Sometimes Clarity Comes in the Fog of Waking Up

Learning that the U.K. voters have decided by 52% to 48% to leave a United Europe, and then reading that the Spanish Socialist government is threatened by a party to its left, and then contemplating the angry support of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, I came to epiphany that the elite leaders of almost every country in the world are paying the price for corruption and implementing policies that favor the rich over the middle class.

While logic tells me that globalization and technology are the driving forces behind this reduction in economic opportunity for the middle class, the middle class focus on trade agreements and migration/immigration means there is room for populist politicians to take advantage of this.

As a member of the intellectual elite by education, but not birth, I have to accept some responsibility for this but I am not sure what the alternative is.  Free Trade has enriched the world.  Free Trade and globalization have created the upper middle class around the world.  Immigration is what has made the U.S. and the U.K. more competitive economically than countries that are not open to immigration.  The angry populists are not open to those arguments and I really fear what damage a governing angry populist government might do.