So 2016 is going smoothly if your idea of smooth is a bed of rusty nails. This election went from being a joke to possibly bringing a psychotic racist and failed businessman into power. We've recently seen the worst mass shooting in US history and people still want guns to be as available as they've always been. But it was just today that we saw one of the most sweeping and all-encompassing bad decisions ever made in history. I'm talking, of course, about the UK pulling out of the EU.
This is a major event in not only European history but world history as well. Just within the first day of the UK gaining the majority of votes in favor of leaving we saw Scotland and Northern Ireland call for independence from the UK in order to reenter the EU. We saw the current Prime Minister of the UK resign, and finally the pound dropped to a low not seen in almost thirty years. The UK hasn't officially left the EU yet, as there are still negations to be made. All the backlash is largely due to an air of uncertainty as a major nation in western Europe breaks away from a coalition formed from the ashes of WWII that kept the continent mostly stable for seventy years.
The UK has left the EU, not for any particularly good reason but rather out of a fear and hatred of immigrants. Leave voters have opted to damage the financial security of young British people as well as the foreign relations of their nation in the name of tighter borders and a whiter nation. The global result of this will be long-term damage to the world economy, but we can almost certainly anticipate a newly unified Ireland after a hundred years and an independent Scotland.
But what should be taken from this--on the part of us in the US--is that our votes do matter and it wont be long before we too will have to hold a powerful and historical election. The best thing we can do right now is ensure that we don't split this country down the middle by electing Trump. Whatever happens, let's not make 2016 the year the EU started to break and America elected a fascist. Because even during the referendum nobody thought that Leave would win but the unthinkable happened and the people who failed to vote are now in fear of the uncertainty of their future. So please, consider your stance on the next election, research the candidates, and choose what is safest for the US. If we don't we too may make another infamous choice in history.
