Following the “Brexit” versus “Bremain” debate from afar (and by the way, now that the referendum is finally over, can we please retire those hideous portmanteaus?), one got the sense that the two opposing camps were arguing on entirely different grounds. They weren’t so much debating as making two sets of distinct claims in parallel.
The pro-remain side covered the economics argument. It marshaled IMF studies, World Bank warnings, and testimony from economists, bankers, politicians, and titans of industry that leaving the European Union would do serious harm to the British economy. As if to underline that point, the British pound has already tanked as a result of the vote and global markets are in turmoil.
But the side in favor of leaving had different—and evidently more salient—territory to carry out its argument on: national identity. The Brexiters championed sovereignty, independence, and above all, control over the nation’s borders. Immigration became the issue that defined the leavers—see this poster for a representative example. This set of arguments sometimes manifested itself in ugly ways, but there’s no denying that it was effective. By the time of the Brexit vote, 77 percent of Brits polled said that immigration should be reduced. Nearly half ranked immigration as the most important issue facing the country.
The parallels to the upcoming American presidential election are obvious. The Democrats, led by Hillary Clinton, have essentially forfeited the national identity argument. Clinton’s position on immigration is, more or less, that anybody can be an American, so long as they find a way—legal or illegal—to get here. Meanwhile, Clinton hopes her economic offers to the American people—Paid leave! Worker retraining!—will carry the day. The Republican standard-bearer, for his part, has largely jettisoned policy coherence in favor of a platform that stresses, like the Brexiters, a return to “American-ness” and clampdown on untrammeled immigration.
Given the way the Brexit referendum ended up, perhaps Hillary’s campaign should be in sell-off mode today, too, not just the pound.
