Does Brexit Mean Donald Trump Is Going to Win in November?
Great Britain's vote to leave the European Union - a move known as Brexit - has cratered world stock markets, prompted the resignation of British Prime Minister David Cameron, and generally shocked the world. Britain and potentially the rest of Europe could plunge into recession as a result.
Donald Trump, however, thinks Brexit is "a great thing."
"I love to see people take their country back," he told reporters at a news conference at one of his golf courses in Scotland. Earlier in the week, Trump said he wasn't really following the Brexit news. Trump, who's in Scotland to check on his golf course Turnberry, also said Brexit is a great thing for … Trump! "If the pound goes down," he said, referring to Britain's currency, "more people are coming to Turnberry. I think it could very well turn out to be a positive."
But will Brexit be a positive thing for the Trump campaign come this November? Quite possibly, yes. "This is a humbling moment for anyone who opposes Trump," the Chicago Tribune wrote in an editorial Friday. "We'd wager that, as we type these paragraphs, Hillary Clinton's game-planners are in full freak-out," the editorial continued. "The British vote doesn't repudiate her; she wasn't on Thursday's ballot. But she'll soon be on one here. And to many Americans, she represents just the sort of central-control, heavy-handed, know-it-all ethos that the European Union represents."
The campaign leading to Thursday's stunning vote for Britain to leave the European Union shared some of the nationalist, populist themes driving the Trump campaign, including a wariness of immigration, concern about borders, and skepticism of the value of multinational organizations.
Put another way, the pro-wall building, anti-immigrant feelings that Trump has stoked since announcing his candidacy for president last June helped fuel Britons' vote to leave the EU. So it could very well push Trump into the White House.
"I think there are great similarities between happened here and my campaign," he said in a speech Friday morning, following the vote. "People want to see borders. They don't necessarily want people pouring into their country that they don't know who they are and where they come from."
As Esquire's Stephen Marche writes, if this kind of paranoia about foreigners can take hold in Great Britain, a nation that "created the world's most cosmopolitan city," then it could happen anywhere, including the U.S.
But it goes beyond xenophobia. Brexit, like the rise of Trump, is rooted in the economy and the populist rejection of Establishment politics. Like many Americans, Britons voting to leave the EU felt the growth of free trade and the increase in migrants pouring over their borders had cost them jobs. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has come to represent free-trade policies that many American workers feel has put them out of work.
And, as USA Today points out, British politics are often a preview for what's to come in the U.S.
Nearly four decades ago, conservative leader Margaret Thatcher overturned the British political establishment by becoming prime minister in 1979 - one year before Ronald Reagan did much the same thing by winning the American presidency.
There's also an argument that Brexit will actually hurt Trump. If world markets continue to convulse, and recession truly looms for Europe, American voters might be scared away from a candidate whose own policies so closely hue with those of the leave EU proponents in Great Britain.
In other words, Americans are getting a preview of the world reaction to a Trump presidency. If it's scary - and right now it's much scarier than anyone probably realizes - Trump's campaign could be dealt a significant body blow. Right now, however, the Brexit vote is likely sending waves of panic across the Democratic establishment.
Additional reporting from the Associated Press.
