Preference Cascade in Britain

The Warsaw Pact regimes collapsed with astonishing speed in 1989.  Within a matter of two months the goverments were just simply gone.  Nobody saw it coming, because propaganda (both official behind the Iron Curtain and unofficial in the major western news outlets) showed very little in the way of weakness or unpopularity.

And so, everyone thought that they were the only one that despised the governments there.  Once people started to to realize that other people - a lot of other people - felt the same way then the end was suddenly at hand, as a crisis of legitimacy swept the entire communist system into the dustbin of history.

Perry de Havilland writes about his experience in the sea of propaganda in the UK:

I have been in Dover for the last week and a bit, and it is like a different world compared to my usual haunts in London (and by the way, I heartily recommend the Allotment restaurant).

And as I walked down the street wearing my LEAVE badge, I was constantly getting nods of approval or thumbs up gestures from complete strangers. As I headed back to London yesterday, the chap sitting behind me patted me on the shoulder and launched into a friendly diatribe about “accountable government!”, and the driver of the bus (rail replacement service actually) grinned broadly and gave me a thumbs up as I entered the vehicle! And I found myself doing the same to others when I saw them wearing a similar badge.

And yet the media was constantly telling me we had already lost, and we might as well not bother, and thus I went to bed last night with a heavy heart.

I should have believed what I saw in the streets with my own eyes, and not what I read in the media.

It seems that many bastions of Labour Party support went hard for Brexit, because of the twin issues of immigration and jobs.  Over on our side of the Pond we hear that Trump is in trouble.  Trouble, trouble, trouble.  So much trouble.  Yooooge trouble.

And yet Trump leads Clinton in the polls on immigration and economic issues (jobs).  And terrorism.

Life long Labour voters abandoned their party over these issues, voting for Brexit, and the polls didn't give any inkling that this would happen.  How many life long Democratic voters will do the same here?  Will polls here give any inkling that this is coming?

The fact that these questions can be so easily asked is bad news for Clinton.