A decade on, why it could be game over for Donald Trump, Brexit and the populist revolution
Many American voters are deeply unhappy with Donald Trump, while in the UK the prospect of rejoining the European Union is growing
In 2016, a wave of anti-establishment populism swept the globe, with the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump as US president the two highest profile examples. To an extent, both could be seen as a backlash against the hard times that followed the 2008 financial crash.
A decade on, following the Covid pandemic and Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the fortunes of many are not that much better. However, there is a sense that public opinion is turning against populism.
In Tuesday’s US midterm elections, the Democrats pulled off a victory of historic proportions largely because of widespread discontent with Trump, whose arrogant attempts to blame his fellow Republicans will likely make him even more unpopular. Moderate Republicans like Susan Collins, a Maine Senator for nearly 30 years, did not deserve to lose.
Trump’s bombastic showmanship
The Democrats’ margin of victory looked set to break the House midterm record of 8.7 million votes – set in 1974 after the Watergate scandal forced President Richard Nixon’s resignation. Clearly, the current White House incumbent is not going anywhere anytime soon, but Republicans must now consider how to reshape their party for life after Trump.
It is perhaps no coincidence that, just as America is wising up to the emptiness of Trump’s politics, his economic illiteracy and the bombastic showmanship used to try to hide it, politicians in the UK are starting to talk seriously about moving closer to the European Union and, at some point, rejoining.
The UK’s Brexit adventure has singularly failed to lead us to the promised land, while the barriers to trade it has erected continue to act as a monumental drag on the economy.
Before the 2016 referendum, expert warnings about such real-world damage may have seemed theoretical. But now we have ‘lived experience’, as they say, it’s not hard to see that Brexit is holding the country back, depressing wages and contributing to the cost-of-living crisis.
Populism was never a solution to our problems, it only makes them worse. Mainstream politicians may not be as exciting as Trump and co, but they remain by far our best bet for a return to happier times.
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