The demagogic leaders of Brexit did not have, and still do not have, economic remedies for the voters to whom they appealed. Trump is not an outlier of Republican politics; he is the explicit, uncivil, unvarnished expression of mainstream Republican politics of the last 35 years. Carlo Allegri / ReutersWhenever political power is exercised in a way that results in sustained, widespread economic suffering for large numbers of people, demagogues will arise, like flies around turd, to exploit that suffering, in order to gain political power, often outsized political power, for themselves. As in Germany in the 1930s; as in the Republican primaries here this season; and as in the Brexit vote. Sanders attempted to appeal to the same economic dislocations as Trump, but with rational, targeted policy remedies instead of bigotry.

Source: Huffington Post June 27, 2016 17:37 UTC