadfully, but it does take two to tango. The other sides – China and Russia – were active and violent where it was in their interests to be so. The article seems to suggest there was no such set of adversaries. Bizarre.

As for the Middle East, the changed view was that pre-emptive action to forestall severe near-term threats was the developed view in Britain and the United States.

It may or may not have been a reasonable and responsible pre-conception. The aftermath of the Middle East adventure has resulted in disaster. Is that because the initial analysis was incorrect, or because the extreme over-reaction of the present Administration to act not at all and watch events unfold with other ‘allies’ taking the load on the ground has created such a vacuum that ISIS and Putin have seized their opportunity?

It is a point of discussion, not an excuse – taken by the above writer – to excoriate the United States, and suggest Britain has no mind and slavishly follows it ‘protector.’

Given the commonly received view on both sides of the Atlantic that pre-emptive action against anticipated future aggression and ‘failed states’ would protect the West effectively, the problem for Britain was how to act on this, whilst not appearing to do so.

Hence now, Blair’s agony and Chilcot’s vengeance.

But this present public posturing of squeaky-clean morality does nothing to answer the question – was the strategy, and the motivation behind it, misplaced, or not? It is FAR too early to tell.

Given this, it leaves an unpleasant taste to read a diatribe against the actions, mindset, and by inference the moral worth – of the United States and Britain over a number of decades. I reject, as do many, such a radical characterisation.

The events on the battle field are made harder to bear by the economic trauma experienced by the West, firstly since de-industrialisation (and the appearance of industrial super-productivity, not discussed at all)  followed by the ‘financial crisis’ ( not really) of 2007/8.

The losers - in this tale of massive changes in wealth creation and the raising of 1000 million people out of poverty across the World are – in part by social media, in part by the sort of charismatic leaders we have seen before in the 1930s and in part by the breakdown in the constraints of the social cohesion that came with the militarised societies  that lived through war and then cold war – asserting themselves, but their desires are informed by poor economic understanding, and infected with dangerous petty nationalism.

They can, in the end, achieve nothing, even if they gain power in the United States by a disastrous election result, and of course if Britain cuts itself out of the largest trading block of like minded people on the planet. Their dreams reflect their flaws in both comprehension, and capacity to empathise with their fellow citizens who disagree with them.

This is a new form of violence – of intimidatory social violence. Its bluff should be called. Its absurd unwise, simplistic, childlike urges should be confronted and defeated.

In Britain, the Prime Minister is a constraint on wisdom and rationality. In my view, she is the worst prime Minister the country has ever experienced – or certainly since 1914. Teresa May below.

Therefore, I hope in Parliament. I trust it will steer the country to more rational times. (If May does not go to the country selling another dose of cheap nationalism and unachievable hegemony over a supine world waiting with baited breath for Britain to flex its free-trade wings).

At this rate, I half-expect us to try to recover India. Anyone for tiffin?????

Terry Field nesting in Florida much of this winter....

Comments?

Six Decades of Change

Gary from Australia sends along some significant thoughts in response to the American election and how we humans deal with change.  Thanks Steph and Gary for emailing this perceptive article. - Glenn N. Holliman

I trust I’m not straying too far off topic by referencing something that has been a mantra of mine for at least a couple of decades. It is this: The silicon chip, the Sputnik and the Boeing 707 changed the world irrevocably and profoundly. 

Perhaps those even older than I (is that possible??) might say it was Charles Babbige’s difference engine, Werner von Braun’s V2 and the de Havilland Comet but it’s all semantics. Those three things, in combination, served to shrink the world, to give rise to a population explosion that still hasn’t petered out and, most significantly, made life very difficult for advanced democracies. 

Markets, which at one time were almost exclusively national markets, have been redrawn and changed forever by globalisation. The company in Sydney, Coventry or Cleveland quietly making spanners and tools and paying its skilled and loyal workers a fair wage has been dynamited by the broken down shed in Beijing turning out inferior spanners made by people who are paid little and have no access to health care, workplace safety protocols, holidays, sick leave or any sort of advocate for their well being. All this in a self-described people’s paradise which manipulates the yuan to make the product even cheaper for overseas sales. Not that the workers understand this or could do anything about if they did. And all the time we in Australia talk about even playing fields.

I am not commenting on the rights or wrongs of this but I am saying that you and I, Steph, over our six decades, have lived through change even more massive than our ancestors saw during the Industrial Revolution 200 plus years ago. Future historians will note this and perhaps they will call it the Silicon Revolution.

The world in which we live has been enormously disrupted by these profound changes. It has challenged all we grew up understanding about commerce, politics, science and community values and expectations and now we are seeing it is most of the western economies. Look at the foment in British politics and their utter confusion about their place or not in the EU. Look at the political landscape in - where do I start - France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and then there’s the former Eastern bloc countries. Japan, having only risen from the ashes in our lifetime, has been suffering from this disruption for the last 20 years.

Amazing. Australia, a small player, has been able to behave like a large and prosperous economy for a hundred years due in part to its isolation and its resources but the silicon chip, the Sputnik and the Boeing 707 changed all that big time and look at our political situation. I venture that nearly all of the citizens in Australia despair at nearly all of the politicians on offer.

And so we get to the USA, the economic, military and political bulwark the world has known and relied on since the early 20th century.

On the one side we have a powerful lobby based in DC and all interlinked with the Clintons right at the centre of it. On the other side we have a fraudulent and wealthy bully who has no problem in exploiting the fears and confusion which understandably trouble the American lower and middle classes. 35% of US wealth is controlled by 1% of the population. The bottom 80% own a paltry 15 % of the wealth. Trump knows this. Does he care? We may get to find out over the next four years.

Whatever.. middle America, like middle Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden, is both scared and confused. 

Were I an American voter, I wouldn’t be anywhere near happy with either candidate. I simply wouldn’t know what to do on November 8. Isn’t that sad.

Cheers,

Gary from Australia

Entitled Trust

David Lott, a retired Royal Air Force and commerical airline pilot, has written often in this space.  It is important to understand how your own country's foreign policy is viewed by another well-read person on the other side of the Atlantic.  In these pages, one does not have to agree, but I maintain it is valuable to stop and reflect and consider another point of view.  Civilized discourse is critically important.  Comments welcome of course. - Glenn N. Holliman

I suppose I am one of the underclass as described by various Marxists, the ‘well educated’ and your correspondent Frank Schaeffer. I am certainly no member of the establishment defenders of the status of the status quo. I ask too many questions for that to be possible.

The last note I wrote which Glenn kindly posted for me was entitled Truth. I think this one should be entitled Trust.

The analysis of the people who voted for Brexit or will vote for Donald Trump or indeed any of the so called populist parties in Europe is flawed. These people are not ignorant or even easily led.

Indeed many have been looking for leaders for a long time. Some say they are the left behind in a society that is changing fast. Or that they yearn for the old values of the past and today is for the young not the middle aged and old but they are none of those things. Put simply they have lost trust in politicians, bankers, media, administrators, the police and nearly all forms of very big business.

Where does this underclass fit into the establishment world? In a word it doesn’t. They are treated like sheep but they are not sheep and will not behave like sheep. The foolish Establishment shepherds try to herd these non sheep. Their dogs are the Goldman Sachs, George Soros, the CEOs’ of Facebook and Google and pliant politicians all over the western world.

Let us take a look for a minute at foreign policy, purely as an example, to identify why many of this ‘underclass’ do not trust their leaders. The USA succeeded the British Empire nearly a hundred years ago as the most powerful nation on earth. It had a loathing of colonialism as a result of the causes that led to the birth of their country. This was proper and reasonable. However over the years the enjoyment of power has corrupted the powerful. It always happens does it not?

Today the US has forces in over 70 countries. It encourages regime change whenever it feels it should in the interests of the US; sometimes bloodily sometimes with only a nudge.

Has the US won a single war since WW2, I’m not sure I can think of one. Britain has obediently followed the US lead nearly all the time. In recent years it has become increasingly difficult to understand the purpose of these wars. The mess just widens and widens and now Russia has been drawn into the US wars. Perhaps that was always the intention. Here in Europe whole nations led by Sweden are losing their identities as a result of the western created upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa and Angela Merkel’s personal decision to flood the EU with migrants quite without authority from those most affected. Even President Duterte of the Phillipines has had enough of US intervention.

Think for a moment, what are the ghastly terrible thoughts of some of the following victims of regime change in the moments before their deaths. The homosexual about to be thrown off a building, the three year old about to be thrust into a meat grinder alive, or the hostage lined up with others to be shot in the back of the head by a boy or have his head savagely hacked off, or the woman in the process of being stoned to death. Do please endeavour for a moment to imagine their anguish in your own mind. It will make you sweat and you will be doing a wonderful service to them.

US and UK leaders refuse point blank to acknowledge any responsibility whatsoever. They deny that regime change was ever a policy, but the hounds of the Baskervilles were mild compared to the horrors resulting from UK/US actions. The piteous cries of those I listed above are simply not heard. The regime change in Libya  was a perfect example of hypocrisy. Russia opposed intervention in the secular totalitarian State. A state where women were emancipated and the health system was excellent and Christians protected. Then Russia relented and approved a no fly zone at the UN Security Council provided it was not used to enforce regime change. The regime was attacked and destroyed and Ghadaffi killed. The Secretary of State then cried, “we came we saw and we won, and HE IS DEAD”, followed by a cackle. Our politicians are as deaf on such issues as is my Labrador when she is hot on a scent.

In field after field we have to submit to lie after lie. In the early days we believed but today we most certainly do not. The founders of the EU back in 1948 acknowledged they could only bring about a United States of Europe through lies deceit and dissimulation. Only recently did the penny drop with us in the underclass that federalism was at the heart of the European project. Now the project becomes more grandiose with globalist policies, which move democracy further and further away from the individual, the family, the town and the nation state.

However loud we cry we are not heard. We are told we are divisive but who created the division? Why the deaf of course. At the moment, against the odds, we are making progress and let us all hope that democracy allows a peaceful outcome. But remember that unless you listen to us, these so called sheep will inevitably grow fangs. From trust will spring reform and kill off corruption. It is not a lot to ask is it? -

David Lott, a founder of the United Kingdom Party

Comments?

From the English Midlands - 

Dear Glenn

Here, in the post-referendum-UK, there is a delicious irony, in that those who campaigned to leave the EU were determined to regain the sovereignty of Parliament and to retrieve English law from the clutches of Brussels. What has happened? The High  Court has ruled that Article 50 cannot be enacted without an Act of Parliament. Thus, in one fell swoop, the Brexiteers have had two of their wishes granted, and immediately, they cry foul, claiming that insistence BY ENGLISH LAW, on the SOVEREIGNTY of Parliament, is going 'against the wishes of the people'.

It is reminiscent of your Trump refusing to accept the election result, if he loses.

Yours aye

David

Click here to Reply or Forward

What Has Happened to the Labour Party in the U.K.?

We welcome Andrew Edwards, a Welshman and now a successful business man from a village north of Cambridge, England, to these pages for the first time.  'Drew' offers some cogent thoughts on the state of Britain's major opposition party to the Conservatives who are now in power.  What follows is an excellent review of recent governments and the state of the Labour Party today. If you wish a refresher or a first time exposure to U.K. political parties, take a few minutes to read this essay. - Glenn N. Holliman

What has happened to the Labour Party?

Let me be very clear before you start reading this.  My political leanings are naturally centre left.  I grew up in an environment where politics if not discussed were never far away.  Both my parents lineage can be traced back the heavy industries of South Wales – Steel, Coal Mining and Railways. 

Right, Andrew Edwards of England with this review on recent English political history.

It was out of this cauldron the Labour Party was borne – a political party to represent the working man.  In early part 20th Century there were only 2 mainstream political parties in the UK – Conservatives  and Liberals.  The Liberals claimed to be the party of the working man but it was felt that they were loosing touch with their supporters and as a result Labour – a largely untried political party started to gain strength and formed a minority government in 1924.  Since then there has only been two political parties with any hope of forming a majority Government with them swapping roles on a fairly regular basis.

 Right, Ramsay McDonald, Labour's first prime minister in 1924

The only exception to this was in May 2010 when the then leader of the Conservative Party was forced into a ‘coalition’ with the Liberal Democrats due to their inability to form a government with working majority.  I could now write on the reasons that this was a mistake for the Liberal Democrats but the results of the election in 2015 amply demonstrated this.  It will take a generation for them to get back to where they were prior to 2010.

Even before the 2010 election disquiet was growing within the voting population.  The involvement in the second Gulf War crystallised the belief that politicians were more than happy to lie to us.  The feeling amongst the public was that this was war to settle the scores and protect the interests of the oil companies.  The false claim that Saddam Hussain had weapons of mass destruction  – which was based on the ‘dodgy dossier’ seemed only to be an excuse to go to war.  

Right, Tony Blair, Labour prime minister from 1997 to 2007 who led the U.K. into the controversial Iraq War with the United States.

We then had the MPs expenses scandal – which confirmed what we all thought.  They were a group of privileged people who were out for what they could get.  True or not this was the perception.

The change of government didn’t seem to help.  We were told the country was close to being bankrupt.  Although it was the fault of the banks we needed to take our share of the blame – everybody of course with the exception of the banks who were too big to fail, spent a period in purgatory and then went back to making huge profits

Further revelations followed, the MP’s expenses, press intrusion, politicians cosying up to Rupert Murdock and so it goes on.  The outcome of all of this of course was that the public didn’t trust politicians and perhaps more importantly didn’t believe what they were being told.

So forward to the General Election in 2015.  Rather than sweeping to power the Conservative Government fell over the finishing line.  The problem for David Cameron was that whilst he had a working majority the numbers were slim and he has a number of issues with members who wanted to leave the EU.  Hence Brexit – but that’s another story.

Left, Jereym Corbyn, current leader of the Labour Party in the U.K.

The problem for Labour is that they lost when they should have won.  Ed Milliband resigned and it was time to elect a new leader for Labour.  You had the usual ‘mainstream’ candidates coming forward.  Scraping in as a ‘no hoper’ was Jeremy Corbyn the stalwart of the left.  Up until this point he had always been characterised as a maverick, didn’t support the party line and had been a strong supporter of Michael Foot in the 1980s.  

Whilst not seen as a strong candidate what he did have was the support of those who had been disillusioned by politics – someone who was ‘non-establishment’ and didn’t carry the baggage of the past.  He started to gain strength, won the first party election, was deposed by MPs and then won the second party election by an ever greater majority. 

From a position of ‘no-hoper’ he was now undisputed leader of the Labour Party and the Leader of Her Majesties Opposition.  Democracy in the UK is unusual in having an official opposition.  These are posts that are fully funded by central government and have an important role in calling the government of the day to account.  However to do  this the Leader of the opposition needs to have the support of their MP’s and its clear that Jeremy Corbyn doesn't.

After his latest election its clear that the Labour MPs are waiting until the time is right.  There is talk of a General Election in 2017.  If opinion poles are to be believed then it is likely that Labour will fair very badly and the Conservatives will have a significant majority that could ensure that they are in power for the next 10 to 15 years before they are seriously challenged again.

There will then be a period on infighting which has a number of potent outcomes.  It could be restructured Labour Party as happened in the 1980s, the rise of a new political group to take the centre ground of British Politics or even the emergence of the Liberal Democrats.

Whatever happens the next 20 years are likely to be extremely challenging for the centre left of British Politics – and that’s before Brexit, Scottish Devolution, English Devolution, Welsh Devolution, Cornish Devolution…..

Whatever happens its going to be interesting …….

Regards

Andrew

Comments?

Ain't It Awful

A friend of mine here in Pennsylvania gave me a quotation the other day that made me imagine a grandmother replying to a complaining teenage about some issue in the youngster's bountiful life.  "Ain't it awful" goes the saying - so awful - you live in a world of instant light, hot water, three meals a day, heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, the Internet, security from violence, a roof over your head, college in front of you, a nation where the government is kept in check and is a servant, and in the United States of America where the standard of living is the highest in the world.  Oh yes, ain't it awful.

So in an election cycle, where one party proclaims how terrible the world and USA is and its downward trajectory, I present a blog sent to me this morning by a second cousin in Georgia, an educator who has devoted his career to helping economically under privileged children. 

Frank Schaeffer is an American author, film director, screenwriter and public speaker. He is the son of the late evangelical theologian and author Francis Schaeffer.  One does not have to accept his theology, but Mr. Schaeffer, whom I would call a post-Christian Christian, does present some controversial, highly-opinionated, blistering and telling observations. Here are some exerts from his newsletter.  And one does not have to agree with everything he says. - Glenn N. Holliman

Frank on Frank...an Ex-Evangelist Looks at the Election

There is a reason that the white American underclass is so out of step with the rest of America: if you live in a pretend world for long enough you snap. The white Trump-loving underclass is uneducated. But lack of university education isn’t their problem. Their problem is that they live in a fantasy world.

That world was concocted by two implacable enemies of fact-based truth: evangelical Christianity and right wing mythology.

And when I use the words white underclass I’m not talking about wealth or poverty. Delusion is a state of mind, not an economic bracket. You can be a billionaire who went to Harvard and still be a member of the delusional white underclass. 

The white underclass has not just drunk the Cool Aid (as it were) of the so-called Alt-Right, it has deformed its collective brain with overlapping religious and political mythology to such an extent that it is now incapable of functioning in the actual real world. It is a tribe of losers because you can’t get ahead if you embrace unreality as truth.

The white underclass is living in an alternative reality.

They believe lies such as-

Guns make you safer…

The economy is in trouble…

Terrorists are a deadly threat to America…

Climate change isn’t real…

Crime is going up…

The economy is in trouble…

Noah’s Ark was real…

Hillary Clinton is a crook…

Donald Trump is a winner…

None of these things are true. Thirty million or so Americans believe they are. These folks aren’t evil. They are however insane– quite literally.

In the real and actual world:

Consumer confidence is near its highest level since the end of the recession.

The stock market is near all-time highs.

Wages are growing at the fastest pace of the recovery.

The unemployment rate is below 5% . Crime is down –way down.

The rate of violent crime is at a 45-year low.

As of 2014, the most recent year of national data from the FBI, during the Obama presidency violent crime is down 20.3 percent, for a rate of 365.5.

The decline in the murder rate is even more impressive. At 4.5, it’s the lowest since 1957, down 55 percent since its peak in 1980.

The teen birth rate in the U.S. is at a record low, dropping below 25 births per 1,000 teen females for the first time since the government began collecting consistent data.

Nonwhite and younger teens have led the way in declining birth rates in recent years. Since the most recent peak in 2007, the birth rate among all teens has dropped by 42%. The declines among Hispanic (50%), Asian or Pacific Islander (48%) and black (44%) teens have outpaced this national average, while the decline among white teens (36%) has been somewhat more modest. Birth rates among younger teens ages 15-17 have also fallen faster – dropping by 50%, compared with a 39% decline among older teens ages 18 and 19.

The mentally ill white underclass of Americans are choosing to arm themselves at a time when the FBI tells us violent crime and property crime have been falling dramatically for two decades.

Yet owning a gun has been linked to higher risks of homicide, suicide, and accidental death by gun. For every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home. 43 percent of homes with guns and kids have at least one unlocked firearm.

In one experiment, one third of 8-to-12-year-old boys who found a handgun pulled the trigger. In 2014, according to FBI data, nearly eight times more people were shot and killed in arguments than by civilians trying to stop a crime.

Even including the 9/11 attacks an American’s chance of being killed within the United States by a terrorist was about one in four million per year. For industrial accidents, it’s one in 53,000, homicides, one in 22,000, auto accidents, one in 8,200. Since 9/11, an American’s chance of being killed by an Islamist terrorist is about one in 40 million per year.

In white underclass La-La Land none of this good news can pierce the thick wall of Alt-Right Bible-based “End Times” fantasies and doom…

In “The Great Democratic Inversion” Thomas B. Edsall writes in the New York Times that “Three recent studies of the American electorate illuminate the upheaval in the two political parties: the first, published on Oct. 12 by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, the other two published Oct. 19 and Oct. 25 by the Public Religion Research Institute.”

The UVA-IASC survey highlighted the political and cultural gulf between upscale, predominately Democratic whites and downscale, predominately Republican whites.

The first group, “the Social Elite” in UVA-IASC’s terminology, is made up of whites with advanced degrees. They are 49 percent Democratic, 16.8 percent Republican. 87.5 percent say the Democratic Party represents their views very or fairly well, compared to zero percent who say the Republican Party represents them very well and 24.2 percent who say that it does so “fairly well.” They plan to vote for Clinton over Trump by 74.3 to 14.1 percent.

The second group, termed “the Disinherited” in the UVA-IASC survey, comprises religiously conservative whites without college degrees. Republicans outnumber Democrats 52.3 to 11.1, and 60.9 percent say the Republican Party represents their views very or fairly well. They plan to vote for Trump by 74.3 to 13.5 percent.

…More affluent and well-educated white voters have substantially different policy agendas from their less affluent and less well-educated fellow citizens.

First, the downscale whites.

Nearly half say they feel alienated from contemporary America (“a stranger in their own land”), that they have little or no power to change the course of events — 84.4 percent believe public officials do not care “what people like me think.” 83.5 percent agreed that “in general, Americans lived more moral and ethical lives 50 year ago.”

These voters are convinced (72.6 percent) that they can no longer get ahead in America through hard work, and that the government in Washington threatens the freedom of “ordinary Americans” (75.3 percent). In a nation where same-sex marriage has gained public acceptance and gays routinely appear in television and movies, 54.9 percent of these voters say their own “beliefs and values” are different from those of gays and lesbians, and 66.2 percent oppose requiring every state to permit same-sex marriages.

White evangelical Protestants have the bleakest view of all: “Nearly three-quarters (74%) say American culture has changed for the worse since the 1950s.”

The origins of this bleak evangelical view–a new anti-Americanism of the right–lie in the bitter social and cultural conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s my dad and I helped foment.

As long as the white underclass combines a belief in the Bible as “true” with the view that actual information is “rigged” and only alternative “information” be that about climate change, evolution or a “woman’s place” is reliable… no amount of job training will help.

The white underclass can’t be helped. They are prisoners of their own minds.

While most Americans head to college or a job, learn to use a new app or read a book, The Disinherited head to the Creation Museum or another gun show.

When floods rise and heat destroys they see God’s judgment or a foreshadowing of the End Times not a call to examine the science of human-caused environmental destruction. 

And these days the white underclass have been given a new voice by the world’s biggest Loser’s Loser. Call this a murder-suicide pact: Trump is murdering the last hope of a return to sanity for the white underclass, and they in turn are committing moral and intellectual suicide. A vote for Hillary Clinton is — therefore — a declaration that the rest of us aren’t willing to kill ourselves too. - Frank Schaeffer's Newsletter

Whew!....Comments?

From a Librarian in Virginia....

I find myself nodding in agreement as I read your "Aint It Awful" article.  

I fear we are looking at 4 more years of gridlock, no matter who wins.  I hope for the Establishment Republicans to grow a backbone and establish a new party.  I doubt that Paul Ryan makes it a second year as Speaker.  

From a Businessman in Tennessee...

I largely agree with the "Ain't It Awful" article. We need an honest assessment of the Trump phenomenon, and why he and his ridiculous views are so popular with the "white underclass". However, the article screams of an us versus them mentality:  smart, enlightened liberals against the ignorant conservatives. That mentality will only continue to alienate those in that "white underclass".  

Compromise and moderation are the way forward -- not continued division into us vs. them camps.

From an Educator in Tennessee....
Glenn, has anyone mentioned the book, Hillbilly Elegy, in any of the postings?  If not, I encourage you to read it.  You may know of it already.  (Yes, I know of it and find it enlightening and disturbing....)

The Reactionary Phenomenon

by Glenn N. Holliman

I have seen this before.  A charismatic talented speaker and media savvy politician with an extreme message steps to the stage when the culture or economy is under stress.  It was in Alabama, the state of my birth and high school years that when I was a teenager George C. Wallace, governor many times, flourished with his anger and message of division and rancor.

Times were changing in the 1960s.  World War II had ended and African-Americans, called Negroes at the time, had taken the results of the conflict seriously. This very large southern minority were demanding better schools, freedom to travel in the front of the bus and all the other opportunities we white people took for granted.  Wallace labeled some 'outside agitators' and often called out the Alabama Highway Patrol to enforce his racial segregation policies.

George C. Wallace of Alabama ran for president in 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976. An assassination attempt in 1972 severely paralyzed him for life. He died in 1998.

Wallace was on the wrong side of history as a quick glance at the racial make up of the University of Alabama football team attests.  I don't know which did more to desegregate the races in the South - Martin Luther King or Southeastern Conference Football.  That question is no joke.

Over time a generation died and racial tensions subsided, and an increased measure of civil liberties were made available for blacks.  Younger generations of white southerners emerged, more open to acknowledging societal wrongs, better educated and focused on business rather than the past.  The fact that blacks now had a court-enforced ability to vote was and is the telling force today.  The power of the buck and ballot eventually dulled much of the sharp edge of hate.

A racial divide of course continues.  No place more so than the southern Protestant church on Sunday morning. The Republican Party scooped up the young white professionals and their blue collar cousins.  The Democratic Party in the Deep South today is largely that of minorities and highly educated whites.

So where am I going with this?  Now I am aged 70, not 16, and once again a semi-demagogue has arisen to play on our nation's fears and to accentuate our regional, religious and cultural divisions.  I did not like it in 1963 and I don't like it in 2016.

During this election cycle as I have for decades, I struggle to understand the culture of my birth - the Deep South.  I can better understand the economic fears of today's rust belt communities of the Midwest. 

So in reading a book review in the October 24, 2016 issue of the New Yorker, I knew I found something.  Professor Mark Lilla of Columbia has written "The Shipwrecked Mind", a collection of essays on political and religious reaction, i.e, that part of the political spectrum most drawn to the promises of Donald Trump, most open to his assurances of nirvana that only he can bring.

Lilla defines reactionary as 'an organic response to political and social revolution, and the quite sensible fear that the shared common life of a people has been wrenched out of its cherished patterns."  In simple terms, a fear, an anxiety generated by cultural or social change.

In the 1960s in this nation, it was the assault on white racial mores and a never-ending violence in Southeast Asia.   In 2016, it is anxiety generated once again in this country by the arrival of immigrant groups who somewhat look, talk, worship and dress differently.  And the loss of an assured job in one of the nation's declining manufacturing and mining sectors.

Ask the Ohio middle aged male whose steel plant closed in the past year who he is voting for?  No question - he is supporting the person who promises he 'will fix' it and will reverse globalization and 'drain the swamp' in Washington where 'bad trade deals' are made. Never mind that automation or economies of scale have had a lot to do with the decrease of manufacturing employment in America.  Or that the service and technology sectors are the areas of job growth.

Wallace's slogan was 'Stand Up for America'.  Not 'Make America Great Again'.

Demagogues and their sound-alikes always have simple answers.  It is always 'they', the outsider, the enemy, a scape goat who are responsible, not the individual whose employment or cultural comfort is under assault.  Not the endless force of dynamic capitalism.

While I despise the demagogue, I do not 'deplore' those who respond to his cries and unrealistic promises.  In my advanced years, I have come to better understand how difficult it is for humans to deal with change and especially change one cannot control.  For the person with only one or virtually no marketable skill in a post-industrial economy, life is one of anxiety, of seeing most of America move forward economically, of feeling and actually being left behind.

As Lilla notes, the reactionary spirit arises from anxious groups because "to live a modern life anywhere in the world today, subject to perpetual social and technological changes, is to experience the psychological equivalent of permanent revolution."

In America we have geographical pockets of poverty and economic depression.  In America we have communities challenged by the influx of Hispanics or other immigrants.  In America as in the rest of the world, nihilistic terrorists, almost always young men, bring random and deadly destruction.  And since this nation's founding, the racial divide by color and history persists.  

Yet in America the unemployment rate is down to 5%, the historic norm in good times. The stock market is almost three times what it was in 2008.  Certain careers are crying out for trained personnel.  Certain towns, such as one of my youthful domiciles - Cookeville, Tennessee - are extremely economically healthy looking for workers.  Most of us are doing well, a few very, very well.

Those who are the most educated in America are doing the best economically and socially in dealing with the stress of constant change.  There is no question the more one understands the world - its history, its economic cycles - the more one can cope with the on-going cultural changes of a vibrant world.  And generally the more formal education one has, the more marketable skills one has.

In 1950, reports the November 2016 edition of Harpers, less than half of all adults had graduated from high school.  Today, almost 90%, yes, 90% are graduating!  

In 1950, even with the G.I. Bill, only 8% of the adult population had a college degree.  Today, that percentage is 36%!

Judging from these statistics, younger Americans are responding to the changing world by getting ready for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

The presidential polls note that the majority of college graduates in this county are not voting for Trump. Generally he is attracting non-college white males, those most aggrieved in a geographically spotty economy, in a service and technological economy, that continues to shed manufacturing jobs.

I suggest those responding most to the extravagant claims of the bombastic egotist are making a wrong decision in their lives. 

To those those who have not prospered in this 21st economy, if you are young stay in school, technical or professional.  Get several skills.  Your job in the 2020s may not be there in 2030.

If you are displaced career-wise and middle aged, go back to school.  Get that GED, a new technical skill, whatever.  Get a government grant to help you manage tuition.  Relocate if you have to.  Move, don't just sit there and moan.

To our elected officials, flood our pockets of poverty and underemployed with education and training programs for those who have lost their jobs to closing factories or mines. 

Offer an allowance for families to move to states and towns where there are jobs.  My ancestors uprooted themselves constantly seeking a better farm, a better job, and I have followed the same pattern.  

Change is a constant in a global, largely capitalistic economy.  No demagogue can stop change.  He may channel your despair and fears but he is offering wrong answers.  Bridges of understanding, not walls, better deal with cultural migrations. Unfortunately all too often in this nation and others, the angriest voice, rather than the coolest head, carries the day, at least temporarily.  We shall know more on November 8, 2016 in America.

Comments?