At the end of 2016, after the US presidential election, we heard a lot about Trump and Brexit being linked by a sort of collective anger and frustration expressed at the establishment. Nigel Farage said they were the start of a global revolution and made a lot of his own personal connection to Trump. Now the new book by Michael Wolff, released today in America (HERE) but widely trailed in the past few days reveals what we all knew. Trump is just an idiot, a moron and a fool - that is according to those who had to deal with him.
What the American public will make of the revelation that nobody in The Whitehouse, not advisors, staff members or confidants, think he is remotely capable of doing his job and all inside a totally dysfunctional, ridiculous and farcical administration, is anybody's guess. I assume that some of the half of the electorate who voted for him might just begin to have second thoughts.
What it does tell me is that the majority are not always right. Democracy works only if the electorate are well informed, thinking human beings. Clearly, in the case of Trump they were not. Even Jacob Rees-Mogg said he would vote for him, which says a lot about his personal judgement.
So, Farage may actually have been right. Trump and Brexit are linked. A small majority of the two largest and leading Anglo Saxon nations showed themselves to be completely incapable of making an informed decision.
Usually, the establishment offer the voters a choice between two opposing but rational choices. Left or right, liberal or conservative. Many thought that it didn't matter which way you voted, things would simply continue as they had for decades. In Trump and Brexit, they believed the establishment were doing as they always had. But instead what was on offer was the sensible or the stupid, the rational or the irrational. We just found out the American public was unable to discern the difference. This year we will discover the same thing about Brexit and the British public.
