Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/767061
maltatoday, SATURDAY, 24 DECEMBER 2016 2 2016: Looking back THERE was a sense of déjà vu to waking up to Donald Trump's victory on November 9th. It was exactly the same feeling to which we woke up to Brexit in June. For me, it felt like hav- ing a big chunk of everyday normality brutally but democratically sliced away. For despite any reservations on has on the state of the Eu- ropean Union and Hillary Clinton's expired brand of 'third way' politics, waking up to the reality of bigots celebrating their victories was not just demoralising but a clear sign that what was considered outrageous just a few years ago is now becoming the new normal. Sure enough the similarities in the dynamics leading to the election of Donald Trump in the USA and Brexit are impressive. Both were the result of popular support among a category of white and less educated voters living in mar- ginalised run down industrial areas with low immigration numbers. For support for both Trump and leaving the EU was far lower in urban areas – inhabited by more educated voters, including many work- ing class voters in urban centres like Man- chester, Liverpool, London, New York and Los Angeles – who are far more exposed to immigration and multiculturalism than voters in Ohio and Lincolnshire. In a clear sign that voters were driven by the fear of immigration rather than immigration itself London, which absorbed 133,000 of the 330,000 net arrivals in 2015, voted the most strongly for remain. Manchester also voted for remain – and at 13,554 had nearly double the level of net migration seen in Birmingham, which voted leave. The white working class myth Clearly the "white working class" myth per- petuated by a lazy media in the wake of Brexit and the election of Trump, ignores the fact that multiculturalism is not an experiment concocted by social engineers in a remote lab but a living reality composed of millions of working class and middle class communi- ties living in metropolitan centres. While in regions where Trump and Nigel Farage tri- umphed people's perception of migrants was shaped by the right wing tabloids, in regions hostile to both, people's perception of mi- grants was formed by real everyday life. Moreover Brexit and Trump's triumph were the result of generational divide; an imposition made by older voters who largely supported Brexit and Trump on younger voters who largely supported Remain and Clinton. The question is whether this can be blamed on a dying breed or on voters becoming more con- servative and insular, as they grow old. In an ageing society this divide between young and old becomes even more crucial. In different contexts young educated women are emerging as the strongest bastion against the hard right. In Austria while far right Hofer won by 54%, 62% of female voters rejected him. Ultimately the suggestion that women, minorities, the young and the educated people are not working class enough suggests a cul- tural racism, which relegates and restricts the working class to a bunch of despicables who (alongside the majority rich conservative vot- ers) voted for a bigot who openly flaunted his racism and glorified ignorance and thrived in a culture of anti intellectualism. When the polls got it wrong The drama surrounding both events was also amplified by an aura of surprise as both were to some extent unforeseen by the polls. While this was the case in the UK where polls showed a tight race in which the yes had a lead, polls correctly predicted Clinton winning the popular vote by two million votes. Surely both events can be attributed to a higher turnout in areas supporting Trump and Brexit and a lower turnout in areas where a majority of voters rejected them. In many ways both events can be blamed on freak re- sults rather than an inevitable pattern; just a couple of thousand votes for Clinton in a cou- ple of states would have pushed the race away from Trump… and a higher turnout among the young would have kept Britain in the EU. Yet the result may also be attributed to the failure of Clinton in the US and Cameron and Corbyn in the UK to motivate remain voters. A power grab by an unscrupulous elite? Finally both Brexit and Trump's election have been depicted as a rebellion against the establishment. Yet Trump's 17 cabinet-level picks have more wealth than one-third of US households combined – 43 million house- holds. Wilbur Ross, Trump's nominee for commerce secretary, amassed a fortune of $2.5 billion through decades at the helm of Rothschild's bankruptcy practice and his own investment firm, according to Forbes. Nothing could have been more evocative of the brave new world than the picture of Farage with US President-elect Donald Trump in a gold-plat- ed lift inside Trump Tower in New York. This does not come as a surprise. The mis- take would be to overwrite this as a sort of betrayal of the aspiration of voters who voted Trump to power. In reality the so-called work- ing class voters who elected him may them- selves admire Trump for being himself, the rich successful man who plays according to his own rules. Take Brexit. It was actively backed by Ru- pert Murdoch's media empire – whose un- scrupulous newspapers have always backed the Tories (except for a short love affair with Tony Blair's New Labour). What Murdoch's newspapers and Trump's pre-election rants did was something which conservatives have always done, stoke anti immigration hysteria to serve as a smokescreen for a power grab by old or new elites. When taken to an extreme, such scaremongering ends up boosting the far right. What is happening in the US now looks more like power grab by the unshackled su- per rich than a peasant rebellion. Not only has it elevated a property tycoon with a long history of tax avoidance to the presidency fol- lowing a divisive campaign in which he stoked the flames of bigotry and sexism, but the new President has proceeded to appoint Wayne Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon as his secretary of state, and Scott Pruitt, attorney general of the oil and gas-intensive state of Oklahoma, to head the Environmental Pro- tection Agency. Pruitt has spent much of his energy as attorney general fighting the very agency he is being nominated to lead. Farage may be out of the picture, having re- signed from his party basking in the glory of victory, but his victory has boosted the Tory Party's hold on British society. Freed from the shackles of Europe, post Brexit Britain may well gravitate towards a more authoritarian Asian model of capitalism. For it is extremely unlikely that the EU will reward Britain by granting it access to the single market while renouncing free movement. This may well push the UK to a race to the bottom when it comes to regulation, in a bid to boost its dull post Brexit fortunes. Hardly revolutionary stuff. Both Trump and Brexit have simply followed a long tried and tested script; that of reactionary elites win- ning support among the lower class by ap- pealing to the lowest denominator of racism and bigotry. We often tend to forget that both Hitler and Mussolini were actively backed by capitalists and landowners. Farage's breaking point poster – depicting a line of desperate refugees trying to reach Europe – epitomized the climate of fear which propelled Brexit and Trump in communities which have taken the brunt of globalization and the decrease in pub- lic spending. Notable prior exchanges between the two folk hereos consisted in Trump reportedly Brexit, Trump and What can be a more fitting picture for the new normality which seems to have taken both sides of the Atlantic by surprise than the picture of US President-elect Donald Trump and ex UKIP leader Nigel Farage smiling in a gold plated elevator in Trump tower? White and right: the Trump voter base JAMES DEBONO DEBONO