This Seems Right

The issue is the issue.

When I used to be a professor, there was a joke about faculty senate debates being so vicious because they involved such trivial issues. In the modern world, the political debates aren’t about consequential issues like workers’ rights, civil rights, war and peace, etc. 

No one seriously expects Trump to do anything about illegal immigration, trade deficits, etc. Today’s debates are about symbolic issues. It’s as if half the population decided to pick a fight with the other half, just as an aggrieved spouse that had built up years of resentment suddenly lashed out at their partner over some trivial issue—forgetting to do the dishes.

While Brexit itself has only a trivial effect on the UK in utilitarian terms, the Brexit debate might be the biggest blow to the UK’s aggregate utility since WWII. It is reducing happiness on both sides. The real issue is the issue itself, not what the issue is about.

I wonder if this boils down to young vs. old? The young feel the old have screwed them deeply in some way and can't figure out how or why and the anger manifests itself in a number of bizarre ways. Could go some of the way toward explaining the attempted demotion of all things from the "the past."