Dear America, please don’t let us down on Trump. Love, Britain

Alright, we admit it, we messed up.

We messed up, and I know, we’re the last people you would take advice from. To be fair, you probably don’t want to hear from us at all. We get it. Our name doesn’t have the weight it used to – you even fought in the past to get rid of us. But there really aren’t many countries that share the special bond we do, and in that share the problems we face.

We took our eyes off the ball and accidentally left the EU. Imagine accidentally leaving the EU. You accidentally lock your keys in the car. You accidentally drunk text your ex. You don’t accidentally Brexit. And to think we make fun of you guys for being stupid.

But don’t think of it as a funny story – silly Brits, what have they done now – think of it as a cautionary tale. A fable if you will.

It might not seem like it now, but we honestly thought we were safe. All the polls indicated that we’d stay, that old, racist, misogynist, out of touch voters would be out numbered and young, engaged people who would actually survive long enough to see the effects of the referendum, we were the ones who would prevail. So we chilled out. We chilled out so much that 64 per cent of us (and that’s just a rough estimate) didn’t bother turning out to vote, safe in the knowledge that nobody would be stupid enough to let triumph slip through our fingers.

And we fucked up.

Does it sound familiar? Hillary, despite the latest email debacle – thank you once again Anthony Weiner – is still a modest, but impressive four points ahead of Trump in the polls. He’s talked about grabbing women by the vagina, he’s currently awaiting trial for child rape and racketeering, he literally told people to vote on the wrong day. You could be forgiven for thinking, surely not.

Surely this guy couldn’t be President. We’re used to making fun of Americans for being stupid, but surely they wouldn’t be that stupid.

If there’s one thing Brexit has taught us it’s that everyone can be that stupid.

America, you’re at a crossroads. We were in the same position as you, and we took the wrong path – now everything’s on fire. Please don’t make the same mistake as us.

We’ll let you in on a secret. There are British people who are scared about terrorism too. There are British people who are confused by immigration. A lot of British people, like a lot of Americans, often don’t think there’s a political voice who represents them – and so they turn to men like Trump, men like Nigel Farage, men like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove who promise to solve your problems at the expense of the sinister other.

Don’t get sucked into it. Don’t believe these men. Don’t allow yourselves to be duped into thinking that a wall will solve your problems, or that Making America Great Again will make things great for you. We were told Great Britain could be made Greater still, and putting our weight behind falsehoods and empty promises sent our economy into freefall and our community into a new era of hateful rhetoric that we hoped we’d left in darker times.

Take our advice. Do not take your eye off the ball even for a second. It’s when you take your eye off the ball that bumbling, dangerous idiots like Farage and Trump stumble into top tier politics. It’s when you take your eye off the ball that bigoted, soon-to-die voters will fuck you over.

We’ve seen horrors that you, as of yet, only see in your nightmares. We’ve seen currency plummet. We’ve seen the same politicians who led you down the garden path with false promises u-turn on those promises before quickly fucking off, leaving us to deal with the aftermath. Honestly, it hasn’t been nice.

Since the Brexit vote, the NPCC announced a 58 per cent increase in hate crime from the year ago, while the pound hit a 31-year low on the global markets. Half of us believed empty promises and were too quick to blame false demons, whether it be refugees or EU bureaucrats. The other half believed “it would never happen,” and in acting so blasé marched freely into political oblivion. Our country is totally and completely fucked, and we’re to blame.

It’s too late for us, honestly. We can’t go back, and even if we could, our new Prime Minister wouldn’t let us. But it’s not too late for you. You can stop this.

Don’t let us down. Do it for us.

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Featured image via Flickr.