I knew that Donald Trump was going to win the US General Election in 2016. Not because he’s a demagogue who knows how to exploit the fears of the American people to further his own agenda—though that is certainly true. Not because Hillary Clinton was a poor campaigner and the country was oddly obsessed with her emails—though this remains an embarrassing reality. I knew Trump would win the US election after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, 52% to 48%.
We want to believe that our country’s political systems and values are unique—that our governments operate within distinct cultural paradigms that appeared out of thin air to suit our individual national identities alone, and therefore, can’t possibly apply anywhere else. This logic underpins the very fabric of political campaigns that can, and sadly often do, border on nationalist rhetoric. But the truth is that all political shifts are subject to contagion effects, because we live in a world where the decisions made in one part deeply impact the way that people live in another.
“As an African-American and an Australian woman, I’m invested in this election because it is a precursor to what could be a radical shift in global politics, or an even deeper plunge into damaging policy.”
The reason why is difficult to pinpoint, so much so that whole forecasting websites and forums are obsessed with identifying the singularities that trigger massive global trends. I don’t know what the contagion effect was when the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016, but I know that a country that once colonised so much of the known world, voted to leave Europe because of a fear of immigration. And since then, other European countries suddenly discovered that they too were afraid of all the Black and Brown people that came from the countries they once colonised themselves.
Funny how that works.
Since Brexit, Europe has seen a surge in right-wing parties and governments, including Italy, Greece, Norway, and Austria. Germany has seen a 20% spike in xenophobic and anti-Semitic hate crimes, which includes the assassination of Walter Lübcke, a pro-refugee politician, and an armed attack on a synagogue in Halle. Australia has elected a prime minister who thinks that prayer will save the country from catastrophic bushfires, and who supported the revocation of a law that allowed asylum seekers in offshore detention camps to seek urgent medical attention in Australia, because he believed that it would put the country’s national security at risk. And the United States, not to be out done, put children in overcrowded detention camps where they are denied toothpaste, forced to sleep on concrete floors, and separated from their parents – conditions that have resulted in the deaths of at least seven children in the past year.
That’s not to say that Brexit is purely to blame for everything that’s happened afterwards, but it does shine a light on the nature of political influence, and how it can sweep across the globe just like democracy did once upon a time – a concept that originated from the Athenians of Ancient Greece, by the way. This highlights, not the distinction of political systems, but their overwhelming, frustrating, and infuriating sameness. We are all motivated by the same things, and our governments look to one another to determine what those are, so that they can respond accordingly. As an African-American and Australian woman living in Berlin, I’m struck in particular by the UK General Election for what it could mean for my two nationalities – particularly America.
Boris Johnson is plucked straight from the Trump school of thought, right down to his history of Islamophobic and homophobic comments, his repulsive racist comments about Black people, his vile comments about working mothers, and the blind support he receives from the general public despite the fact that he refuses to apologise for any of it.
As the UK elects another Tory government, one that has a history of underfunding its desperately needed NHS, doesn’t take climate change or its activists seriously, and has single-handedly seen the divorce of the nation from a trading block that was created to prevent another global conflict, I shudder at what’s in store for the United States.
Just like the pendulum can swing in the direction of fear, it has the ability to bounce back from the precipice of disaster, and forge a new way forward, away from the incendiary rhetoric that saw Brexit happen to begin with, and into something that could protect the NHS from following America’s example, a country where 66.5% of bankruptcies are due to medical bills. There is still time to address climate change, and more importantly, to challenge countries like the United States, whose government is still split on whether or not the ice caps are melting, or simply, you know – chilling.
As an African-American and an Australian woman, I am invested in this result because it was a precursor to what could be a radical shift in global politics, or an even deeper plunge into damaging policy. With so much at stake environmentally, economically, and politically, I can’t afford not to take an interest. And it’s not just because I need to believe that Trump won’t be re-elected next year, or that I need to know that Australia will finally act on climate change before the entire country burns up…
No wait, that’s exactly why. There couldn’t be a better reason.
Jennifer Neal is a journalist, writer, and standup comedian.