Economists in Great Britain and the EU predicted that the UK's economy would collapse if it voted for Brexit. It hasn't; in fact, it has prospered. Apparently English government economic forecasts are about as good as their dentistry.
Back in 2016, most of America did not know what Brexit was. Many thought it was a meal after exiting breakfast but before brunch. But later Donald Trump became our Brexit: a warning of voters' contempt for big government.
The Brits shocked the world when their (fifth largest in the world) economy grew tired of having to pay for layabout countries like Greece. They voted to exit the EU. Dire government predictors tried to bully English voters into not doing Brexit.
Big government/high tax countries and states do not get that they will push out the most productive, and soon no one will be left they can tax or boss around. They call you racists and like to intimidate you into tolerating a growing government. There is nothing a big central government or U.S. Democrats propose that does not grow government.
Let me explain it this way: Government elites are the pimps and we taxpayers are their hookers. When a hooker threatens to leave a pimp, she always suffers a public "beat down." It keeps the other hookers in line, the money flowing upward, and sends a message to anyone contemplating leaving.
Brits didn't like that 65% of government rules for them were coming out of Brussels' European Union bureaucratic morass. And they did not like unchecked immigration imposed upon them by that power-hungry group of bureaucrats whose incompetence grows with its size. Sound familiar?
When you are a financially strong country like Great Britain, being in the EU is like having your unemployed brother-in-law living in your basement for years, barking orders at you, gambling online with your credit card, and telling you that he wants to take a few unvetted immigrants into your house. And then he calls you a jerk when you say "No."
The Brexit vote was a UK government miscalculation. Americans would still be subjects of Great Britain had it not made some bad government decisions, like dressing British soldiers in bright red uniforms to fight us in the forests.
The Brits were ballsier than we were back in the day. They even initiated a no-fly zone over Libya. Obama and France promised to help by providing refreshments. We are reminded of the strength of Sir Winston Churchill in the movie "Darkest Hour." It's a good message to children: Heavy drinking, womanizing and cigar smoking might be hard on your body, but they let you be the only one to see Hitler coming.
The media do the same thing here with any upstart candidate who espouses freedoms and stands against a growing government.
People will endure just so much high-handed incompetence. With the seemingly endless immigration of Muslim workers, blue-collar Brits rebelled. They also worried about their security and our world order.
Now Great Britain will slow mandatory immigration forced by the EU. The flood to England of victims of violence, oppression, corrupt dictatorial government regimes and failing economies fraught with bloodshed will diminish. If they want more of those folks, they can just increase the number of direct flights from Chicago to Heathrow.
The power-hungry and incompetent, burgeoning, central command-and-control government of the European Union angered Brits, and has also angered the blue-collar "yellow vest protestors" in France, but their grumblings were ignored. Subjugating yourself to others is not the nature of most strong people. The EU has become a coalition of the unwilling
The British Empire gave us the Magna Carta, the monarchy, civility and the English language. America responded with "Sharknado." We are much closer to Britain now; even our own Meghan Markle married Prince Harry and became Duchess of Sussex. And no, Caitlyn Jenner was not named Earl of Middlesex.
Contact Ron Hart, an op-ed humorist and author, at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.