The United States is not the United Kingdom. Donald Trump is not Boris Johnson. Bernie Sanders is not Jeremy Corbyn. The Republican Party is not the Conservative Party. The Democratic Party is not the Labour Party.
Nonetheless, the key issues that shaped yesterday's election in Great Britain were nationalism, racism, and socialism. And the candidate with the platform embracing a nationalist economic policy, racist immigration politics, and anti-socialist rhetoric won, and won by a margin not seen since 1987, 32 years ago.
Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party squashed the Labour Party as explained by The Guardian:
The biggest loser of 2019 is Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour. The party’s 203 seats is its lowest total since 1935. In 18 years, Labour has lost more than 50% of the seats it won in 2001. The Tories swept through constituencies in the Midlands and the north of England that Labour has rarely lost in its history: seats like Bishop Auckland, Great Grimsby and Workington. But the losses were nationwide. In Wales, Wrexham now has its first Conservative MP since the first world war. In Scotland, Labour lost six of its seven seats. In the south, it lost Ipswich and Stroud. After nine years of divisive and troubled Tory rule, Labour could manage only one solitary gain anywhere in the UK.
This abject performance reflects [a] lack of belief in some of Labour’s manifesto pledges, and divisions over Brexit. But the election was not lost during the campaign. At its roots lie what has become an increasingly unstable alliance of Labour’s left and centre, ... its middle-class and working-class bases. In the 1980s, 80% of Labour voters were manual workers and their families. Today, that figure is around 40%. Mr Corbyn has shown himself unwilling and incapable of unifying that volatile coalition.
This abject performance reflects [a] lack of belief in some of Labour’s manifesto pledges, and divisions over Brexit. But the election was not lost during the campaign. At its roots lie what has become an increasingly unstable alliance of Labour’s left and centre, ... its middle-class and working-class bases. In the 1980s, 80% of Labour voters were manual workers and their families. Today, that figure is around 40%. Mr Corbyn has shown himself unwilling and incapable of unifying that volatile coalition.
If any of this information sounds at all familiar to Democrats, they should also be aware that Johnson is 55 years old, Corbyn is 70.
Finally, with regard to Millennials and Gen Z one should carefully consider this response to the election from 30-year-old Maya Goodfellow, British journalist and author of Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats:
When the result of an election will mean bad things for so many, there’s no putting a gloss on it. There is no real celebration in loss, but it means resistance is necessary. And it’ll be young people at the forefront of that. The evidence we have suggests there’s a big generational divide. ... The engine of the Labour party campaign was young people, flanked as ever by their older counterparts. They were out in the streets this election, enthusiastically advocating for public ownership, a green new deal, social housing and a fundamental rewiring of how our deeply unequal economy functions. Whatever happens next, one thing is sure: sustaining and building that movement will be essential.
Brexit has often been talked about as fundamental to the future of this country – how do we want our relationships with the EU to look, and what kind of country do we want to live in. But what has so often been eclipsed is the life-chances of millions of children in the UK that will continue to be made worse in myriad ways by Conservative policies. Minute-by-minute dissections of Brexit will continue even as child poverty continues to rise, inequality grows and the climate crisis worsens. Based on recent history and the sharp rightward turn of the Conservative party under Johnson’s leadership, superficial change and meaningless soundbites are all that is likely in response.
Still, there are people all around us who will resist the oncoming onslaught. A few months ago, standing in the middle of Westminster, I was surrounded by some of the people who will be part of that change. Thousands upon thousands of 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds led the way protesting against the lack of action to fight the climate crisis. Cutting through the noise of UK politics to pinpoint this is the most pressing issue young people face. That is the future – one that can’t come soon enough.
Brexit has often been talked about as fundamental to the future of this country – how do we want our relationships with the EU to look, and what kind of country do we want to live in. But what has so often been eclipsed is the life-chances of millions of children in the UK that will continue to be made worse in myriad ways by Conservative policies. Minute-by-minute dissections of Brexit will continue even as child poverty continues to rise, inequality grows and the climate crisis worsens. Based on recent history and the sharp rightward turn of the Conservative party under Johnson’s leadership, superficial change and meaningless soundbites are all that is likely in response.
Still, there are people all around us who will resist the oncoming onslaught. A few months ago, standing in the middle of Westminster, I was surrounded by some of the people who will be part of that change. Thousands upon thousands of 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds led the way protesting against the lack of action to fight the climate crisis. Cutting through the noise of UK politics to pinpoint this is the most pressing issue young people face. That is the future – one that can’t come soon enough.
As Goodfellow notes, the climate crisis is the issue that rises above all others for Millennial generation and Gen Z. The climate crisis threatens the continuation of The Industrial Age still ongoing in the Third World and The Information Age critical to the First World and thereby world's economic future. In that context, Johnson, Trump, and other aging world leaders appear to be on a course to become the Neville Chamberlain's of this time, refusing to face down an obvious threat to the survival of civilization because it would end the status quo requiring sacrifices unacceptable to the general public.
What is frustrating to this old guy is Goodfellow's admiring description of what was the young people's campaign "enthusiastically advocating for public ownership, a green new deal, social housing and a fundamental rewiring of how our deeply unequal economy functions." I'm sorry kids but there will always be relative poverty. No civilization existing today has eliminated it.
And yet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and friends somehow managed to hijack a nearly two-decade-old climate crisis oriented program for purposes of advocating controversial egalitarian ideals.
The United States is not the United Kingdom. Donald Trump is not Boris Johnson. Bernie Sanders is not Jeremy Corbyn. The Republican Party is not the Conservative Party. The Democratic Party is not the Labour Party. And yet, the American political system seems to a ambling down a road that leads to a similar result.
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