Under majority rule, a win for populism - Trump, Le Pen, whoever - means democracy has failed. The need for a more consensual polity could not be greater! Hence this press release, next this letter in The Guardian, 11th Nov, and then these analyses of the US election and Trump, what a silly, dangerous nonsense and if only there had been at least some PR. (See also 2016-9.)
Brexit. The argument now is not 'remain' v 'leave', but another dichotomy - (of course) - 'soft' v 'hard'. These two adjectives also described the split in the All Russian Congress of Social Democrat, in London in 1903. They voted, binary - (again of course, just like us). The 'hard' wing won, by 19 to 17, with 3 abstentions. (So no side had 50%.) Nevertheless, Lenin called his side the majority, bolshinstvo, and its members the Bolsheviks. And the losers, the minority, menshinstvo, were the Mensheviks. Will history repeat itself? Will the brexiteers now split?