equated with each other.
In the USA, similarly, a whole bracket of
white-middle class Americans were hurt by
2008, and consequently turned against
minority groups, or turned against the
Establishment. The rise of Anti-
Establishmentism can be exemplified by the
introduction of the Bitcoin in 2009, which had
the purpose of eliminating the role of the
third party central bank in financial
transactions. In 2016, two of the three major
players in the US election were figures of
these two populisms, from both the left and
the right. Bernie Sanders’ pledges for a $15
minimum wage and the dismantling of Wall
Street hegemony were representative of the
significant increase in popularity of socialism,
as a result of the financial turmoil and
dishonesty by the banks. Donald Trump was
the champion for the MARs (middle American
radicals) and all other white ‘left-behinds’,
who used the logic of populism to turn
against the establishment by targeting
minority groups: immigrants, Muslims,
Mexicans. With Hillary Clinton seeming to
most of the world's liberals as the most
probable candidate, the American public and
the wider Western world initially took Trump
and Sanders for jokes. Their successful
campaigns were illustrative of the significant
turn against the neoliberal consensus, and a
push for more radical politics as a result of the
looming dissatisfaction caused by ‘08.
Parallels can therefore be drawn between
the votes for Brexit and Trump. Both were
motivated by a widespread feeling of
discontent with the incumbent neoliberalism,
and in both cases, this feeling of discontent
was underestimated. Both votes were shocks
to the world, because an assumption was
made on all sides of voters, that the white
populist demographic was insignificant in
comparison to the reigning cosmopolitan
liberals, who triumphed their political
correctness all over social media. This
assumption, caused by the blind eye turned
against the divisions in Western society, made
these electorate decisions more of a wake-up
call for the liberals. The ‘left-behinds’ were
looking for a way back to a time before
globalisation exported ‘their’ jobs to other
countries, and filled their own countries with,
in many cases, non-English speaking nationals.
The neoliberal model had failed them. Now,
with a Trump presidency and a British
departure from the EU, the end of this model
is impending.
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