If ever there was a nation-sized demonstration of the Pauline Kael intellectual bubble on the part of a national elite being caught with their metaphorical trousers down and their pale pasty behinds glowing radioactively for all to see … then the vote this last week for Britain to depart the EU at speed would be it. Here all the movers and shakers, the intellectual, social and political set were so certain in their own rectitude – and equally convinced of the stupidity, backwardness and flat-out racism of their fellow citizens … well, of course, I can almost hear the wailing from the Remainders all the way in Texas. Because – all the right-thinking people agreed with them; membership in the EU was a Positive Good, and the Way Forward, and the Wave of the Future, and such membership showered nothing but good things upon them ….

Well, it showered good things on the right-thinking people, but everyone else living outside the privilege bubble saw disadvantages up the whazoo, including the fact that basically, there was no appeal. Everything from the sugar content in jam to the proper curvature of bananas – and that was just the petty, annoying stuff – was all in rules written by some faraway bureaucrat who could never be sacked for cause, or voted out of office.

It was a transnational government without the consent of the governed. That absolutely has to get up peoples’ noses, having become accustomed for the last two hundred years or so of having some degree of input with regard to those in government, either through voting for them, or at the very least, being able to appeal effectively through protest and lobbying.

And of course, the absolutely crowning insult – after enduring the downside of EU membership, and being vocal about said downside – is a toxic combination of having your valid concerns not addressed in any meaningful fashion, but being disparaged as a racist, a nationalist, practically a Nazi, and a stupid old bitter clinger. Slapping down the race and xenophobia card is the last resort of those who actually have no concrete, defensible rationale for their actions, or are disinclined to defend them in a logical and rational manner: Shut up you stupid peasant, and let your betters make the meaningful decisions.

So in that sense, voting for Brexit was for ordinary Brits as much of an “up yours” to their establishment as backing Donald Trump is for ordinary, flyover country, working class Americans. (More along these lines from City Journal, here.)
Discuss.