# Brexit vs. President Trump **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 11, 2016, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brexit-vs-president-trump/771482 "2016-11-11T09:25:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brexit-vs-president-trump/771482/1 "2016-11-11T09:25:48Z")
Donald Trump famously called himself “Mr. Brexit++.” People warned that Trump could happen against polling odds, kinda like Brexit. Then Trump happened. What are some similarities? Are they that similar? My take is this: early on in the campaigns of both, support of both was said by the media and political opposition to be racist. Why does this matter? That’s why I think polling missed them both. When something is labeled as racist from the get go, you run the risk of producing a polling problem. This is why politicians need to be a lot more careful about who and what they call racist. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brexit-vs-president-trump/771482/2 "2016-11-11T09:34:03Z")
[The polls said Brexit was a real possibility:](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/25/upshot/why-the-surprise-over-brexit-dont-blame-the-polls.html?_r=0) > [@](#): > > The polls consistently indicated that there was a very real chance that Britain would vote to leave. Polling averages even showed “Leave” with a lead for most of the last month; over all, 17 of the 35 surveys conducted in June showed the Leave side with the edge, while just 15 showed Remain ahead. ---
**Author:** ![T.M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ad7895/32.png) [@T.M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.M)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brexit-vs-president-trump/771482/3 "2016-11-11T09:46:02Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > Donald Trump famously called himself “Mr. Brexit++.” People warned that Trump could happen against polling odds, kinda like Brexit. > > Then Trump happened. What are some similarities? Are they that similar? > > My take is this: early on in the campaigns of both, support of both was said by the media and political opposition to be racist. Why does this matter? That’s why I think polling missed them both. When something is labeled as racist from the get go, you run the risk of producing a polling problem. This is why politicians need to be a lot more careful about who and what they call racist. The similarity is people both sides of the pond have had enough of being bossed around by a political elite. The mud slinging against Trump only helped him it made him look normal compared to the usual none stick plastic politician, locker room talk be it men or woman is the norm, hear a ladies hockey team talk and you will not only blush your ears will fall of. ordinary working people just say welcome to my world ---
**Author:** ![Trevor\_Does\_Not\_Exist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@Trevor\_Does\_Not\_Exist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trevor_Does_Not_Exist)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brexit-vs-president-trump/771482/4 "2016-11-11T10:14:58Z")
brexit is nothing like trump. many people voted brexit because of restrictions and damaging laws brough by the EU, people voted for trump due to his extreme right wing policy policies. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brexit-vs-president-trump/771482/5 "2016-11-11T10:25:39Z")
The way I see it people are sick of status quo cookie cutter politicians, there has been a growing resentment towards this for a long time. Working white class voters are sick of feeling like politicians don’t have any interest in hearing of their plight. Politicians like Hillary seem more interested in helping illegal immigrants, gays, Muslim refugees, etch. But to the working white class she just seemed to only mention them as an afterthought in her speeches. Trump’s message resonated with these voters, they want to shake things up, Trump may fail at delivering but the way they see it they don’t have anything to lose and maybe a lot to gain. I think a lot of voters don’t like all the American interventionism and intervening in world affairs, they wanted a candidate that was all about taking care of Americans and not the rest of the world, Trump was the only candidate who had a clear message of putting the interest of the American workers first, that’s what I think it was about anyway, whether he lives up to his professed beliefs I guess we will see. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brexit-vs-president-trump/771482/6 "2016-11-11T10:27:54Z")
Trump is unlike Brexit in a key way: In the UK, more people voted to leave than stay. In the US, more people voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brexit-vs-president-trump/771482/7 "2016-11-11T10:45:26Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Trump is unlike Brexit in a key way: In the UK, more people voted to leave than stay. In the US, more people voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. You have a point, but the difference between Trump’s popular vote percentage and Hillary’s is small enough that were it a poll result, it would be a dead heat. Meaning that her winning the popular vote was essentially a coin flip. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brexit-vs-president-trump/771482/8 "2016-11-11T14:30:38Z")
Well, so far I haven’t heard any Trump voters admitting that they didn’t know he could _actually_ become president because of their votes. But perhaps Americans just aren’t as forthright about that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brexit-vs-president-trump/771482/9 "2016-11-11T14:46:39Z")
The similarity between the two is immigration. Deal with that and support for right-wing movements will evaporate.