How do you explain the apparently unexplainable? So far in 2016, the Brexit referendum, the United States presidential election and other polls have yielded unexpected results. That individual voters have been shocked is not especially surprising because the internet’s broadening of the media landscape has had the effect of allowing people of any particular political leaning to live in an echo chamber, listening only to news sources that reinforce and validate their own views.
Of greater moment is that the results in the UK and the US have also confounded nearly all the professional pollsters, who are supposed to be above such insularity. Nor is this a solely British or American phenomenon, as the electoral triumph of inflammatory and unorthodox candidates such as Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte demonstrates. These results show that these successful campaigns have clearly tapped into something both profound and powerful.
Listen to the Beltway insiders and many of those who tread the corridors of power in western capitals and it would be easy to believe that history is trending unceasingly towards an interconnected world, increasingly dominated by free trade and liberal social views on issues of diversity and inclusiveness. One analysis of these polls in the UK and the US is that instead of this being a steady progression in one direction, a majority are feeling they are not deriving the benefits of this and have forced a correction via the ballot box.
There can be no question that 2016 has demonstrated the rise of the outsider candidate. Democrats in the US will be left wondering what might have been if their own outsider – Vermont senator Bernie Sanders – had gained the nomination and denied Mr Trump the ability to pitch the election as a choice between a maverick and the establishment.
Few would think this political trend has run its course. Voters are clearly unhappy with the present direction and the political parties need to recognise and address that. The approval rating of the US Congress, for example, is a record low 11 per cent. One of the many ironies of this election is that the party that did the most to make it dysfunctional has been rewarded with control of Congress and the White House.
