Can the Post-Industrial West Work?

A major political party has nominated a white-nationalist with no experience to be President of the United States. A major western power just voted to leave the European Union over xenophobic fears about immigration. Another major western power might just hand the Presidency of France to an openly nativist candidate.

Something is not right here.

In the post-industrial west, the formerly white working class voters have increasingly gravitated towards answers to their problems that are grounded in identity politics. Immigrants, the poor, general "others" must be the reason the good paying, low skill jobs left, and why we simply can't keep up with our standard of living moving forward. The "solution" to our losses was cheap credit, and now that's not even as plentiful, and clearly the issues we're facing are simply not being addressed by anyone. Not Democrats, not Republicans. Neither ideological pole has a solution to their problems.

In that space of no political solutions, it is easy for an ignoramus like Mr. Trump to rise, blaming all the "others" out there for our problems, or an opportunist like Ted Cruz who simply says anything the government does is bad. Once a Boris Johnson emerges out of the political abyss and has some level of success, like possibly being the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, you can't put that back in the bag. It's not as though the Trump voters will think they are wrong, just because they don't win in November. You can't shut down the Tea Party, Rob Ford, UKIP, or anyone else in this vein. Their victories reinforce their message. Their defeats reinforce their message. It is always the fault of the elites.

The scary thing here is that some of this has crept into a left-wing in the western world that increasingly can't sell it's victories, it's agenda, or it's vision for our way of life. Our victories are married to demographic trends, and even when we achieve them, we end up fighting against our left flank to defend whether or not they were "good enough." The left in America and Canada is at least capable of winning a national election. Increasingly in Europe, that is gone. They are no match for the xenophobia and hyper-nationalism that is rising.

In a few decades, all of the industrial era people will be gone, and some of this will hopefully dissipate. In the meanwhile, we're in for some hard times, hard times that might just end up pushing us down the rabbit hole of bad policies and permanent changes. If that happens, all bets are off. Either way, the post-industrial West is not looking good in it's prospects. It's possible that it just won't work.