Post-Brexit, The Far Right Could Easily Ascend to Power, But There's One Way We Can Prevent That
Great Britain’s decision to leave the European Union has wiped out
many bankers and global speculators. They will turn, as they did in
2008, to governments to rescue them from default. Most governments,
including ours, will probably comply.
Will the American public passively permit another massive bailout of
the banks? Will it accept more punishing programs of austerity to pay
for this bailout? Will a viable socialism rise out of the economic chaos
to halt further looting of the U.S. Treasury and the continued
reconfiguration of the economy into neofeudalism? Or will a right-wing
populism, with heavy undertones of fascism, ascend to power because of a
failure on the part of the left to defend a population once again
betrayed?
Whatever happens next will be chaotic. Global financial markets,
which lost heavily on derivatives, are already in free fall. The value
of the British pound has dropped by over 9 percent and British bank
stock prices by over 25 percent. This decline has wiped out the net
worth of many Wall Street brokerage houses and banks, leaving them with
negative equity. The Brexit vote severely
cripples and perhaps kills the eurozone and, happily, stymies trade
agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It throws the
viability of NATO and American imperial designs in Eastern Europe and
the Middle East into question. The British public’s repudiation of
neoliberal economics also has the potential to upend the presidential
elections. The Democratic Party will orchestrate a rescue of Wall Street
if there is a call for a bailout. Donald Trump and the Republicans, by
opposing a bailout, can ride popular revulsion to power.
