Apparently nothing warms the hearts of conservatives here and across the Atlantic more than mass chaos and economic turmoil.
The day after Britain voted 52% to 48% to leave the European Union several things happened, none of them particularly good. The pound took a nose dive to its lowest level since 1985 and Moody's changed the UK's credit rating outlook to negative. In Tokyo the stock market lost 8% of its value. The German market lost 12%. In the U.S, the Dow dropped 610.32 points, NASDAQ went down 202 points, and S&P lost 75 plus points, which translated into a 3.59% decrease in value.
The Scots, over 60% of whom voted to stay in the EU, immediately began talking about conducting yet another referendum to separate completely from England. First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon went before cameras and said, "A second referendum is clearly an option that is required to be on the table." She then went on to say the Scottish government would seek to start negotiations with the EU right away to ensure that Scotland can remain in the organization, despite the out come of the election.
Breakdowns of the vote showed young people, college grads, and urban areas like London were more in favor of staying in the EU. The leave it crowd included the elderly, less educated, and those living in rural areas.
To take it further, the 18 to 34 year old demographic favored staying by 57% and the under 25 age group voted 75% to remain. 57% of those over 55 voted to leave. And, does this sound familiar? To the older, whiter, crowd, leaving the EU appeared to have more to do with nationalism and restricting immigration than it did with economics.
This head long charge into the valley of neo-isolationism was accentuated by another stunning report which suggests many Britons didn't really understand the ramifications of the results. Google issued a statement saying searches in the UK for things like, "What happens if we leave the EU? What is the EU? and What is Brexit? all spiked dramatically after the polls closed.
In fact, Leavers Remorse has been so intense over a million and a half people have signed an online petition demanding a second vote--a sort of national oopsy. Or, to put it another way, "Sorry chaps, we fucked up, let us have one more go at it."
Beyond the island, none of the news and fall out deterred far right politicians in France and the Netherlands from calling for their governments to also withdraw from the EU.
The craziness on the east side of the pond was so inspiring it prompted Daniel Miller, the head of what is known as the Texas Nationalist Movement to tweet Governor Greg Abbott. Mr. Miller wants Abbott to schedule a state wide referendum on Texas independence from the United States. Miller brags his organization has 250,000 members which sounds impressive until you realize there are currently 27.47 million people living in the state.
Even without that whole American Civil War precedent it's obvious Brother Miller hasn't thought things through completely. A Texas monetary system would have to be established, so would an entire military, not to mention a border patrol and presumably a wall along the Rio Grande. All of it at local tax payer expense.
That's before the citizens of a new Texas Republic have to deal with stuff like the loss of medicare, medicaid and federal assistance for infrastructure and disaster relief. Think not? A good number of French went on social media yesterday and said to the British, "good riddance." It won't be any different here for a whole lot of us disgusted by Miller's bull shit and the hubris of his followers.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, who was in Scotland, opening another of his golf resorts, seemed completely oblivious to the prevailing sentiment of the Scots. El Donald publicly applauded the UK decision to quit the EU. He was even happy about the pound sterling's near collapse, claiming it means more people can now afford to travel to his property and hand their money over to--well--Don Trump.
In other words, "Hey, someone has to come out ahead in this mess and I'm that guy."
Yes, it has been a weird couple of days and this is just the beginning. There is no telling what the markets will do on Monday after a weekend to mull things over.
There we have it on another sweltering day here in the heart of the southern plains.
As you can well guess, the bar is most definitely open.
sic vita est
6-25-16
Were the issues not so serious, I would take comfort in knowing that short-sightedness and stupidity are not qualities unique to the United States.
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