When the conservative party in the United Kingdom started talking about the UK leaving the European Union about ten or so years ago, many thought it was populist jibber jabber and would not happen.

A few years later when the UK voted to leave the EU, the conservatives cheered and said that they were now free!

A few years after that Brexit, most Brits realized they made a mistake:

How did they convince a majority of the British population to vote against their own interests? For many the same reasons many of our fellow Americans voted for Donald Trump’s protectionism and isolationism propaganda: fear, hatred, apathy, and lies.

The upcoming Trump administration promises to deport millions of illegal and legal immigrants. They promise to put tariffs on all foreign goods. If just one of these things happened, our economy would take a severe hit. If they do both, we are in for a major disaster.

Never mind the moral and ethical issues of kicking fellow human beings out of our country. The economic impact will be substantial.

• Taking millions of workers out of the economy is not going to magically fix all of our problems. Quite the opposite.
• Adding tariffs onto imported goods is not going to magically reduce prices. Quite the opposite.

We can only hope the checks and balances we have still work to slow this disaster down. They may try to rid the government of those checks and balances too.

Our founding fathers are rolling over and over in their graves.