Sunday morning talking heads

There are no Brexit-themed guests scheduled for the Sunday shows as I write this on Saturday afternoon but they’ll be there in spades his morning, no doubt. Regular bookings are done a few days in advance; it tells you a lot about how confident American media was that “Remain” would win that they didn’t bother lining up big names from the UK in advance for post-referendum commentary. Keep an eye out for Tony Blair, as he’s probably the world’s most famous “Remain” supporter (apart from David Cameron) and has already signaled his willingness to push back on nationalism in major media forums with a Times op-ed this weekend:

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Those in the political center were demonized as out-of-touch elites, as though the people leading the insurgency were ordinary folks — which, in the case of the Brexit campaign, is a laughable proposition. The campaign made the word “expert” virtually a term of abuse, and when experts warned of the economic harm that would follow Brexit, they were castigated as “scaremongers.” Immigrants were described as a bunch of scroungers coming to grab Britons’ jobs and benefits when, in reality, the recent migrants from Eastern Europe contribute far more in taxes than they take in welfare payments. And besides, immigration to Britain from outside the European Union will not be affected by the referendum decision.

The political center has lost its power to persuade and its essential means of connection to the people it seeks to represent. Instead, we are seeing a convergence of the far left and far right. The right attacks immigrants while the left rails at bankers, but the spirit of insurgency, the venting of anger at those in power and the addiction to simple, demagogic answers to complex problems are the same for both extremes. Underlying it all is a shared hostility to globalization.

Elsewhere, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort will be on “Meet the Press” to dodge questions about Corey Lewandowski’s firing and trumpet that Brexit heralds the age of Trump. Likely Trump VP Newt Gingrich will echo the same point on “Fox News Sunday” while Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell will appear on “This Week” to do his usual “I don’t like much of anything Trump says or does but I’m supporting him anyway” two-step. Finally, Marco Rubio will explain to “Face the Nation” just how lucky he feels to be facing either an obvious fraud in Patrick Murphy or an insufferable far-left kook in Alan Grayson in his new bid for reelection this fall. The full line-up is at the AP.

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