Yes, this is exactly why Vox exists. Which is both why Vox is the best place for that article and the place where its core message will go unheard.

This, from today, is another classic of the genre.

A Guardian columnist walking round one of the UK's poorest districts bewildered that white working class people do not share his opinions on the European Union:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2016/jun/14/l...

“Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”

Smugness is certainly a fact, but so is that brexit will leave the UK economically worse off in pretty much all respects. Especially the poor.

No, that is not a fact at all. It's a guess. A projection. You have no idea what the EU is going to look like in five years, let alone twenty or thirty.

>Smugness is certainly a fact, but so is that brexit will leave the UK economically worse off in pretty much all respects. Especially the poor.

Citation needed. But not those made-up by economists, pundits and bureaucrats making money by being pro-EU and working within EU organization and with EC money...

It's like global warming. You can always find a crackpot who has a contrary opinion, but the fact that every single "neutral" economist apart from those with a monetary interest in Brexit agrees is a pretty strong indication - from the IMF over US investment banks to the Chinese government and the UK statistics authority - not to speak of stock markets and FX markets which sell off everytime the risk of Brexit rises, and rally when the risk of Brexit falls. So people put their money where their mouth is.

The top American "neutral" economists told us that everything was great in the real estate market right before 2008.

Sterling is up against USD since March. Besides, a low pound can be good for exports/manufacturing. The idea that if the pound drops against the USD it's categorically "bad" is untrue and simplistic.

When David Cameron was campaigning, he said he'd be glad to have a referendum and he thought that a Brexit might actually be better for the UK. Thanks to that he was voted in with a majority, and promptly changed his tune to saying a Brexit would be lead to a catastrophe. Funny how he changed his mind so quickly. Also funny how the "neutral" economists didn't pipe up to correct Cameron during the election.

> The top American "neutral" economists told us that everything was great in the real estate market right before 2008.

The US housing bubble collapse was widely and publicly predicted by leading independent (that is, those not working for banks or government) economists of every political stripe for many years before the collapse.

Those independent economists were not the ones being trotted out on the media talk shows back then, and there's no reason to think the independent economists would be trotted out now for this Brexit debate.

> Those independent economists were not the ones being trotted out on the media talk shows back then

They were widely reported in major news media, including appearances on "media talk shows".

Only after-the-fact, when the burst was clearly visible...

Widely reported? It was just the opposite.

> Funny how he changed his mind so quickly.

Politicians being politicians. Here's Borris before and now.

https://tompride.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/the-great-eu-debat...

I don't really believe there are neutral economists. Not many in any case. Almost all economists are involved with government's, policy decisions, and financial institutions and interests.

And they comingle with people in power and others with large interests all the time.

It's like having a computer science professor in "databases" that's also a stakeholder in MongoDB.

>which sell off everytime the risk of Brexit rises, and rally when the risk of Brexit falls. So people put their money where their mouth is.

That's only short term assets they play with -- to make a quick buck on the uncertainty before and after a Brexit--, it doesn't show anything with regards to the medium- and long-term prospects of a Brexit.

Worth bearing in mind that most of those "neutral" economists also said it would be a great idea for the UK to join the Euro.

I'm from Kansas. I grew up with these kinds of voters. The problem isn't that they "don't know any better". It's that the way the party system is aligned in the U.S., you can vote for one side that may help your economic situation but is pretty much in favor of everything you abhor socially, or you can vote for the other side that won't do much for you economically, but at least pretends to care about the same things you do.

If the Republicans made themselves more like the Lib Dems in Australia, or the Christian Dems in Germany they'd have a clean sweep. But then they'd also lose Wall Street, large chunks of the Libertarian wing of Silicon Valley, and would probably end up having to fracture first.

Though maybe the Lib Dems are a bad example as they've swung further right and closer to the U.S. conservatives as time goes on.

The LDP are a bit of a joke party in Australia, did you just mean the Coalition?

Probably. Still figuring some of these parties out. All I know here is that many of the issues like healthcare, gun control, smoking regulations, etc. are mostly supported by both the left-leaning and right-leaning parties here. But support for any one of these issues would be enough to get you kicked out of the Republicans in the U.S.

The point being, you could likely make a party in the U.S. that kept most of the socially conservative stuff from the GOP and still picked up more of the economically "liberal" issues in the U.S., many of which are moderate in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere, and make it work.

That's exactly what Trump has tapped into (ie anti-free trade like the left; anti-immigration, pro-life, pro-guns like the right). It's the same populism underlying early 20th century European movements.

>Doesn't Vox exist to perpetuate this kind of nonsense? It's undergraduate level politics dressed up as stone tablet commandments.

They seem like basic facts to me. Not even arguable.

Yes, Vox does exist to perpetuate that exact liberal nonsense. That's why Emmett Rensin, a communist, critiqued smug liberalism there.