Churchill and We The People
The latest Churchill biographic film, Darkest Hour, portrays the British prime minister heeding the advice of everyday Brits he meets while riding the underground: a little girl advises “Never!” when asked if England should negotiate a peace settlement with (and trust) Adolph Hitler. The scene is pure fiction, but Anglo-American audiences still cheer, because it reinforces the conservative populist mood sweeping the globe (especially when Churchill follows the will of his people, making his now famous “never surrender” speech). The not-so-subtle message is clear: we the people are wiser than establishment elites, such as Lord Halifax (that wretched sell-out).
Those patriotic passengers on the London underground are a cinematic metaphor for we the people movements all over today’s world. To wit, Brexit voters rejected the advice of their “preppy” prime minister, Etonian David Cameron, as well as threats from Barack Obama, and EU elites. Shortly thereafter, America’s “forgotten men and women” rejected career politicians, betting on the longest of shots (Trump) to make America great again. The South Korean people threw their bribe-taking prime minister, Park Geun-hye, in jail. Now there are everyday people taking to the streets of Iran with cries of leave Syria and think of us. And there you have it: a global rejection of the cognoscenti – even uber-globalist Angela Merkel was forced by election results to reduce the entry of foreign refugees by 80%.
Democracies and free-market economies are actually quite simple: outcomes are driven by the people for the people. Furthermore, elections are actually barometers of the collective experience of we the people, with results determined by the wisdom of the masses. It is now obvious we the people have grown tired of know-it-all politicians and their trans-global agendas (note: Iranian protestors are actually rejecting trans-global Shiite adventurism). This was certainly the American electorate’s mood in 2016, when it rejected Washington experience and the opportunity to elect the first female president.
After eight years of Obamanomics, we the people voted against more of the same from Hillary Clinton. Assuming every bad thing Clinton and Obama said about Donald Trump was true, the 2016 election was clearly a referendum on the Obama-Clinton trans-global agenda. Study after study shows the American electorate is moderate, and Obama promised voters in 2008 he would fix the broken Bush economy and extricate America from Bush’s costly foreign wars. He inspired millions of first-time voters to elect him president (choosing Obama 73-26 over McCain) with his Yes We Can campaign theme. So - - what happened?
Some may suggest Obama was double-dealing the electorate, but it is more likely, once in office, his coastal elite donors pulled him away from the gravitational pull of the Bill Clinton center-left – because his economic recovery plan was based on socialist wealth re-distribution: higher taxes, fines on businesses, near-zero interest rates, and increased entitlements. After eight years of under-two-percent growth, Obama had given the economy his progressive best, and left the US with $20 trillion in debt. His failure primed the electorate for Trump, the outsider and agitator.
One reason Trump frightened Democrats was because Obama had taken the party so far left, meaning Trump’s victory felt like jumping from a hot tub into cold Lake Lucerne. For sixty years, Washington had been governed from center-left to center-right until the Obama presidency. To be sure, Trump is a conservative, but Hillary lost because her coastal-elite voters could not overcome the loss of “rust belt” Democrats in fly-over America. Bill Clinton, a truly gifted politician, detected anxiety in the blue firewall (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin): his wife forfeited a sure victory because she did not. Those four states simply rejected trans-globalism – and nothing more.
We the people live inside out: households, neighborhoods, and places of work or worship matter more than what’s happening in another state or country. For we the people, national (neighborhood) safety is paramount, while “national security” is what CNN broadcasts. Everyday people in America, England, and Germany are not willing to accept the deaths of innocent bicyclists, concertgoers, or Christmas shoppers as a consequence of open borders. Conservative populists, such as Donald Trump, promise to preserve the way things were (a temporary rejection of multi-culturalism).
For we the people, free trade is what killed mama’s good-paying job down at the mill, and fair trade means politicians ensure gainful employment for high school graduates. American, English, and French workers – and the many small businesses that employee them – have lived with the consequences of free trade: they have experienced firsthand the failure of free trade. Even moderate populists, such as France’s Emmanuel Macron, want to promote global trade without crushing factory workers at home: there must be changes made to protect we the people.
Governing parties and coalitions everywhere are enacting policy shifts at the insistence of anxiety-filled electorates – and it is nonsense the ruling cognoscenti know better than the people they govern. I am no fan of Trump the person, but I accept 100% his presidency is of the people. There is no other explanation for his most unlikely election. Therefore, I am of the mind a Trump presidency will not forever lower the bar for America’s highest office. Furthermore, I doubt Brexit portends the demise of Great Britain, or that right-wing German and Austrian candidates portend the second coming of Adolph Hitler. Rather, I see grass roots economic populism with roots dating back to trans-globalists Bill Clinton and Tony Blair (not that they were bad men).
The failure of the trans-globalist cognoscenti was their failure to really see the world in which we the people live: have real conversations with butchers, bakers, and SUV makers (whose kids probably work at Starbucks). This is the only way candidates can develop policies that serve we the people. Except for her out-of-touch arrogance, Hillary Clinton would be president right now, and that is the paramount lesson from the election of 2016. The truly great leaders – be it Winston Churchill, Ho Chi Minh, or Ronald Reagan – know their power derives from the people, and never forget they serve the people. Go see Darkest Hour: a hundred bucks says you smile when the little girl says “Never!”