Barack Obama’s US struggled as history got a hurry on in 2016

There are years when history is let off the leash, and as 2016 staggers to an end it is clear that its aftershocks will shape the year ahead.

To say that is not to endorse exaggerated interpretations of the events that dominated the world scene. The reality is that both the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory in the American presidential contest were close-run things. And as is always the case, the transient and contingent can weigh as heavily on electoral outcomes as the structural and enduring.

But for all the flaws of overblown commentary, it would be wrong to downplay 2016’s defining events as merely the result of marginal shifts in contests that are always tightly fought.

Yes, Hillary Clinton was a weak candidate who combined a startling lack of sincerity with the belief that the White House was hers by right. But it is still extraordinary that of the 700 counties that Barack Obama carried twice, a solid third swung to Trump.

And the fact 63 million Americans voted for a man who attracted the lowest net favourability ratings ever recorded for a major party’s presidential candidate highlights a yearning for change — and a willingness to take risks on behalf of change — that is far beyond business as usual.

Nowhere was that yearning for change stronger than among poorer voters, whose share of the Democratic vote was almost 10 percentage points lower than in 2012, as the less than college educated moved to the GOP.

Equally striking were the shifts that underpinned the Brexit result. In the 1975 referendum that overwhelmingly endorsed Britain’s membership of what was then the Common Market, there was little difference in the yes vote ­between England’s better and worse off areas.

In contrast, in this year’s referendum, all 10 areas with England’s highest incomes voted to remain, while all 10 areas with England’s lowest incomes voted to leave, with the areas where incomes are below average more than twice as likely to back leave as their more affluent counterparts.

That change can hardly be ­explained by the campaign itself. In 1975, as in 2016, the yes camp had the virtually unanimous support of business and of the “quality” media.

As for the arguments put, Lord McAlpine, who was the treasurer of 1975’s yes campaign, explained that its “whole thrust” was to “depict the anti-marketeers as dangerous people” who were “off their rocker” just as the remain strategy this year was to portray leaving as reckless.

Rather, what changed were ­social attitudes. Asked immediately after the 1975 referendum why the public had voted as it had, Roy Jenkins, home secretary in the then Wilson Labour government, summed up the overweening elitism of the pro-marketeers: “They took the advice of people they were used to following.” But if voters in 1975 did what their betters told them to do, 2016 marked the end of deference.

Yet it is easier to promise than to deliver. The technical difficulties Brexit involves are immense; they are made even more daunting by the deep divisions in the British electorate. Nor is breaking up any easier on the EU’s side, where the strains will become increasingly acute as anxious, disaffected electorates go to the polls in France, The Netherlands, Italy and Germany.

Come late March, the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which laid the basis for the EU, are likely to be a sombre affair.

The challenges facing the Trump administration are even greater. There is, no doubt, great scope to reinvigorate growth by slashing inefficient regulation and reforming the tax system.

But in a system of government with myriad checks and balances, those measures, along with the mooted repeal of Obamacare, will galvanise powerful opposition — including from the majority of voters, who backed Clinton, and from a Democratic Party that has every incentive to be obstructive.

To make matters worse, the prospect of a major fiscal loosening, combined with rising interest rates as the Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy, is driving the US dollar to long-time highs. The result, which is likely to bite just before the 2018 mid-term elections, will be a further blowout in the US trade deficit, savaging the “rust belt” and reinforcing protectionist pressures, notably against China.

Those pressures will play themselves out in a global system where the threats are accumulating and compounding. Having recognised the limits of American power, the US under Obama struggled, and ultimately failed, to ­define a role.

Into that vacuum stepped Russia, whose annexation of Crimea was the first seizure of territory in Europe since 1945; Iran, which has consolidated its control over an arc that sweeps through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and whose pawn, Hezbollah, has been battle-hardened into an ever more dangerous force; and China, which has shown a greater risk-appetite than anyone expected.

Meanwhile, Islamic fundamentalism continues to spread, not least in Indonesia.

No amount of nostalgia for a gloried, and largely mythologised, past will do anything to address those threats. Making America great again is a slogan, not a policy; as for Britain, nothing can restore the “Little Britain” of long ago. The revolt against a disappointing present is understandable but it must be more constructive, ­realistic and honest if it is to yield a better future.

Unfortunately, as the long Australian summer cocoons the country in complacency, those traits are as sadly lacking here as anywhere else. We have much to celebrate, most of all our freedom. But as Matthew Arnold long ago thoughtfully observed: “Freedom is a very good horse to ride, but to ride somewhere.” As the surprises of 2016 morph into the perils of 2017, forging that sense of direction remains as vital, and as elusive, as ever.