LaDawn Fletcher
The British currency is crashing today as it begins to implement the separation from the European Union (EU). With the presidential election less than a month away, many pundits, columnists and economists are revisiting similarities between the Trump campaign and the ultimately successful Brexit campaign.
The Sydney Morning Herald says the two campaigns have the following in common:
- Never underestimate the power of a good slogan
- Facts don't matter
- Polls can be wrong and often are
- The most important voters are invisible
- The only thing to fear is fear itself
The Austrailian paper is not the only publication to suggest there is something to be learned from the suprising vote in Britain.
Last month, in a column for the Washington Post by Nigel Farage, a UKIP member of the European Parliament for the southeast of England, lauded the similarities between Brexit and the Trump campaign.
"The greatest parallel between the Brexit vote and to what may happen on Nov. 8 is that Brexit mobilized a large number of non-voters — indeed, some people who had never voted in their lives. That was what secured the victory," says Farage. "The people I met at the Trump rally mainly fell into the same category. And if the Trump campaign can turn out large numbers of these people, then all of the opinion pollsters and commentators could be proven wrong."
If you believe the two campaigns are similar, you may be alarmed at the news coming out of Europe today in response to Brexit and recent comments made by British Prime Minister Theresa May. The Sydney Herald has some thoughts that may comfort you.
So not to leave you utterly depressed, here are a couple of comforting points.
- In both the Brexit and Scottish referenda, the side with the most legacy media support won the day.
- Hillary Clinton has several qualities that David Cameron lacked.
- None of the major Brexit proponents, not even Boris Johnson, had been recorded boasting about grabbing women's undercarriage.
Read the entire Sydney Morning Herald article here.
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Featured image, Flickr, CC-4.0*
