The growing anti-establishment backlash on both sides of the Atlantic may not swing November’s election, but the world has fundamentally changed.
This piece was created in collaboration with Chatham House. The views expressed are the authors' own.
The British vote to leave the European Union is and should be seen as a wakeup call for political elites on both sides of the Atlantic. Under normal circumstances, the institutional support that crossed party lines backing the Remain campaign should have ensured it a comfortable victory; instead, it lost by a not-insignificant 52 percent to 48 percent margin. Similarly, Donald Trump has alienated the establishments of both American parties. While Democratic dislike is predictable, the extent of the Republican elite’s discomfort with Trump, clearly on display at the party’s convention in Cleveland last week, is extremely unusual at this point in an election campaign, by which time we typically see a rally around the candidate. But as Brexit demonstrated, the conventional logic may not apply in 2016.
There are significant differences between the UK referendum and the U.S. elections. Some of this is structural -- a national referendum operates along very different lines than a U.S. presidential election, after all, and the U.S. electorate is much larger and more diverse than its British equivalent. Furthermore, American voters will be choosing between individuals as well as ideas. This does not necessarily work to the advantage of either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton (both of whom have the highest unfavorability ratings for presidential candidates seen in decades), but highly individualized questions of personality and temperament will impact voter behavior in a way that they did not for British referendum voters. Finally, who wins the U.S. election will depend in very large part on state politics and electoral college math: As the 2000 election showed, the candidate who wins the popular vote does not necessarily end up as president.
But there is a far more important message that politicians in the United States, United Kingdom, and more broadly, Europe, should take away from the Brexit result. Regardless of what happens in the U.S. elections, elites no longer necessarily hold the preponderance of power. The disenfranchised who have historically lacked either the sufficient mass or the coherence to communicate it now do -- at least on occasion.
This is not an ideological split -- Brexit voters came together from all parts of the political spectrum. Equally, in the United States, Trump voters as well as those who supported Bernie Sanders are bucking the system in both the Democratic and Republican parties.
There is a significant backlash under way in both countries toward aspects of globalization, and it goes beyond the traditional right-left divide. Allowing for some differences in specifics, the American and British political establishments have, over the past few decades, broadly eased restrictions on the free movement of capital, goods, and people across national borders. Notable benefits associated with this approach have for the most part been inclusively distributed, but the costs have typically hit those who were already less advantaged and who lack the opportunities or skills to mitigate those negative effects. Those who have been left out or left behind from these changes are discovering their own political power.
Politicians are going to have to find ways not just to appeal to those voters who feel disenfranchised by existing structures, but also to address their legitimate concerns. There will of course be partisan policy solutions put forward, but political leaders are going to have to bridge party lines to solve social and economic inequalities. Ignoring them, as many have in the past, is increasingly a quick path to losing power.
Unless the world wants to turn back to more isolationist and protectionist times, with the slower growth and inequalities that those include, politicians are also going to have to do a better job of explaining the benefits of globalization. And, more importantly, they will have to ensure that these benefits reach their population more equitably and that the costs are better mitigated.
So the Brexit vote does not necessarily presage a Trump victory on November 8, but it shows in stark terms that the world has fundamentally changed. The time when elites alone could call the shots is gone. Politicians, including Hillary Clinton, will need to respond proactively to the causes of the dissatisfaction rather than waiting until the next time they need the public’s vote.
