Not a very smart comment from a Bremainer short of the ability to make a valid point. You know very well which DS poster never ceases to anticipate the deaths of elderly leavers in their posts here.

I don't accept the assumption that the causes of Brexit and Trump are necessarily the same. There might be some parallels, but the reason people voted as they did on these two quite different issues are many and complex. It's much too simplistic to assume they're the same.

As always with any thread on Brexit.

"BUS! There was a BUS!!!"

I fully expect the next Avengers movie to feature a London bus as a super villain taking over fifty two percent of the world's population's minds.

These people like The Guardian and political parties like the current Democratic and Labour parties always talk down to people about the lessons which are to be learned. Like they're the expert authority.
But they completely fail to look inwardly at themselves and arrive at the conclusion that they themselves are the lesson.
You're the lesson. It's you who are turning people off.
And it's not just the right who don't like you, whether it's the far right or alt-right you think it is, people who would be traditionally left don't like you either.
You're the metropolitan elite who have become the party of celebrities rather than the average person.

So what's left of much of the left are either slipping off to the far left or opting for UKIP or even the Conservatives themselves.

It's always somebody else's fault. Can't be your own, what with you being so perfect.
It was the same when The Conservatives were unelectable for many years. It was their own fault, nobody else's. If you don't appeal to the public then you don't blame the public for being uneducated rabble. That's the last thing you should be doing if you don't want to kill yourself off completely.

Those exact arguments could be used of the electorate too. Blame the politicians, blame the EU, blame the immigrants. But do nothing yourself to change the world around you or improve your own prospects. Because changing yourself demands effort, blaming others demands none.

Yes but thats the thing, people got off their arses to do something about it (the EU) and now they are labelled as being stupid, not knowing what they were voting for etc. They voted to leave the EU and yet somehow that was the wrong asnwer?

No, they blamed the politicians. That is not the same as getting off your arse to change your life and surroundings ...... unless you equate putting an "X" in a box as a massive effort at self improvement.

If that isn't change, then what was the point of voting in the first place?

I completely agree. Life is not supposed to be easy. It's hard. But some would rather destabilise society and bring everything down in the vain hope that it might somehow work out better for them with the absolute minimum effort.
The best we can do is have a system where there is at least the opportunity for people to navigate themselves into a position where they can do well. But it's up to the individual themselves to make the effort.

Well now I have to disagree with you in this second reply.
People can't do everything. There are situations such as with political power where they expect their politicians to represent their interests. In the case of the EU local power is taken away and people have every right to blame politicians for being irresponsible enough to give it away on their behalf.
Local political power can serve the interests of the electorate who put it into power. It's that social contract which provides the incentive for politicians to serve the interests of the electorate if they want to keep their position. With the EU the electorate's interests are absolutely meaningless.

There's nothing wrong with voting to leave the EU if that's what people want to do. Was it the wrong target though? You had a mendacious tabloid press (ie. bare faced liars without any principles) telling people for the last 20-25 years that the EU were the cause of all their problems.