On Thursday, June 23, 2016, citizens of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Five days post-vote, the consequences are exactly as expected. As The Economist reported, “chaos was predicted and chaos has ensued.” While the UK is still a member of the EU and will be until they invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, plenty of consequences have already begun to play out: Prime Minister David Cameron resigned, the value of the pound and stocks have dropped immensely, Scotland is considering its independent future, and petitions for a second referendum were quashed by Cameron on June 27th.

With the whole world abuzz over the UK’s vote and its repercussions, it can be difficult to separate fact from emotion. In order to get a framework for how we, as high schoolers, should be thinking about the issue of the Brexit, I spoke with John Osborn, an international lawyer and Forbes contributor who formerly worked with the United States State Department:

WHITTIER: Recognizing that there are complex historical, cultural, economic, and political issues at play, how do you recommend that we begin to consider Brexit?

OSBORN: First, you’re right that all of those aspects are important to consider, and the cultural one is particularly important if you look at the breakdown of the ages of the voters. The vast majority of young people voted to remain as part of the European Union, and I think, symbolically, to remain as part of Europe. They regard themselves as not only being English or Scottish or Welsh, but they also regard themselves as being European. . . . The older people, certainly people over fifty, still harken back to a time where they were more British than European, and they believe that certain things have gone badly [for them since joining the EU]. I think as young people – it’s interesting to me and certainly could be interesting to American high school students – you should know that your peers over in Britain are very disappointed by this vote.

And there are practical differences, as well, beyond the identity piece. The European Union allows for the free movement of people, goods, and services, so young people not only can travel freely, but they can say ‘oh I’m going to go work in France this summer.’ They don’t need to worry about a lot of permits; they can just go over and work.

WHITTIER: So while younger Britons see the benefit of EU membership, the majority of voters still opted for exit. What concerns were driving the majority vote?

OSBORN: There’s this political issue around whether or not Great Britain has lost some of its autonomy and sovereignty as a nation and that’s a bad thing, or whether it has retained its central Britishness and its prerogative but also is better in a sense by being part of Europe. That’s one point, and the second point is this generational thing that young people really love being part of Europe, and apparently they value it more than the older people do. There may be a third point, as it applies to Americans, this question of whether or not the vote continues to represent the idea that national interests are very important and that there’s an us and a them – the ‘us’ in this case is Great Britain and the ‘them’ is the rest of Europe. The interesting question for America, and not just for American high school students but for America, is whether or not the importance of nationalism is going to continue to resonate with Americans to the extent to which it might propel Donald Trump to victory in November over Hillary Clinton.

WHITTIER: Some of our readers, including me, will be voting in our first national election this Fall, so that was actually one of my questions! Do you see any parallels between Brexit and the situation facing the United States today with Trump’s campaign?

OSBORN: Even though the parallels aren’t perfect, clearly when Mr. Trump talks about limiting the immigration of Muslims or building a fortification that would limit the travel back and forth to Mexico and illegal immigration from Mexico, he’s certainly speaking to the same kind of fears and concerns that were evident in the British vote to say ‘we’re just not comfortable being part of Europe anymore.’

WHITTIER: There’s been obvious regret over the decision by many voters. Do you think we would see the same phenomenon if Trump were elected president?

OSBORN: Absolutely. I think that a lot of people, and I don’t want to offend people by saying they’re poorly informed . . . but I just think that there’s a lot of emotion and a lot of resentment towards people who are seen as being the elite because of decisions that have been made over the last decade or so, because of the terrible economic crisis of 2008, which we never really recovered from fully, and because of the inequality in the distribution of wealth and income. So people are angry because of all that, and I think because of that anger – and a lot of that is true in Europe as well as in the United States – that anger leads people to perhaps make a voting decision based more on emotion rather than thoughtfulness. The thoughtfulness would be: okay, you’re mad and it’s okay to be frustrated, but how do you move things forward? What kinds of policy changes? So, to stay with the Brexit vote and the EU, from an economic standpoint, even if . . . economists aren’t right about the exact numbers as to the negative impact on the British economy, it seems inarguable that Britain will be hurt badly by this vote. However this sorts itself out as they negotiate the specific terms of an exit, the value of their currency, the pound, has fallen immediately, so their own collective wealth has fallen as well.

WHITTIER: But perhaps people who’ve been struggling over the past decades were focused on their experience more than the high-level economics? Is it possible this vote could actually make things worse for them?

OSBORN: There seems to be at minimum an economic disruption, and many people have said there will be long-term economic losses to Britain. To stay with your overarching theme of why this matters to high school students, I think it matters because, since World War II, we have been basing our economic and political progress in the United States and globally on a series of institutional, political, and economic policies that have overall resulted in stability and growth. . . . When you see the rise of nationalism and then having voters act on that impulse and then vote to leave the European Union, it’s not an exaggeration to look and say this could be a pivotal development in the steps that start chipping away at the international stability that we’ve enjoyed, including the United States – not only just having a stable partner in Britain, but having these institutions to keep order, [as well as] economic opportunity for American business and consumers. If this starts to become more of a wave, if other countries in Europe begin to say ‘you know, it hasn’t been working that great for us either. We’re going to think about that same thing’, that’s bad for America. That’s bad for Americans.

WHITTIER: But what about the wealth disparity that seems to be fueling the voters’ rage? You mentioned the ‘us and them’ mentality and the divisiveness even within individual nations. How do you think wealth disparity has played into that?

OSBORN: Everybody, on some level, whether you’re rich, poor, or in between, votes on the basis of their own circumstance. It may not be completely conscious, but I think we all start from where we sit, so if you’re feeling frustrated because you haven’t had a wage increase in a long time or your [spouse] is unemployed, younger people are taking your work, or the plant closed in Ohio and they’re making the goods in the Philippines or Hong-Kong now, you feel bad. And it’s not crazy to feel bad. What we call globalization, which is certainly at the core of the European Union, is the free movement of people and capital and goods and services throughout this block of [28] countries. That’s certainly exhibit A of what we call globalization. And globalization has certainly lead to inequality, because, even though over the long run for countries as a whole many people believe globalization is a good thing because you have collective increase in wealth and productivity, individual people and individual communities are going to be hurt.

WHITTIER: So is there a way to reconcile the high-level benefits of globalization with the well-being of the individual citizens?

OSBORN: It probably comes down to having a kind of industrial policy. . . . So if certain people are doing better, you know, making more money, what do you do to help the people that are left behind, who are not benefiting when you are? . . . Traditionally, the way to help them is through government programs and the redistribution of wealth, but that doesn’t mean you literally take from [one person] and give it to [the other]. It could mean more education and retraining programs, special tax breaks. . . . Some of this stuff the Obama administration has talked about and tried to do. Maybe you put more money into infrastructure. You have more spending and you hire people who have worked in blue collar, labor jobs to [pave] highways, rebuild the bridges, and all that stuff. That’s how you reconcile all of that, historically, but we’ve had trouble getting a consensus, because so many people believe that we have too much government spending and taxes that are too high already. You can’t really do that just by taxing super wealthy people in New York City who work on Wall Street – there are not enough of them. You have to dip down into the upper middle class and the middle class. [But that’s one] way to do it, by having taxes that result in programs that would distribute opportunity a little more evenly and a little more consciously.

WHITTIER: So if there is one point you’d want readers to consider about what’s happening in the UK and its implications in the US, what would it be?

OSBORN: While I understand that many people are deeply frustrated by the lack of economic opportunity and growth since 2008, they are misguided to think that retreating into a kind of nationalistic, ‘close the borders’ mentality . . . [is] going to get us into a better position.