There are supposedly jobs that Americans won’t do, and now there are, apparently, jobs that British won’t do. In the latter case, according to the UK’s Minister of State and Commonwealth, Sir Alan Duncan, it is the Europeans who were blamed for taking work from native English. The result was, in his view, Brexit. Duncan called it a “tantrumâ€Â last week.
You could feel in the last 10 days of the campaign, traditional blue-collar urban Labour opinion going viral for leave. They were stirred up by an image of immigration, which made them angry and throw a bit of a tantrum. That was part of the chemistry that explains the result.
There is very little sympathy for the plight of workers pretty much anywhere, but especially in the US and Europe. Economists have convinced the so-called elite political class that each economy is working and therefore it is the workers within them who are themselves the cause of growing, deepening disaffection.
In the United States, the Associated Press and the University of Chicago polled Americans last month and found once more rising negativity. Just 24% surveyed thought the country was headed on the right track. That was down from 34% in June, and as much as 37% in March when tax cuts, walls, and general political difference was the incoming administration’s order.
Many will see the latter result as an issue specifically of President Trump, but this goes so much further back in time. If people are turning on the President, it’s because he hasn’t come close to living up to his promises. People are angry because they have reason to be, though that reason runs counter to the mainstream narrative being set by Economists.
From a political or “elite†standpoint, this disconnect is somewhat understandable if entirely unsympathetic. It’s not just that Economists claim there is little or nothing wrong with the economy, even those who otherwise relate to the struggle of workers fail to identify and explain the reason for that struggle.
