[Brexit] Today is for heartbreak

[montfelisky]

I am just so sad today. The EU is very far from perfect, but I have been a part of it all of my life and I would not choose to be leaving it today. I feel out of step with this country of mine which votes to make its horizon smaller and less global and chooses a pompous empty-mouthed liar to lead us through that change. 

And I keep coming back to how furious I am about it too. I've tried to work on that fury since the referendum and to find a place where I can have a productive, constructive conversation about why people voted Leave, but I am just still so angry. Some of my friends voted Leave for left-wing reasons and I guess now, today, I just want to say I cannot fathom the fucking naivete of thinking that voting Leave would precipitate us into a left-wing socialist utopia and I will forever think a little less of them for doing it. They have contributed to this catastrophe and, while I love them, I am not sure I will ever forgive them for it. 

I'm not even going to bother speaking about all the people who voted Leave for racist tabloid-led reasons. A plague of boils upon them, frankly.

This country is becoming a smaller place and I am not proud of it. 

Comments

[dolorosa_12]

Lexiters make me spit with rage. As you say, racists will do their thing, helped along by decades of frothing fury fed to them by the Daily Mail, but a socialist whose socialism stops at national borders is no socialist at all. It should have been enough for them to look at who they were sharing a campaign platform with, and see what they would be helping to usher in. I can understand thinking that the EU is a neoliberal institution, but I cannot fathom the failure to understand that freedom of movement of people is an extraordinarily powerful mechanism for social mobility, because it frees people from being trapped in the economic hardship of their own national borders. It hurt so much to see Labour arguing passionately for a customs union, but not for freedom of movement. It is degrading and unacceptable that goods should have more rights than people.

I'm so sad, and so tired.

[montfelisky]

I am really grateful for this very well-constructed summary of why they're infuriating, because I have mostly been stewing in an inarticulate rage about it for 3 years -- with occasional spurts of "they are putting ideology ahead of people!"

And yes, this. How can you look at Nigel Farage and think yes, yes I'll be on this side.

[raven]

I only recently discovered the existence of the left-wingers who voted Leave, and it's been another hit on top of all the ways I have already been hit.

[montfelisky]

Oh darling. <3 I'm glad that it isn't something you discovered earlier. It has been one more piece of fury in a very large mosaic of fury.

I have been thinking a lot about you and the work that you do and how hard and strange this time must have been for you. I don't have much to say except you are excellent and there will be more baked goods in your future.

[raven]

Thank you for thinking of me, and for the baked goods. <3 <3

[walkthegale]

Nothing constructive to add. Just <3<3<3

[kudryavka]

I'm so tired. Big hugs.