RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Forget The Titanic: Beware The Next Iceberg.

Douthat’s observation it was a pre-existing crisis in the EU which brought about Brexit must be taken as central. Countries don’t usually walk out on a good thing without a reason just as passengers don’t leave 50,000 ton ocean liners for wooden boats without motivation.

The rebellion is real and therefore the causes of the rebellion are also real. Yet even on the day after Brexit, the establishment still found ways to deny the vote was anything more than bigotry and xenophobia run wild. Perhaps the most damning example of its attitude comes from a Tweet by Sharyl Attkisson. “Little known fact: UK Cameron’s campaign adviser was Jim Messina who was Obama’s campaign adviser & heads biggest pro-Hillary super PAC.” Faced with the threat of an EU breakup, the foreign policy crisis of a lifetime Obama sent a spin-doctor and gave a speech — and it didn’t work. . . .

That’s it: Jim Messina and a little teaching moment would be all it would take. All those who are still debating the question of whether Obama’s disasters are due to malice or stupidity can chew on this gold-plated, hold-my-beer example of jen-yoo-wine idiocy as a new data point.

Brexit, for all its drama, was merely a warning. The basic demand is for a moderation of the centralizing tendencies, unchecked immigration, runaway political correctness and metastatic government that have characterized the West in these last decades. That’s the bottom line. Unfortunately conceding these demands requires overcoming so much momentum that the captain committee on the bridge has despaired of effecting it. But do it they must. All Brexit has done is give warning. It has started the clock. The rest is up to the West.

Indeed it is.