Opinion: Brexit is the new Obamacare

Trump exports his magical thinking to Britain. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, July 13, 2018 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( [David Leonhardt] David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist I’ve been thinking this week about the subtle similarities between the debates over Brexit and Obamacare. And then yesterday President Trump went and made those similarities blazingly obvious. He did so while breaching every known custom of diplomacy (and basic manners) by criticizing Theresa May, the British prime minister, while he was in Britain. Specifically, he suggested she could have gotten a better deal when negotiating her country’s planned exit from the European Union if she had taken a harder line. “I would have done it much differently,” Mr. Trump said, according to [the tabloid The Sun](. “I actually told Theresa May how to do it, but she didn’t listen to me.” Ah, yes — the magical great deal on Brexit. The truth is, there is no great deal to be had. During the 2016 lead-up to a referendum on the issue, the pro-Brexit crowd sold a fantasy to the British people: that their country could somehow keep the benefits of European trade (easily selling products in other countries, for example) while getting rid of the downsides (like agreeing to continentwide rules). Along the way, these Brexiteers also exaggerated those downsides and sometimes flat-out lied about them. [My colleague Paul Krugman]( and [The New Yorker’s John Cassidy]( both wrote nice explanations, with much more detail, this week. By now, you’ve probably figured out the similarities to the Obamacare debate. After the law went into effect in 2010, Republicans [spent years lying about health care](. They pretended they could pass a magical law that somehow made medical care better and cheaper than it already was, without ever explaining how it would work. Those falsehoods worked pretty well politically. They helped Republicans retake control of Congress and then helped Trump win the White House. But when it came time to pass a health care bill, the party didn’t have a serious plan. All of its bills would have made medical care [worse and more expensive]( according to every independent analysis. In the end, Republicans couldn’t pass a bill. Yesterday, Trump brought his version of magical thinking to Britain and used it to insult his host. Related. “Essentially, the Trump administration views Britain as an easy economic mark, not a strategic partner,” writes [the Brookings Institution’s Thomas Wright in Politico Magazine](. “Trump’s interview is a bombshell that fully confirms the predatory policy analysis,” Wright later [tweeted](. Besides humiliating and patronizing May, [notes The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar]( Trump’s remarks throw a “hand grenade under her new Brexit plans.” And by championing a maximalist fantasy version of Brexit and emboldening her domestic political rivals, “Trump has essentially backed May into a corner,” [writes Vanity Fair’s Isobel Thompson](. A more responsible American administration would try to iron out the tensions between Britain and the E.U. — even just to protect its own strategic interests. But “rather than soothe difficulties between the U.K. and EU, the Trump administration has inflamed them,” [writes The Atlantic’s David Frum](. In The Times, [Lara Prendergast]( [William Davies]( and [Michael Kenny and Nick Pearce]( offer their thoughts on Britain and Trump. The full Opinion report from The Times follows, including [Michiko Kakutani]( on her family’s history of internment and her fear that history is repeating itself. Trump in Britain [Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Rise of Radical Incompetence]( By WILLIAM DAVIES Like America’s president, Brexiteers resent the very idea of governing as complex and based in facts. [Britain, Time to Let Go of the ‘Anglosphere’]( By MICHAEL KENNY AND NICK PEARCE The other members of this outdated idea of family couldn’t care less. In Case You Missed It [Like Brexit, but More Orange]( By LARA PRENDERGAST Britons are amassing to protest President Trump’s visit. And to do a little bit of projecting. And then on to Helsinki [Susan Rice: Trump Must Not Capitulate to Putin]( By SUSAN E. RICE There is so much to lose and so little to gain for the United States in the Trump-Putin summit next week. [The Art of Containing Trump (and Putin)]( By STEPHEN SESTANOVICH Trump’s bumptious, backslapping summit style just might work with Putin — if he leaves the actual negotiating to his underlings. 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ADVERTISEMENT [When America Incarcerated My Family]( Illustration by Mike McQuade; Photographs by Dorothea Lange/War Relocation Authority and Mike Blake/Reuters By MICHIKO KAKUTANI In 1942, my mother, her parents and sister were sent to an internment camp by the U.S. government. I worry that history is repeating itself. More in Opinion [This Russian Company Knows What You Like on Facebook]( By SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN The social media site revealed that it gave a Kremlin-linked company access to years of user data. You are right to be scared. [No, Democrats Aren’t Ruining Their Midterm Chances]( By MATT GROSSMANN AND DAVID A. HOPKINS American history demonstrates that party conflict does not necessarily hurt electoral success. [Trump and the Return of Divine Right]( By DAVID ARMITAGE In deploying his pardon power freely and using the Bible to justify family separation, the president is exactly the sort of ruler that Enlightenment thinkers feared. 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