The economic philosophy of the libertarians, as UKIP has long understood, does not win elections. Ordinary voters are not interested in economic arguments. They are even less impressed with men in suits who remind them too much of “the establishment.” Successful libertarian parties quickly adopt populist arguments; they single out scapegoats, they manufacture fake narratives, and they offer easy and deceitful answers to complex problems. This was precisely what UKIP and the Leave campaign did during the Brexit referendum campaign – and they won.
The Road to Hell
In this broken democracy – which is no democracy at all – seats are won and power secured in a loop; the media manufactures fears and blames powerless, invariably foreign, scapegoats and the careerists bang the drum of security and ethno-nationalism. This is the state of politics in the United Kingdom today. It is much the same across Europe and even more so over the Atlantic in the United States. Democracy in any meaningful sense has died and we are right now in the rapid descent into the abyss of totalitarianism and fascism – both coming a-creeping like saviours.
Bleakest Forecast
Russia’s big bite has thus far been a dazzling success. In the Trump election we see that Putin has most likely purchased for himself the highest prize in international politics – the US president. US influence over the UK and the success of its cyber war in Britain and the effect of its dark money programme during the Brexit referendum has delivered for Russia a heavy blow to European unity, creating at least the possibility of an exploitable weakness. It is unimaginable Putin would not push the EU door if it failed to offer much resistance. Power – after all – abhors a vacuum.
Nicola Sturgeon won’t be Meeting Trump
When “the most powerful man in the world” is routinely snubbed, laughed at, and dismissed by leaders of small nations the likes of Scotland, there can be no argument the US’ soft power – the only power the US can really use when dealing with friends and allies – has taken a serious hit. If Donald were a mafia don this treatment is il bacio della morte – the kiss of death, the sign by which a member of the family has been marked for assassinio. For the purposes of international relations, the man Donald Trump sleeps with the fishes and everyone knows it.
Brexit and the Bigger Picture
In doing just this the people behind Brexit in the UK and the election of Trump in the US have successfully gamed the system, convincing us – the electorate – to give them exactly what they want – power. Yet, this is hardly a coup de monde. Where’s the network of conspirators, the common purpose, and the seeds hidden in the reveal? Big Data is a tool available to everyone who can afford to employ it, and therefore it’s reasonable to imagine the Brexit Leave campaign and Trump’s campaign team used it independently of one another.
Hostile Environment
Trumpism is only the latest phase in a global shift to the right; a shift that has seen public opinion manipulated by a right-wing corporate press, and governments across the world use this manufactured consent to impose ever more draconian measures on people fleeing from poverty and conflicts invariably caused by the developed world’s liberal interventionalism. In many respects this shift has been progressing much like the proverbial boiling frog. Provided the temperature is rising slowly enough, the unfortunate amphibian is never aware that it is being cooked alive.
Fascism Doesn’t Start with Concentration Camps
Scottish and Welsh nationalists are presented to the wider British public as positions synonymous with British and white nationalism with all their racial supremacist overtones.
Why Scottish Independence can destroy Trumpism
This would be the absolute economic vindication of Trumpism, flooding the US economy with extra cash and jobs – and doubtlessly securing him a second term and a place in the history books of American expansionism.
Random Public Journal 