Your vote can change the world

Published 2:35 pm Tuesday, June 28, 2016

We can learn something from Britain, which shocked the world last week by voting to leave the European Union.

It’s a reminder that our votes mean a lot, and in a democracy it is the public that has the power. It’s always good to remind the government and the elites of that fact — but it’s also good to remind ourselves.

When we wield our votes as punishment or protest, we must be careful of our aim. When we try to punish the government and its institutions, we often punish ourselves as well.

Perhaps leaving the European Union will be a good thing for Britain. More likely, it will cause years of protracted disentangling that will leave it isolated and the European Union weakened.

It’s no wonder the Vladimir Putins of the world cheered the vote. When powerful but clearly flawed democratic institutions weaken, authoritarians look to fill in the vacuum.

It seems clear that Scotland will soon leave the United Kingdom (and join the EU) and ever more likely that Ireland will unify, leaving England and Wales a decidedly minor player on the world scene. That’s to the detriment of the United States, Europe and defenders of democracy everywhere.

The European Union is a bureaucratic tangle, but you cannot argue that Europe has ever been richer or more peaceful during the last 50 years.

Yet this country, the good old U.S.A., made our Brexit a long time ago — way back in 1776 — when we eschewed rule from afar for local control.

It worked out well for the United States of America. The future of the “United States of Europe” is in doubt.

For now, we must let the machinations of the global political and economic systems play out, and let John Maynard Keynes and Winston Churchill roll in their graves.

But looking toward November, we can learn a lesson. A vote is a powerful thing that can change the course of nations and the world.

As German-American journalist H.L. Mencken put it in the last century, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”