Does “Brexit” Give Possibility to Trump?

e presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at first said he didn’t know much about Brexit to have an opinion, but when the United Kingdom voted to separate from the European Union, he immediately scaled the crest of the wave to applaud passage of the referendum and tried to find parallels with his quest to win the White House.

“The people have taken their country back… and want their border back,” Trump affirmed.

It doesn’t matter that the tycoon failed to recognize a distinction, because although England and Wales voted to leave, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted against it. Even so, Trump, who was inaugurating one of his golf courses in Scotland, tweeted as if all of the United Kingdom had voted in favor, and provoked, as always, a storm of commentary on social media.

In the news, whoever voted in favor of abandoning the European Union showed a common denominator among the causes for their decision: a discomfort with immigration and politics about refugees, discomfort with the economy, and a nationalistic sentiment that was exploited by proponents of the separation. This nationalistic sentiment, taken to extremist levels, even claimed the life of Labour MP Jo Cox at the hand of an extreme right wing fanatic, who screamed “Britain First” during the attack.

This past Friday, the consequences of the vote began to show: British Prime Minister David Cameron resigned, the stock markets were hit, and entering the weekend, the British people themselves began to collect signatures to conduct another referendum.

The consequences of Brexit are profound on all levels: economic, humanitarian, military, and security-wise at a time when the entire world is engaged in a fight against terrorism.

The process and details of the Brexit vote, and the U.S. presidential election are very different. But what is similar is that both campaigns have exploited anxiety, fear and xenophobia to advance their causes, mixed with a dangerous nativism and isolationism that is inappropriate for 21st century globalization.

Whomever supports Brexit there and those who support Trump here tend to be less educated younger people, whose employment and lives have been affected precisely by the global economy and the trade deals. Hence the resentment is external, and that includes immigrants and refugees. Other factors to consider are the simple elements of racism that exist, deeply rooted and independent of the state of the economy, and which we saw in the leader of Brexit, Nigel Farage, or see in Trump, the justification for his xenophobia.

Another common denominator is that they vote in high numbers.

Various Republican figures linked with the elite of the Republican Party have denounced Trump. Many have refused to support him; others have announced that they will not attend the Republican Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, or have changed affiliation, such as the conservative commentator George Will, who has declared that the party of Trump “is not my party.” or the Or the Republican strategist Lionel Sosa, who has said that if Trump is elected, he will say goodbye to the Republican Party “until it comes to its senses.” Republican Sosa said this about Trump: “In place of compassionate conservatism, our nominee promotes callousness, extremism and racism.”

Last Friday, President Barack Obama, without mentioning Trump, reminded the country, “we don’t have time for bigotry and we don’t have time for flim-flam.”

Very true. But don’t underestimate the signals, don’t discount a section of the population, and don’t assume that reason and sanity will prevail, because Brexit showed that anything is possible.