How a Boris Johnson Victory Impacts Even Life in Idaho

You’re too stupid to know what’s good for you.  It’s an old refrain from liberals and elites.  It’s why they’re dumbfounded by some election results in the Americas and Europe.

Some years ago a fellow named Thomas Frank wrote a book titled What’s the Matter With Kansas.  Mr. Frank couldn’t understand why people in the Midwest would vote for Republicans.  He argued it was against their interests.  He wrote a follow up column for the Wall Street Journal and I emailed him with counterarguments.  It only made him even angrier.  I didn’t save the response but he blamed many of us in talk radio for hoodwinking the public.  Because, again, you’re stupid and easily manipulated.  Just ask any smarmy liberal. 

The elites in Great Britain are having the same tantrum.  Why aren’t working people any longer voting for socialists?  The biggest excuse is nobody likes the Labour Party leader.  At least they aren’t blaming Putin for stuffing ballot boxes!  A day before the polls closed I was reading stories about how the referendum was too close to call.  Sound familiar?

I’ve been reading numerous media post-mortems.  Most focus on Jeremy Corbyn’s resemblance to Bond villains.  When I was a boy there was a man in the neighborhood named Mr. Avassi.  If a ball bounced over his fence he would confiscate it and refuse any requests for returns.  Finally, a state policeman next door retrieved a ball for his son and old man Avassi experienced behavior modification.  Corbyn hasn’t yet had an epiphany.  The left simply refuses to believe it can be wrong.

Obviously, a lot of British voters are miffed about a government dragging its feet on Brexit.  And by posturing European governments sending threats about leaving the European Union.  Newsflash, if the French storm English shores they won’t be shooting.  Impossible when you’ve got two hands raised high above your head.

Several writers looking for answers point squarely at pompous elites.  Like the aforementioned Mr. Frank.

There was a time when working people were celebrated as heroes.  During World War Two composer Aaron Copland penned Fanfare for the Common Man.  It acknowledged who really won the war.  People on farms, on battlefields, on the seas, in the air and in factories.  They were venerated for their values.

Today, liberal elites mock those same values and traditional faith.  If you’re church is Bible based you’re labeled a bigot.  The same treatment is dished out if you argue against biological men sharing locker rooms with your daughters.  If you believe feeding at the public trough sets a poor example for your kids you’re reviled once more for being stupid.  You’re told welfare programs are for your own good and you should welcome what government provides with borrowed money or the taxes from someone else.

Speaking out in this age can result in public humiliation, loss of job and an angry mob at your door.  Most people decide they don’t want to be forced into exile and foraging for roots in a forest.  Instead, they tell pollsters they aren’t sure about pending elections and…

The elites don’t come into the voting booth and watch over my shoulders.  Then the shock hits when the votes are counted.

There’s another element the British media is dancing all around.  Buried in several of the essays I’ve been reading are public concerns over mass-migration.  They mean being overrun by Mohammedans!  The libel laws in Britain apparently make it difficult to state the obvious.  Days before the election a mad man went on a rampage on London Bridge.  Not for the first time.

I subscribe to a YouTube channel named Lost in the Pond.  The creator is an Englishman now living in Chicago.  He speaks nostalgically about Christmas crackers and Christmas markets.  He’s not alone.  Comedian John Cleese had to surrender his liberal card when he said he didn’t any longer recognize the London of his youth.  He now lives in the Caribbean.  If Cleese and YouTube star Laurence Brown are pining for a country they no longer recognize, then how do you suppose this looks to people in Manchester, Yorkshire and Wales?

When my daughter was a little girl I took her to see a play based on Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales.  An actor playing an older Thomas stood at stage left and would forlornly narrate his profound sense of loss.

Elites sneer at faith, culture and tradition.  On this side of the Atlantic they continue to believe if they mock you then you’ll grovel and surrender to their post-Christian vision.  On the flip side, they won’t criticize Islam and warn you’ll only make the Muslims angry.  First, I’m reminded of the Monty Python brochure offering advice for English travelers going abroad.  When it comes to France, the writer concedes just being English will be enough to offend.

We aren’t going to make Muslims nicer by tiptoeing around them.  And the very same people who browbeat us are apparently sending a contradictory message.

I make no apologies.  It’s my hope people in British flyover country make none for their electoral choice.  Boris Johnson nailed it with just one word:  “Enough!”