{"id":21291,"date":"2016-06-26T08:48:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-26T13:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21291"},"modified":"2016-06-26T08:48:02","modified_gmt":"2016-06-26T13:48:02","slug":"brexit-is-only-the-latest-proof-of-the-insularity-and-failure-of-western-establishment-institutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21291","title":{"rendered":"Brexit is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of Western Establishment Institutions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Brexit is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of Western Establishment Institutions<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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THE DECISION BY UK VOTERS\u00a0to leave the EU is such a glaring repudiation of the wisdom and relevance of elite political and media institutions\u00a0that\u00a0\u2013 for once \u2013\u00a0their\u00a0failures have become a prominent part\u00a0of the storyline.\u00a0Media reaction to the Brexit vote falls into two general categories: (1) earnest, candid attempts to understand what motivated voters to make this choice, even if that means indicting one\u2019s own establishment circles, and (2) petulant, self-serving, simple-minded attacks on disobedient pro-leave voters for being primitive, xenophobic bigots (and stupid to boot), all to evade any reckoning with their own responsibility. Virtually every reaction that falls into the former category emphasizes the profound failures of western establishment factions; these institutions have\u00a0spawned pervasive misery and inequality, only to spew\u00a0condescending scorn at their victims when they\u00a0object.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Times<\/em>\u2018 Vincent Bevins, in\u00a0an outstanding and concise analysis<\/a>, wrote that \u201cboth Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for thirty years\u201d; in particular, \u201csince the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt.\u201d The British journalist Tom Ewing, in\u00a0a comprehensive Brexit explanation<\/a>, said the same dynamic driving the UK vote\u00a0prevails in Europe and North America as well:\u00a0\u201cthe arrogance of neoliberal elites in constructing a politics designed to sideline and work around democracy while leaving democracy formally intact.\u201d<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brexit is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of Western Establishment Institutions THE DECISION BY UK VOTERS\u00a0to leave the EU is such a glaring repudiation of the wisdom and relevance of elite political and media institutions\u00a0that\u00a0\u2013 for once \u2013\u00a0their\u00a0failures have become a prominent part\u00a0of the storyline.\u00a0Media reaction to the Brexit vote falls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[5582,279,284,5437,5567],"class_list":["post-21291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-brexit","tag-eu","tag-european-union","tag-glenn-greenwald","tag-the-intercept"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21292,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21291\/revisions\/21292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}