“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Paul Krugman: Brexit: The Morning After
Well, that was pretty awesome – and I mean that in the worst way. A number of people deserve vast condemnation here, from David Cameron, who may go down in history as the man who risked wrecking Europe and his own nation for the sake of a momentary political advantage, to the seriously evil editors of Britain’s tabloids, who fed the public a steady diet of lies.
That said, I’m finding myself less horrified by Brexit than one might have expected – in fact, less than I myself expected. The economic consequences will be bad, but not, I’d argue, as bad as many are claiming. The political consequences might be much more dire; but many of the bad things I fear would probably have happened even if Remain had won.
Start with the economics.
Eugene Robinson: Will Sit-In Make Congress Stand Up On Gun Control?
The extremely rare sit-in by Democrats in the House chamber may have been, as Speaker Paul Ryan claimed, a “publicity stunt.” But it was a righteous one that may improve the prospects for meaningful gun control.
It won’t happen immediately. Even after 49 innocent victims died in the Orlando massacre—the worst such shooting in modern U.S. history—Republicans remain adamantly opposed to any new legislation that might keep powerful weapons out of the hands of the next would-be mass murderer.
If Republicans care more about maintaining their standing with the National Rifle Association than saving lives, that’s their choice. But polls show majority support for sensible new gun control measures—and members of Congress should at least have to go on record. Democrats are demanding that the House do its job: vote yes or no.
Amanda Marcotte: Trump and Brexit: Right-wing populism of the two is rooted more in base nationalism than in economic insecurity
Nigel Farage, the leader of the U.K. Independence Party that just helped lead Great Britain to a disastrous vote to leave the European Union, is a man with a fondness for race-baiting rhetoric that will be quite familiar to Americans who’ve endured a year of the Donald Trump campaign.
Like Trump, Farage blames crime and disease on immigrants and loves telling audiences that unemployment is a direct result of immigrants taking their jobs. He argues that Great Britain has “frankly become unrecognizable” and looks “like a foreign land.”
In one memorable interview, Farage complained about riding in a train through suburban London and hearing all the chatter in foreign languages on it. “It was a stopper going out and we stopped at London Bridge, New Cross, Hither Green. It was not until we got past Grove Park that I could hear English being audibly spoken in the carriage,” he whined. [..]
This anxiety about not being able to eavesdrop on other people because they aren’t speaking English is a common trait among Trump supporters in the U.S., as well. A recent study from Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the Brookings Institution demonstrates exactly how out of control the how-dare-they-speak-Spanish-near-me attitudes are in the Trump camp.
Scott Lemieux: Without Scalia, there’s no predicting supreme court decisions
The US supreme court decided three important cases on Thursday, and it’s clear that the eight-person court created by the unexpected death of Antonin Scalia continues to affect its decisions in unpredictable ways.
In a case about the fourth amendment – involving the concept of unreasonable search and seizure – a majority of justices ruled in favor of allowing warrantless Breathalyzer tests, because the court’s conservatives got the necessary support from the the liberal wing for the second time in a week.
In an affirmative action case, the liberal wing scored a surprising victory despite the absence of a Democratic nominee to replace Scalia. And on a major immigration case, the eight-person court failed to resolve a crucial issue, leaving the lives of substantial numbers of people in limbo.
Richard Wolffe: Britain allowed its populist right to rise. America should heed the warning
Donald Trump landed in Scotland on Friday in a typically confused state of mind.
Not because he was promoting his private business instead of, you know, running for president. But because – God bless him – he couldn’t figure out what just happened. It turns out that foreign affairs can be even more complicated than running a golf course.
“Just arrived in Scotland. Place is going wild over the vote,” he tweeted. “They took their country back, just like we will take America back. No games!”
If he had any aides or policy advisers, beyond his own brain watching cable news, someone might have told him that Scotland voted decisively to stay inside the European Union. And that Scotland will likely now vote to leave the United Kingdom and re-join the EU on its own.
Such things might matter to an international businessman running a company in a foreign country. Or to a wannabe leader of the free world. But Trump told reporters on Friday that he wasn’t traveling with foreign policy aides because “there’s nothing to talk about”. That should calm the markets, if nothing else does.
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