He totally predicted it
First, this, starting at 1:02 if you don’t want to listen to him explaining Brexit for the first minute. He says he predicted Brexit, people laughed, but he was right. He was at Turnberry and he predicted it.
“I gave the Prime Minister my ideas on how to negotiate Brexit…she didn’t listen to that and that’s fine.”
Donald Trump says he’s ‘surprised that Brexit has gone so badly’ from the standpoint of a negotiation. pic.twitter.com/rzOrd7HCv8
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) March 14, 2019
But
I can’t believe I’m hearing this again. DONALD TRUMP DID NOT PREDICT BREXIT THE DAY BEFORE VOTE AT TURNBERRY. HE ARRIVED IN SCOTLAND THE DAY AFTER, ON JUNE 24. HIS TWEETS CONFIRM THIS. I WAS THERE
Did someone say #FakeNews ? https://t.co/9jFtzkUgfG— Jon Sopel (@BBCJonSopel) March 14, 2019
He predicted it the day after it happened.
What a genius.
(Also he said Obama predicted the opposite, and he Trump was right.
Obama made no prediction.)
Sort of a bit like what America would have had if Spiro T. Agnew, Nixon’s VP, had ever become President. Story goes that Spiro’s home in Maryland was broken into, and all his library was stolen. All five books. Gone.
Including two he had not even finished colouring in.
But that will never happen to Trump. He would have broken all his coloured pencils by now. For sure. Ages ago. And anyway, by his own account the art form he is most interested in is pussygrabbing.
Trump identifies as a stable genius. Therefore, it is true.
Even predicting the outcome of a yes/no vote before it happens is hardly genius. Just take a wild guess like everyone else. All the polls said it was going to be close in the weeks before the vote.
I seem to remember that Trump’s ‘advice’ to May was something along the lines that we should just demand what we want then sulk if Europe says no. Which, to be fair to Trump, is exactly what we did.
Latsot:
I have been trying to figure out stay in vs leave with regard to the best option for the UK. The best discussion I have so far found is at:
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/international/what-exactly-is-the-case-for-brexit
From a couple of brief visits to the US I have concluded that it is not one nation, but several. In some parts, I understand, the first language is Spanish.
But Europe is something multicultural and else again.(a) Britain could leave, and everything which went wrong beyond that date would be blamed on Brexit. Or (b) Britain could stay, with any and all future troubles put down to that. But if Britain leaves and goes into economic doldrums while at the same time, Europe becomes an economic powerhouse…. the result could well put the game of Cavaliers vs Roundheads in the 17th C into the junior league.
Omar,
I have little doubt that Brexit will be disastrous for Britain. The idea was sold using a lot of misinformation as well as dodgy tactics. It’s what it looks like from outside, a decision based almost entirely on racism and/or nationalism, with a few misleading economic facts thrown in to lend it a veneer of respectability.
Some of the misinformation is mentioned in the link you posted. For example the (highly disputed) figure of £350m a week sent to Europe was used to suggest we get nothing back for it, which is manifestly untrue. Also the Leave campaign effectively promised that this money would instead go to the NHS but there was never any intention of that.
For decades, the tabloids have been screaming at us about the evils of the EU. They’re going to ban our sausages (OK, I have to blame Yes Minister for that one) or that bananas will have to be of a certain bendiness (we don’t even grow any bananas, why should that concern us anyway?) all of which was manufactured. Then, more recently, the media started whipping up fury about immigration and….. suddenly Brexit.
It is all very depressing. I worked in UK universities for a long time and our research relied enormously on European funding, which will no longer be available. Do you think the British government will fill in that funding gap? They don’t even have the administrative infrastructure in place to do that even if they had any intention of doing it.
Here in the North East, we’ll be hit especially badly. We’ve already had some major employers pull out of the region and cancel future plans here because of Brexit. We rely a lot on export and nobody has the slightest idea about how that’s going to work post Brexit.
It is terrifying.
latsot: Yes. I can imagine.
Still, Rupert Murdoch is a pretty good guide, IMHO.
Just find out what he wants, then do the opposite.
Omar, I have been finding a frightening number of people who can be my guides in just such a way. My parents always joked that I would do whatever was the opposite of my older brother; I was sorely tempted to ask them what was wrong with that, since I usually ended up on the more humane and the more rational side of things, and I turned out a hell of a lot better than he did.
Now, it’s Rupert Murdoch. Donald Trump. Any number of young people who are constantly telling me what they know better than me about times I lived through and paid attention to. Gwyneth Paltrow. etc. etc. etc.
Yes, we have no shortage of anti role models. That’s rather the problem, I guess.
Omar’s point about civil war is looking like less of an exaggeration every day.
After I wrote this:
I saw this, which seems to sum things up nicely:
https://discourse-cdn-aws1.com/boingboing/original/3X/6/5/652096223e6b7c2a5b9fa02e55b41cf2d831c714.jpg