Image: A younger Donald Trump with Rupert Murdoch and Murdoch's second wife Anna. The two billionaires have been friends for many years. PA Images/Sonia Moskovitz/Zuma Press.
There are many similarities between Brexit and Trump. They are both authoritarian movements, where authority either lies with a single individual or a single vote: the vote that binds them all. This authority expresses the movement’s identity. They are irrational movements, by which I mean that they cast aside expertise where that conflicts with the movements wishes. As a result, you will find their base of supporters among the less well educated, and that universities are seen as an enemy. Both groups are intensely nationalistic: both want to make America or England great again.
It is easy to relate each group to familiar concepts: class, race or whatever. But I think this classification misses something important. It misses what sustains these groups in their beliefs, allows them to maintain their world view which is so often contradicted by reality. Both groups get their information about the world from a section of the media that has turned news into propaganda. In the US this is Fox, and in the UK the right-wing tabloids and the Telegraph.
