First Brexit then Trump wins: how did this happen?

Hello everyone For too long, I had not written anything about the American election - well, I mentioned it briefly during my Florida Tales series from earlier this year when I was traveling there, but many outsiders looked in with absolute horror as America elected someone as repugnant as Trump as president. I think I went into a period of denial - when I stayed off social media and refused to listen to the news for a while but yeah, it's happened. They've gone and elected Trump. What will happen to the world with President Trump? He's so vile, then again, is he any less repugnant than George W Bush who won two terms (and his father before that)? But there was one thing in common in both Brexit and Trump winning - both results happened because they managed to galvanize the white working class vote.

Oh shit, he's now gonna be President Trump.

What frustrates me about some Singaporeans who do not understand the West is that they ignore the class system and how it divides countries like the UK and the US. In the past, we used the term blue collar and white collar as a way to dance around the issue: a blue collar worker would be a labourer who performs manual labour. A typical example would be a worker in a factory who loads and unloads boxes of goods from the lorries at the factory. He primary uses his muscle power to carry those heavy boxes, rather than his brains: such is the definition of blue collar work. Then you have lawyers or accountants who sits behind a desk essentially doing a lot of paperwork: they probably only get up from their chair a few times a day and spend most of their working day quite comfortable in an office: they use their brains (and not their muscles) to make a living, rather than their muscles. Well, that's a simplistic way to look at things to say the least because back in the day, people who did manual labour often did so because they were uneducated or barely literate and that was really the only option opened to them. Those who had the opportunity to complete their further education could then go on to do a white collar job and earn more money.

But in 2016, this simplistic definition no longer applies: you see, many blue collar workers have children and they do not want their children to be doing manual labour - so they make sure their children study hard, get a decent education, get the appropriate training so they can move up the food chain, get white collar jobs and have a much more comfortable, affluent adult life. The problem is of course, that's never going to be that simple - they underestimate the lack of social mobility in both countries. You see, therein lies the gulf between paper qualifications and soft skills: even if a working class person does obtain the paper qualifications to apply for a white collar job, he would be up against other applicants whose parents are of a privileged background. That's when the working class applicant would fare badly in the soft skills department and interviews are the ultimate test of soft skills - say something inappropriate, or perhaps you panic and your mind goes blank and you give the decision maker a chance to say no to you. Think about it: they are probably looking to employ one person and they have so many candidates with good qualifications. So during the interview, one wrong move and you've just given them an excuse to strike your name off.

Do you understand how social class works?

Of course, in good times, there are plenty of opportunities and jobs around as companies are hiring: social mobility has a direct correlation with the strength of the economy. Some people do move up the food chain and change social classes within just one generation - one such example is London mayor's Sadiq Khan. His parents are Pakistani immigrants, his father worked as a bus driver and he grew up in a rather grim council estate. He had a typical working class childhood - he did study law, managed to establish a career as a solicitor before turning his hand to politics. Khan is one of many success stories of people from a working class background who managed to triumph against the odds. Personally I am not a fan of Sadiq Khan and didn't vote for him but after Boris Johnson, heck, he's definitely a much better mayor. However in a recession, good jobs are tough to come by and those who come from a privileged background definitely have the upper hand when it comes to access to good jobs.

In the distant past, the working class accepted their fate in life because of their lack of education - going to university was something reserved for the minority elite and degree holders were rare. But in this day and age, even those who hold typical working class jobs are educated: they may not have a degree, but they have at least completed secondary education and are usually pretty good with technology. So is it just a matter so poor social skills, these elusive 'soft skills', that prevent the working class from accessing better jobs? No, you also have to consider the function of supply and demand. In any economy, the number of people who become (to take an example) sushi chefs do not depend on the number of people who train to be sushi chefs - rather it will depend on how many Japanese restaurants there are and how popular sushi is amongst the people in that country. If the supply of sushi chefs exceed the demand, then you will end up with sushi chefs who end up doing other kinds of work (or simply unemployed) because they are simply unable to find an employer who will hire them for the trade they have trained for.  Thus you can study and train all you want for your dream job, unless there is a demand for your kind of skills - you're not going to get the job you want.

Social mobility remains a major issue in America.

Thus we have a situation whereby a generation of working class people are extremely frustrated: the parents have invested in their children's education but have not seen them get access to the kind of jobs they wanted. The children realize in shock and horror that they are not going to be better off than their parents and at best, they can hope to do the same kind of blue collar jobs that their parents did despite being a lot more educated. Thus you have a large segment of the electorate who are angry at the way life has turned out for them. Such is the politics of envy: they see others have a better life and they start asking, "hey, why can't I have all those nice things in life as well? Why do I have such a horrible job that pays so little, why do I have to put up with my awful boss whilst others get paid so much more than me? It's not fair!" Oh yes, once we go down that 'it's not fair' path, they start looking for someone to blame.

Both Nigel Farage and Donald Trump did the one thing that guaranteed them victory in their cause: they gave the angry white working class the very scapegoat they wanted: immigrants. People like me, well I don't have any sympathy for the working classes who are so keen to blame others for their own failures in life. I suppose as an immigrant, I knew the odds were stacked against me so I became acutely aware of what the rules are in British society in order to make sure I got what I wanted in life and perhaps there's an element of, "well if I can move to this country and get a good job, why can't you?" Well, regardless of how I feel about the issue, the fact is the system has been rigged against the working class for generations - not just for decades but for centuries. These western countries have always had the tradition of a small, minority elite and a large working class; just because your average bus driver today knows how to use social media on his iPhone isn't going to change these social structures that have been in place for centuries.

Do I believe that social mobility is a good thing? Yes, in principle, of course. But you can't just snap your fingers and expect all the working class kids today to get white collar jobs. Never mind whether or not they are going to be qualified or not do those desirable jobs, there just aren't enough white collar jobs for everyone. Our modern economy offers a mix of blue and white collar jobs and you still need somebody to drive the buses, work in the supermarkets, serve customers in fast food restaurants, clean the toilets - what has happened in many countries is that these jobs at the very bottom of the food chain have been done by migrant workers who don't mind the poor conditions and low pay. A very Scandinavian approach to this situation is that they treat those doing blue collar work with a lot of respect, make sure they get very generous salaries that will enable them to have a respectable standard of living. Scandinavian society as a whole treats such working class people with a lot more respect and it is a small price to pay to ensure that those who do such blue collar jobs don't feel interior to the doctors, lawyers and bankers around them. There are winners and losers in such a Scandinavian approach: I know a Swedish academic who left Sweden to work in the UK because he was sick and tired of being paid the same as a bus driver or a postman despite being vastly more educated. Is that fair? Such is the Scandinavian socialist approach to this problem of income inequality and lack of social mobility.  Even some Scandinavians, like my Swedish friend, don't like that solution, but what is the alternative?

Well, what has happened in the USA and also the UK is a manifestation of the alternative. Immigrants are treated as the scapegoat who have upset the system and the white working class are promised miraculous solutions that are so far fetched and ridiculous - yet this is what we call the art of telling people what they want to hear. Does Trump have the experience and expertise to be an American president? Of course not, it is going to be one helluva car crash, but many white working class Americans elected him on the promises he made, rather than what he could actually deliver. It is not hard to prey on the desperate. Let me give you a simple example: there's a photo studio in North London which charges their clients a lot of money for vanity photo shoots, but in exchange, they promise to pass some of the photos to top casting directors and modeling scouts in London. So you're not just paying them about £1000 to take some photos of you, you're also buying a chance to be seen by the talent scouts in the industry. The truth is, these people are total crooks - they take some photos of you with a digital camera, charge you a thousand pounds for it and then you never hear from them again once they've taken your money. Yes, people actually fall for this kind of scam.

If it sounds too good to be true, what can you realistically expect?

You may read this and think, well who's gullible and dumb enough for fall for this scam? Actually a lot of people are and this photo studio is not doing anything illegal per se - immoral perhaps, but not illegal. But they simply wanted desperately to believe what they were told: that all it takes is a portfolio of nice photos in order to become a famous actor or successful model. If everyone was sensible and rational, then such scam artistes would never ever be able to cheat anyone of their money. But as we have seen, scam artistes come in all shapes and sizes and it's not so much a question of intelligence per se, but even seemingly intelligent people can be irrational at times. So the same people who fall for the "photo studio" scam will be the same people who vote for Brexit and Trump - they want to believe in a simple solution that will make their lives infinitely better but it won't be long before they discover that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. A Trump presidency will make you glad you're not an American.

Such is the problem with democracy though, Politicians lie and make ridiculous promises and they can even get elected on the basis of these lies and promises that they will never keep. You get to vote no matter whether you are intelligent or stupid, rational or irrational. It is one person one vote and it seems that there are enough white people in America who are so fed up with their current situation they are willing to vote for Trump, even if it is no more than a protest vote to say that they are unhappy with the status quo. The status quo of course is a bitter dose of reality, it is an America where some people (like Trump) are very rich and some are very poor. Clinton was sensible enough not to promise anything she wasn't going to deliver - maybe there was an assumption on her part that she had better be quite cautious what she promised as she was the favourite to win. Trump on the other hand was the outsider who wasn't expected to win - so under those circumstances, he was far less cautious about what he was saying during the campaigning as there was a high chance he would never ever have to deliver on those promises anyway. I bet there's a part of him that now thinks, oh shit, now what? I actually have to do the job of a president now and run the USA?

America has just had 8 years old President Obama, so how did they go from one of the best presidents of all time to the worst one in one fell swoop? Well, this election and the EU referendum shared one thing in common: high voter turnout. You see, the very people who are most likely to vote for Brexit in the UK or Trump in the US usually are much less likely to vote in an election - they suffer from political apathy. That means that they do not vote and previous election results do not reflect their opinions; however, the moment these people finally decided to register to vote and turn up on election day to vote in big enough numbers, well, the results are significant enough to shock most of us. It can democracy is a double-edged sword - do you actually want such people to vote and express their political opinion at the ballot box? Or do you want the results of such referendums and elections to be determined by a smaller number of well-educated, middle class urban elite whilst excluding big numbers of working class voters? How do we left wing idealists embrace democratic ideals when it does not give us the results we want?

But why was the turn out so high in both cases? Well, here's a master class in marketing. If you want people to listen to you, keep your message simple. When you can't decide which side to pick, you may end up not voting. Sometimes people dress this up as an act of protest, when you don't like any of the choices, they abstain from voting. Here's the problem: even if the politicians are highly intelligent people, a lot of the voters are idiots. Oh yeah, they are stupid, extremely stupid and you will be simply casting pearls at swines by trying to explain foreign policy to them. They have no freaking clue what is happening in Aleppo or why it should matter - that's why Trump managed to connect with so many American voters: he reached out to them on their wavelength, we call that Stupidity FM. Whilst most of us watched the debates in absolute horror at how awful Trump performed, his supporters actually felt like he spoke their language and Clinton's classy style was completely lost on them. I refer you to the clip below which explains this phenomena of connecting with idiots in a nutshell: Seth McFarlane knows how to explain American politics so well!

But the fact that you're reading and have made it this far means that you're nothing like these idiots who voted for Trump. What can I say?  Life goes on for now, I was at the gym tonight, I saw my friends and we were all hugging each other as if someone died. We universally hate Trump here at my gym and the last time we felt like this was when the idiots of the UK voted for Brexit. I am disappointed but not surprised: after the polls got it horrifically wrong for the EU referendum, at the back of my mind I thought Trump could pull this off. My boss who doesn't like Trump actually placed a substantial bet on Trump winning - so that mentally prepared me for the fact that Trump could win because my boss who is very shrewd at finance doesn't lose money like that. I only regret not following suit as I could have won a lot of money - even if I do trust my boss' instincts, I didn't want to believe that Trump could win.

Who knows what the next 4 years will bring, I'm not optimistic at all and neither are a lot of people; but let me make a guess based on the track record so far: that photo studio in North London that promised their clients introductions to top casting directors and modeling scouts has closed down after too many clients demanded their money back. Nigel Farage has taken a step back from frontline politics after creating a political career based on getting the UK out of the EU - perhaps even he knows the next few years will not bring his supporters anything they promised when campaigning for Brexit. As for Trump, he's going to slash taxes for big businesses and it will be corporate America which will do quite well out of a Trump presidency. He'll kick out a lot of illegal immigrants, denounce climate change and dismantle Obamacare but none of that will actually do his hardcore working class white supporters any good in terms of social mobility - the fact is Trump is so incredibly rich and privileged he hasn't the slightest clue what the kind of challenges these poor working class folks face. They have placed their blind faith in a man who tells them what they want to hear without actually checking if he can deliver on his promises. Well, they have 4 years to regret that stupid mistake and life is going to be full of pain, angst, disappointment and hardship for these white working class folks.

There's an element of Schadenfreude on my part: you wanted Trump for president, you got what you wanted. You made your bed now lie in it: I get the last laugh as you're the only who's going to be fucked, not me. After all, the white working class who showed up in their masses to vote for Trump are the ones who are going to be the most bitterly disappointed when none of what they hope Trump will deliver for them will ever materialize. So they may party all they want now but in 4 years' time, they're going to realize that they were a lot better off under Obama. Oh we just need enough people to come to their sense and realize we need to get Obama back in the White House - a different Obama though, who's with me for Michelle Obama 2020? Okay so Hilary in hindsight was a bad choice, but Michelle Obama has been so incredibly popular that she would be Democrats' best hope in 2020. So that's it from me on this topic, I could go on but I'll stop here and turn it over to you, let me know what you think about this. Many thanks for reading.