Greenwald calls-out the dominant Brexit narrative

[happyslug]

167. Someone does not understand surveys...

The Classic case is from the 1950s, two surveys were done by two different auto makers, one asked people what type of car they will buy. The response was a car for four people, small fuel efficient engine, good mileage nothing fancy. The other car maker asked people what type of car they NEIGHBOR wanted. The response was a large car, a large engine, a lot of chrome and tall fins (This was the 1950s). Both companies built car based on their surveys,. The company that asked what people wanted in their cars, folded no one bought they car. The car maker that asked what type of car their neighbor wanted, make a lot of money.

That story is taught to this day in marketing classes. People what to response that makes then seem logic and something they see at present driving their decisions. The problem is people are driven by unseen forces and at the same time want to appear logical. Thus people decided saying immigrants was the reason for the decline in their economic decline is based on their present impression and appears to be logical. Austerity has driven a lot of hardship to a lot of people but at the same time people want to appear logical, thus they opt for immigration as what is driving wages down. They also look at local politicians helping them as a solution to their economic decline.

Just a comment that just because people said they voted one way do to X, does NOT mean X is wanted forced them to vote the way they did. In most cases it ends up being economics, for if all boats are going up, opposition to immigration and racism tends to decline (that is what happened in the US in the 1940s till the 1960s), on the other hand if the lower economic classes see a decline in their standard of living, they will look for reasons including racism and other rationales. We have to understand that what people SAY they did something is often NOT the real reason, but some sort of rationale, when the real reason is economics.