As someone with no horse in this race, I hadn't been following the debate leading up to the Brexit but I did see the aftermath on Twitter, FB, mainstream media, etc. What I saw was really fascinating - an almost universal outpouring of scorn and derision for "Leave" voters: Ageism. Racism. Classism - "Only uneducated old, poor, white people voted to leave".
It hit me then pretty hard just how much of a echo chamber places like Twitter, FB, and even the mainstream media now are and how poorly they sample and represent the views of everyone. Here was a democratically conducted vote for which >50% of a population voted "Leave", yet based on how one-sided the response has been you would think the votes must have been rigged.
I deeply suspect as well that the one-sidedness of presentation in the MSM is a root contributor to the massive divide that drove the Brexit. What you have here is a failure of empathy - as the article touches on, "every smug, liberal, snobbish barb that Ian Hislop threw his way...was ensuring that revenge would be all the greater, once it arrived". Here are ridiculed and marginalised people showing you that while they lack representation in Twitter, MSM, etc, in a democracy their vote is just as powerful as yours.
In some sense I actually find it quite a satisfying outcome when viewed in this lense. A simple analogy might be "A bullied child just threw a punch back at his bully even though he may have deep down known it'll get him in more trouble."
And a part of me wonders whether the same daily outpouring of hatred you see dumped on Trump/Trump supporters has also created a very large class of marginalized, ridiculed people who are going to let us know exactly what they think come time to vote -- and like the Brexit we may not even see it coming, because we live in the Twitter, FB, MSM bubble that does not accurately sample the people.
It hit me then pretty hard just how much of a echo chamber places like Twitter, FB, and even the mainstream media now are and how poorly they sample and represent the views of everyone. Here was a democratically conducted vote for which >50% of a population voted "Leave", yet based on how one-sided the response has been you would think the votes must have been rigged.
I deeply suspect as well that the one-sidedness of presentation in the MSM is a root contributor to the massive divide that drove the Brexit. What you have here is a failure of empathy - as the article touches on, "every smug, liberal, snobbish barb that Ian Hislop threw his way...was ensuring that revenge would be all the greater, once it arrived". Here are ridiculed and marginalised people showing you that while they lack representation in Twitter, MSM, etc, in a democracy their vote is just as powerful as yours.
In some sense I actually find it quite a satisfying outcome when viewed in this lense. A simple analogy might be "A bullied child just threw a punch back at his bully even though he may have deep down known it'll get him in more trouble."
And a part of me wonders whether the same daily outpouring of hatred you see dumped on Trump/Trump supporters has also created a very large class of marginalized, ridiculed people who are going to let us know exactly what they think come time to vote -- and like the Brexit we may not even see it coming, because we live in the Twitter, FB, MSM bubble that does not accurately sample the people.