Andrew Sullivan’s Brexit Blindness

Published at 21:00 on 22 September 2019

In this collection of recent essays, Andrew Sullivan starts out by making a convincing case that just because blatant hypocrisy about racism and slavery is a narrative of U.S. history, this doesn’t necessarily make it the narrative.

Then, a few essays later, is a piece by Sullivan that makes a very similar error. It starts by presenting how being independent for over 1,000 years is a narrative of British history, then artfully slides into arguing as if it is the narrative that pertains to the Brexit issue. No mention is made of other factors, such as lying and conniving politicians, ones who recently passed off a Brexit bait-and-switch on the British people.

Bringing that factor into the picture suggests a completely different course of action: a Brexit referendum redo: now that you know what Brexit really entails, is it still worth it to proceed with the process? This doesn’t reject the narrative that Sullivan set forth, and if the redo vote comes out pro-Brexit, then it really should be game over for continued U.K. membership in the E.U. Likewise, if the Remain vote prevails in the redo, then it should be game over for Brexit.

But Sullivan apparently couldn’t see that, despite recently writing another essay where he easily perceived the same principle. It all goes to show how one’s own proclivities (conservative nationalism, in Sullivan’s case) can cloud one’s vision. Sullivan seems to have a measure of “Brexit Blindness” of his own.

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