Sunday, June 12, 2016

The US presidential contest; Brexit

[This is the latest post in my Google+ Collection, Social and Political Reflections.]



A couple of things I am following at the moment are the US presidential election process, and the UK referendum on membership of the EU.

I see Hillary Clinton as morally compromised and dangerous both to America and the world. I tend to agree with something Marc Faber said some months ago: Trump may destroy America, but Clinton will destroy the world. Actually, I think you could say America is already well past the point of no return. I am thinking of debt (especially sovereign debt but also consumer debt), the precariousness of the dollar, and demographic and cultural changes. Certainly the old Protestant values of thrift, hard work and self-reliance on which the country was built are rapidly disappearing.

My analysis of Donald Trump is very much in line with Scott Adams' analysis: Trump is a master communicator and he will probably win the presidential election.

I'm am also watching the UK referendum closely. When Boris Johnson first announced his decision to support the Leave campaign, I thought it would be enough to swing it. As I said then, it has been clear for a long time (if not from the very beginning) that the EU was all about a federal Europe. People were deliberately misled on this, but now there is no excuse: anyone with half a brain knows that continuing membership would entail a progressive loss of national sovereignty. Some, wary of nationalism, think this is a good thing. But I would say nationalism can be a positive force, and that it has a role to play in maintaining social cohesion within (if not between) the countries of Europe. God knows, most of the other cultural (especially religious) traditions which tied people together in benign and productive ways are dead or fading fast.

To my mind NATO (and American interventionism generally) is a far greater danger to peace than patriotic feelings.

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