re: #122 Dr Lizardo

Many of my students simply can’t wrap their heads around it; why would a prosperous nation willfully choose to commit economic suicide?

Actually a few simple principles at work (all bad and wrong, IMO, but still in play). I think it boils down, in the end, to a “nationalism vs. globalism” meme, but in the case of Brexit, its main motivators seem to be:

1. Xenophobia (too much regard for “those bloody foreigners”, and too many of them cluttering up British society)
2. Toxic nostalgia (for the Good Old Days of Empire when Britain was a political and economic superpower)
3. Pure opportunistic greed (the notion that Brexit is NOT, in fact, “economic suicide”, but a unique opportunity to create wealth, power and prosperity once free of “oppressive European over-regulation” See, point 1.)

And the fact that the British Government overseeing this momentous
political crisis is a Minority, headed by mediocrities, and (mis-)governing an near-equally-divided polity does not help matters in the least.