Join me for a little walk back in history. The year 2016 marked a critical rupture in both the American and British story. Brexit happened in June. Trump happened in November.

Moments when each nation abandoned the larger stories that once

bound their people together and instead embraced politics of division. These political earthquakes

rejected globalization, diversity, and democratic norms in favor of narrower identities rooted in

grievance and nostalgia. And by seeding this identity debate to demagogues, democratic leaders

failed to confront the deeper crises of inequality that were corroding their societies.

Nealiberalism had promised upward economic mobility, but what ordinary people experienced were

stagnant wages and the soaring cost of living. Fast forward to this week,

Donald Trump touches down in Britain, the royal fanfare, castles, carriage rides, flyovers,

could not obscure the grim realities that are just beyond the palace gates. For Trump, the currency

of power has never been policy or principle. It's flattery. The louder, the gaudier, the more grovelling,

the better, and Britain's pageantry served it up on a silver platter. But beneath the gilded surface

lay a cautionary tale. Britain was once the center of empire. It exported its power, it imposed

its identity abroad, and now that empire has come home.

Immigrants from Britain's former colonies have reshaped that nation's population. Its economy has

slipped behind the rising east. Brexit. Sold as a way to take back control has left the country

poorer, more isolated, and no closer to solving its core problems.

Meanwhile, many Americans wrestled with a parallel fear that by extending the American dream to

others, to newcomers, they themselves had lost out. Opportunistic politicians turned that

fear into a zero-sum game, where one group's gains

equals another group's loss, xenophobia and paranoia took root, eagerly stoked by demagogues.

As Ben Rhodes puts it, quote, in the summer of 2016, British voters severed their relationship

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