Authoritarian attitudes were highly predictive of Brexit vote ...not material circumstances

[True Earthling]

Culture and personality, not material circumstances, separate Leave and Remain voters. Those that believe sex criminals should be publicly whipped are likely to support Brexit. Wealthy people who back capital punishment back Brexit. Poor folk who oppose the death penalty support Remain....

Brexit Voters: NOT the Left Behind
http://www.fabians.org.uk/brexit-voters-not-the-left-behind/

Precisely the same relationship – based on values rather than class – characterises support for Donald Trump. “I’ve found a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump—and it’s not race, income or education levels: It’s authoritarianism,” wrote Matthew MacWilliams back in January.

This doesn’t mean age, education, class and gender don’t count. But they largely matter because they affect people’s level of authoritarianism. Genes, strict parenting and straitened circumstances contribute to people’s aversion to difference, which gets wired into their personality. For Karen Stenner, this makes authoritarians resistant to exhortations to embrace diversity. Younger, wealthier and better educated people, and women, are a bit less oriented toward order and intolerance. But education is not the reason. A recent study in Switzerland showed that liberal-minded kids select into university – their liberalism was apparent as early as age 13. University itself had no liberalising effect on attitudes.

As large-scale migration challenges the demographic sway of white majorities, the gap between whites who embrace change and those who resist it is emerging as the key political cleavage across the west. Compared to this cultural chasm, material differences between haves and have nots, managers and workers, are much less important. From Trump to Hofer, Le Pen to Farage, the authoritarian-libertarian axis is taking over politics.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Take-away: Must teach and entrench diversity & cooperation at very young ages. . . nt