Brexit and The News Five months ago, I posted “The End Of Europe.” We are not quite there yet. The U.K. voting itself out of the E.U. (the Brexit vote) took us closer. We could talk about what comes next. We could talk about the financial implications, the social implications. We could talk about what it foreshadows for the American Presidential elections. Those are all interesting subjects. Those are all being talked about by lots of other people.Lets talk about what Brexit showed us about our American news sources.
NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC were all surprised and shocked. The New York Times had the “Remain” camp with an 80 percent chance of winning on the day of the vote. They did not see it coming. How is that possible? Bookies in the U.K. had the information. That means that the facts were there, but they were overlooked. We could try to guess the reasons for this bad investigative reporting. Instead, we should just add a large grain of salt to the so-called information that comes from these sources.
Most of the talking heads immediately began calling the Brexit voters xenophobic, racist and ignorant of the turmoil they have caused. Those pundits have revealed to us that they are globalists. They believe that a few “smart” people in a central location know what is good for us. The only way they can process the rejection is to paint those who disagree in a negative light. They are only in favor of democracy if it supports their beliefs. Democracy requires sovereignty. Reject that, and you reject democracy itself.
There was a huge imbalance of Stay propaganda compared to Remain propaganda in the U.K. The fear among American Democrats is that our citizens will also reject the propaganda that we call news. They have groomed us to accept sources that hide the truth. They have become more invested in proving the “other side” is wrong rather than reporting all the facts. It seems like the U.S. is engaged in a giant court battle of “You’re Wrong vs No You’re Wrong.”
Here are a few facts about the E.U. that Americans rarely see. It began in 1951 as the European Coal and Steel Community. Six nations tried to heal the wounded relations caused by World War II through duty-free trade. The Treaty of Rome created the European Economic Community, or Common Market in 1957. President Charles de Gaulle of France vetoed Britain’s application in 1963 and in 1967. Britain finally joined in 1973. That explains some of Britain’s feelings toward the E.U.
Most Americans don’t have a good picture of who actually voted on Brexit. British citizens 18 and older, citizens abroad who have been registered to vote at home in the last 15 years and residents of Britain who are citizens of Ireland or of the Commonwealth, which consists of 53 countries, including Australia, Canada, India and South Africa. The information about who voted runs contrary to the US talking heads that give us a picture of racist, white factory workers rising up against the more educated Europeans.
There are lots of instructive parallels in Europe for us, but the flow of “information” is eye-opening. Every day, we should force ourselves to listen to news sources that disagree with our feelings. Maybe we should tone down the Democrats vs Republicans and be a bit open to reality.















