Brexit, Lies and America,
by Andrew Tobias,
June 24, 2016

First of all: ugh.

You have to love this headline: The British Are Frantically Googling What The E.U. Is, Hours After Voting To Leave It.

So maybe, once they see what they’ve done, there will be another, better informed referendum, overturning the first.

But maybe not.

So . . . ugh.

As a 27-year-old British friend texted this morning (bleeped to protect your sensibilities):

“I’m livid. The vote was carried by a load of baby boomers who are secure in their pensions and it doesn’t really matter a flying f— to, other than they want to regain nostalgic feelings of 50-year-ago Briton viewed thru rose-tinted backwards looking spectacles.

“There were so little facts in this referendum, it’s invalid. Democracy only works if the electorate can make an informed decision on their best interests based on the facts. If they’re fed a load of crap and vote as a result, it’s not democracy, it’s fraud!

“Never again will I hold a slightly smug sense of superiority when we talk about American partisan politics. Turns out we’re all f –d. Led by the lowest common denominator and peddled to with misinformation and barefaced lies and controlled by an unaccountable media.

“I think I’ve aged a decade this morning and firmly arrived as a grumpy, cynical man.

“I watched a “leave” voter on the BBC this morning say she thought it was outrageous that Scotland were calling for another independence referendum and that this was a time for unity!!”

Turning to America, Texas Governor George W. Bush proclaimed, preposterously, that “by far the vast majority” of his proposed tax cuts would go to people “at the bottom of the economic ladder” and promised “a humble foreign policy” even as he was planning to invade Iraq. It’s hard to overstate how much harm his presidency did. But the second time, he even got a majority of the vote — with 70% of his voters believing, erroneously, that Iraq had played a role in the 9/11 attack.

And now Trump is promising ridiculous things — he’s going to bring millions of $1-an-hour jobs back from China? And somehow make their employers pay a good wage even though he opposes the minimum wage? And force consumers around the world to buy products made here with $20-an-hour labor instead of the same products made in China with $1-an-hour labor? Even though, as a businessman, he sources his own products from overseas? And this is all just going to magically happen because he’ll bring back torture and defeat ISIS in a matter of weeks and is the king of debt and will build a beautiful wall?

Trump’s main focus will be destroying his opponent. He will say anything that pops into his head — or even say outrageous things in prepared remarks. (E.g., she was “sleeping” during the Benghazi crisis. Challenged for proof, he explained to NBC News’ Lester Holt that she might have been sleeping — “how do you know she wasn’t?” — and that was, to his mind, basis enough for the charge.)

Andrew Tobias