Thursday, July 7, 2016

Obama had warned against a withdrawal, as had the IMF and just about any economist of significance. The fact that the majority of Brits nevertheless voted for independence of course understandably increases the surprise by those being left behind. You can read just about anywhere right now that many British didn't even know what they were voting for and would now like to reverse their vote. But this is also part of the therapeutic program that the media here in Germany offers to its readers in order to reduce the psychological burden. It's also easy to disprove the myth that the older population stole the future away from the youth. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, voter turnout was 36 percent according to pollster Sky Data. If anyone, it was the youth who squandered their own future.  Along with the outrage over the election result, there's a conspicuous lack of desire to address the root reasons for the election victory. Like the fact that one of the world's oldest democracies may have lost faith in the European institutions because democracy is something its people hold near and dear. It's a thought that is immediately banished. Instead we hear about how reckless David Cameron was in calling for a referendum. The argument, put forth in numerous versions, holds that you cannot hold a popular referendum on something as complicated as EU membership. It's astonishing how many commentators have parroted that line, seemingly unconscious of what it says about their own understanding of democracy. What it really means is this: Elections can only be good if the results correspond with the desires of the educated. Or as Micky Beisenherz, a columnist for the German weekly Stern, put it: "Democracy is great thing. The only dumb thing about it is that stupid are allowed to participate."

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