Remember the "Grexit," when people thought Greece might be better off on its own? Of course there's long been a small but vocal "Frexit" faction in France. And last week, we saw the "Brexit," in which Britons voted to leave the EU and wipe out a good chunk of my 403(b) in the process.
Now there's real talk of a "Swexit," a "Hunxit" and, depending on your preference, either a "Nethxit" or a "Dexit." Here in the U.S., there is no shortage of Texans arguing for a "Texit" (and no shortage of liberals egging them on). At this point, you're probably looking around for an "exitexit."
Still, the exits are real, and need discussion. I'll pick three.
1. The "Brexit"
Remarkably, the day after last week's vote, Britons woke up to plunging stocks, resignations galore in their government and one burning question: What have we gotten ourselves into? Very funny, Britain. Not Rowan Atkinson-funny, of course; just sad-funny.
In Britain, the "leave" vote was dominated by older voters who seem to have had a handful of reasons for wanting out of the EU. One, well documented, is the anti-immigrant, vaguely racist faction of people who think the EU's slightly more open-border policy is dragging their country down. It isn't, but as we well know in the U.S. from the rhetoric of Donald Trump and his supporters, you can't convince people otherwise.
Another common reason was that older voters may have been hoping to make Britain great again or take their country back – back, that is, to a time when British people made British laws adjudicated in British courts and so on. This kind of boorish "I make the rules" attitude explains both the erstwhile British Empire as well as the popularity of Trumpish pro-exit figures like Boris Johnson. It also explains why the "leave" team, like our own Republican Party, is fixated on dumb, inefficient light bulbs.
But the reason I worry about is the one that suggests purposeful disregard for the safety, health and well-being of anyone else, the selfish "I've got mine" attitude that infects both the "leave" faction in the UK and many American conservatives. Older voters – in last week's vote, those over 55 supported "leave" by wide margins – don't care about what will happen 20 or 30 years down the road as the UK abandons the EU. Younger voters have to live with the consequences for decades, and they overwhelmingly, by a 2-1 margin, voted to stay in the EU.
The fact is that the world is moving – has already moved considerably and inexorably – toward a broadly global economy since World War II. This has only accelerated as the pace of technological change has accelerated, everything from the transistor to the shipping container to the smartphone.
This has not happened without consequence. Offshoring of jobs, exploitation of cheap third-world labor and the way global stock markets often react more to each other than to local events have all had a serious impact on the countries that were, after the war, the economic super-powers. If there is any similarity in the campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump this year – and I bet this is the only one – it is in recognizing that globalization of the economy has had a direct and negative impact on millions of real people in this country. Their solutions are different, but their diagnosis of the discontent is identical.
The problem with isolation as a solution to global problems – isolation like building a wall, bottling up free trade, leaving the EU – is that isolation in today's world is impossible, shortsighted and irresponsible. While I do not believe that this country, or the UK or any one of a dozen other major economic players in the world, is solely responsible for working to ameliorate the negative impact of globalization, we can't do it if we're not part of the world community.
Consider climate change, as I did last week: What good does it do the world for the U.S. to pull out of the Paris Accords, or for the UK to return to incandescent light? Why shouldn't we engage China on climate and race them to see who can be the world leader in solar energy production? But an isolationist vote leaves us out of the loop and puts us in a position where the world doesn't take us seriously.
On a smaller scale, you can see the consequence of the "I've got mine" vote here in Wisconsin. Just thinking about the environment, still, this state's votes for Governor Scott Walker, elected on the promise of tax cuts and bringing back jobs just like the good old days, have had real consequence.
Republican parts of the state, where they weathered Act 10 and Walker's deep cuts to schools five years ago, are now resorting to referenda at alarmingly historic rates. And on and on.
In 2012, the single most polarizing thing that Barack Obama said on his way to re-election as president was to remind people that "you didn't build that" on your own. Everything you learned in school, every road you've driven, every toilet you've flushed – all of that came because people didn't settle for just getting their own and getting out. Instead, it's a sense of obligation to the larger community that makes America what it is.
What I'm getting at here is this: Voting without empathy, whether it's for your local assembly seat or about staying in a multi-state economic union, is destructive and wrong. We're all in this together, and once you've got yours, it's your responsibility as a human being to help others get theirs, too.
2. The "George Wexit"
Longtime Republican George Will is leaving the GOP, he said last week. His stated reason, if I can boil it down to a cliche, is that really, the party left him when it nominated Donald Trump.
Now don't get excited; this is not Will coming around to my way of thinking that the antipathy and nativist tendencies evidenced in Trump's campaign are bad for America. Will has been perfectly content over the years to lavish praise on Walker who, if Trump is conservative America's id, is conservative America's ego (it didn't hurt that Will's wife was on Walker's presidential payroll).
No, instead Will is worried that Trump will lose and, in doing so, may take down many other Republicans on the ballot at all levels. Will, like Paul Ryan, disagrees not with what Trump represents, but with how he does so. It's Trump's unpopularity – and the GOP electorate's insistence he be nominated in spite of it – that has fueled Will's exit from the party.
He still holds to everything that Trump believes, everything from opposing immigration to supporting tax cuts for the wealthy to thinking global climate change is a hoax. There's nothing in Trump's broad policy agenda that would be out of place in a George Will column. The difference is George Will wears a bow tie, and Trump wears a trucker hat, and that's just not done in Will-world.
Indeed, thinking about the "Brexit," when pro-EU MP Jo Cox was killed by a man with extremely racist, right-wing views, many people thought for sure that "Remain" would win because who in their right minds would vote for a movement that includes not just veiled nativism but outright murder in its name? Well, George Will, apparently the UK would. Give it a few weeks and then, like almost every Republican everywhere, go ahead and slink back to support Trump. He's yours; you, in fact, did build that, and you should own him.
3. The "Barexit"
Obama hasn't technically left office yet, though to listen to Republicans he hasn't been president for years now. But over the last few months, Obama has started doing exit interviews of a sort. They are fascinating to read because, despite some liberal critiques of his policy, Obama really is the anti-Trump, the anti-Boris Johnson.
Take, for example, this recent wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg Business Week. In it, Obama perfectly expresses exactly the sort of response that Brexiters and Trump voters need to hear.
"I think that the temptation ... is to resort to nativism and nostalgia and the sense that these are things that are now out of control and I want to take control back," he said. "But I continue to believe that the majority of people, whether in the United States, in Europe or certainly in rapidly advancing parts of the world like Asia – those folks recognize that the world has shrunk, and that if the rules are structured properly, this gives them more opportunity, not less, to succeed."
Throughout the interview, Obama returns repeatedly to this same theme. There is a social compact, he says, that requires all of us at all levels of society to look out for each other. There is no benefit to the country or the world if the U.S. financial sector is 40 percent of our economy. There is no benefit to the country or the world if we pull up the stakes and try to leave the global supply chain.
And, importantly, there is no benefit to the country or the world if we pretend that we don't need to look out for those left behind in a changing economy or the generations that follow us. Could we get ours, take a higher profit for today and cash out early? Sure, Obama says. "But if we are to succeed in shaping a sustainable, growing, prosperous, integrated world economy, we have to pay attention to the trends that push toward greater inequality and find ways to modify those tendencies."
No exits. No walls. No disregard of environmental detriment to benefit business, local or global. No hoping to go back to the good old days ("Because the good old days aren’t," Obama said).
Whether the UK goes through with its exit – as I write, there's talk of "regrexit" – this country faces a similar choice in November. I urge you, don't vote to exit the social compact and the larger community. Vote with empathy and an eye to the future.
