"just moneyed nihilism"

Call it schadenfreude therapy, but I've been following Brexit as closely as a stupid American can.  I do think I've got the basic gist of it by now -- the Conservatives are, of course, awful, while the mostly correct-minded Labour types are stuck with leadership who are also willing to Let It All Burn Down if only to replace the smoldering ruins of London with a proper Socialist Utopia rather than a Third World Anything-Goes Tax Haven.

Anyhow, as the endgame approaches Aditya Chakrabortty is more necessary than most commentators:

"There is no heroism here, just moneyed nihilism. There are no ideas, just reheated Thatcherism about low taxes and burning red tape. These people say little about national interest, but their ears prick up when it comes to compound interest. Much has been said about how Brexit Britain might be put back together again, with solutions ranging from more cash to more listening to each other. It’s a healthy and necessary conversation. Yet one of the strongest lessons of this period is that we need a wholesale reimagining of our institutions so that they better serve the rest of us, rather than just those who run them. This was one of the promises of the leave campaign, of course, but it was always destined to be folded and put away inside the pocket of one of Rees-Mogg’s double-breasted jackets. It is up to the rest of us to rescue it and give it some meaning."

The parallels to Trump are almost too obvious.  While wealth and power have always gone hand-in-hand, what happens when a nation's rulers have nothing to lose and everything to gain by blowing up the economy, forever?  When not just the poors but even the middle and large swathes of the upper-middle classes are purely expendable in the name of profit?

The Trump tax cuts for billionaires and corporations were positively obscene.

They were, probably, just a test run for what awaits all of us sooner rather than later.