Brexit and Trump: fact and philosophy

The headline gives a fair idea of what is below the break. You have been warned.


(1) Trump - too much philosophy, not enough fact

What exactly is the problem with Trump?

Yes, yes, his hair, multiple televisions, junk food, diet Coke, teetotalism. I get that. But leaving aside moral and aesthetic judgments of his private life - as one does with JFK, Clinton, Reagan, George W. Bush etc - are we still expected to believe that he is some kind of traitor or threat to democracy?

There has been no shortage of philosophical objections to the man. Not that long ago, I couldn't move (online) without coming across Trumpism, norms, constitutionality, legitimacy, the whiteness of Trump, the meaning of Trump ... and so on. But I'm just not sure that it has helped us understand Trump.

"How can anyone rational possibly take seriously all the righteous denunciations from people like Pelosi, Schiff, and Swalwell about how Trump is a lawless, authoritarian tyrant existentially threatening American democracy when those very same people just yesterday voted in favor of vesting him the virtually limitless power to spy on Americans with no warrants or safeguards? If someone really believed those accusations about Trump — as opposed to just pretending to believe them for cynical political manipulation of their followers — how could they possibly have done what they did yesterday?"

That's Glenn Greenwald. I don't know enough about the underlying issue to judge, but his article makes some good points. Broadly speaking, he must be right in thinking that the leadership of the opposition to Trump does not believe that Trump is any more of a threat than Obama was to the security of the United States or to domestic opponents of its Government. (Which is consistent with Obama being a terrible threat too, but a threat on their side.) Here's Ross Douthat in consistent vein. Here's someone else looking at whether Obama or Trump is really the more authoritarian.

It's a weird world where Scott Adams continues to be better at predicting the future that most people out there. He wrote this: "Prior to President Trump’s inauguration, I predicted a coming story arc in three acts. Act one involved mass protests in the streets because Hillary Clinton’s campaign had successfully branded Trump as the next Hitler. Sure enough, we saw mass protests by anti-Trumpers who legitimately and honestly believed the country had just elected the next Hitler. I predicted that the Hitler phase would evaporate by summer for lack of supporting evidence. That happened. // I also predicted the anti-Trumpers would modify their attack from “Hitler” to “incompetent,” and that phase would last the summer. That happened too. The president’s critics called him incompetent and said the White House was in “chaos.” There were plenty of leaks, fake news, and even true stories to support that narrative, as I expected. Every anti-Trump news outlet, and even some that supported him started using “chaos” to describe the situation. // Now comes the fun part. // I predicted that the end of this three-part story would involve President Trump’s critics complaining that indeed he was “effective, but we don’t like it.” Or words to that effect."

And now we see that the "US Senate has approved the most sweeping overhaul of the US tax system in more than three decades", according to the BBC. Effective but you don't like it? I don't think it is too hard to see us getting there.

I don't spot a lot of philosophy in Adams' analysis. But it seems to me that he has a better handle on reality - on facts - than all the intellectual opponents of Trumpism. I'd suggest you start your criticism from there.

(2) Brexit - too many facts, not enough philosophy

Here I think we have the opposite problem. People are attempting to understand and criticise Brexit using too many facts and not enough philosophy. Here's an example (and from someone who studied philosophy):

So here's Rifkind's question: can you say anything remotely positive about what Brexit might do?

And here's another question: what would an answer to that question look like?

I am reminded of Robert Nozick's discussion of the joke about the man who travels through many hardships to visit the sage of the Himalayas. "What is the meaning of Life?" he asks. After a long pause, the sage opens his eyes and says, “Life is a fountain.” “What do you mean life is a fountain?” barks the questioner. “I have just traveled thousands of miles to hear your words, and all you have to tell me is that? That’s ridiculous.” The sage then looks up from the floor of the cave and says, “You mean it’s not a fountain?” In a variant of the story, he replies, “So it’s not a fountain.”

"Life is ____". What sort of words could fill in the blank?

Back to Brexit. Here's how Rifkind's conversation goes. "How would Brexit actually help us?" "It's the will of the people." "What do you mean, the will of the people? I've written thousands of words on Brexit. Is that all you've got? That's ridiculous."

Let me put it another way. One thing Nozick suggests that the traveller might have been expecting was something like: "Go back to your posh suburb but shift to a less pressured job and be more accessible to your children." There are plenty of people who can give Rifkind that kind of answer to his question: they say that after Brexit the UK will be more like Singapore! Iceland! Britain in the 1950s! a Socialist paradise! a conservative utopia!

But none of those is a terribly good answer to Rifkind's question on a philosophical level. Pick your ideal numbers for GDP growth, the £-$ exchange rate, unemployment, tax-take, weekly spending on the NHS, net immigration, etc, etc, and then there is no shortage of facts to be deployed in arguing whether Brexit gets you closer or further away from those numbers. Perhaps it makes no appreciable difference.

But what are your ideal numbers here? Why are those numbers the right way of answering the question? Why isn't following the will of the people enough of an answer in its own right?

Of course the will of the people is all the Brexiteers have got. That's all Brexit could ever have been about. As for what the people will when their will counts ...

What is the meaning of Brexit? Brexit means Brexit. Perhaps you are better off treating that as a Zen koan.