A vote is a crude instrument. It is often a binary choice that cloaks oodles of complexity. Consider a typical ballot for office. Are votes cast for or against candidates? What factors are driving the decision? Economics? Party? Social concerns? Foreign policy? Personality? Charisma? Or, more grimly, for how many voters do racism, envy, and fear control their choices? Obviously, for most it is a combination of factors, with some being more or less critical at a given moment. This intricacy is one reason why seismic events are hard to grasp when examined through the lens of voting outcomes. Brexit serves as a useful case study.

The United Kingdom has voted to withdraw from the European Union. Perhaps the change will be limited to the UK, but it seems likely we are witnessing the first of many exits as the EU hemorrhages power. There is an analytical thread winding its way through the coverage. Elites are speculating a connection between Brexit and “Trumpism” in the U.S. (Avik Roy at Forbes, John Cassidy at The New Yorker,  and Peter Weber at The Week are good examples). Though separated by an ocean, and some quip a language, the nations are joined by a common legal and political foundation. And, to a degree, we share some political concerns. Immigration matters and elites are largely divorced from the people on that issue, and there is a growing argument about nationalism as opposed to either internationalism or cosmopolitanism.

Those arguments, even if accurate, are built on a host of assumptions. At a very basic level, Trump has earned around 13 million votes so far. More Republicans voted against Trump (17 million) than for him, and even all together, the Republicans earned only about 12 percent of all potential votes in their primaries. Besides the pure numbers, voters in America, even if choosing Trump, are reacting to a political environment that contains dozens of variables not present in the UK and vice versa. Just to choose one issue that seems common, immigration in America is a very different animal when compared to immigration in the UK. Both the native and the immigrant populations represent distinct political cultures and values. To turn American Trumpism into Brexit nationalism, or vice-versa, appears more than a stretch right now.

At its worst, analysis that tries to explain such complicated political movements tritely is guilty of projecting its own biases  onto the outcomes. Or, more likely, analysts with a political axe will grind it fully and draw conclusions that affirm their own desires. The saying is old but it is so used because it is so true. For the hammer, everything looks like a nail. For the feminist, the results, whether for Trump or Brexit, display patriarchy. For the race police, the outcomes scream racial superiority, oppression, and appropriation. For the climate cops, global warming is to blame. For the hardened nationalist, they are the dawn of a new day and have no hint of race or oppression.

Both Trumpism and Brexit have pockets of animus, to be sure, but no political movement is purely motivated, not only in the aggregate, but within the human heart. To accuse Brexit supporters of being motivated by hate, or to claim all of Trump’s votes are racist is in the end a smear designed to minimize those with whom we disagree. This attitude robs opponents of rationality and invests them with venom and bile, and it also contributes, mightily, to the polarization we are greeted with on a daily basis. We are all guilty of it, but we should work to minimize it. We ought, as Arthur Brooks always reminds us, to be gracious as we consider motivations.

The issues that underpin Brexit and Trump are complicated and can lead to different conclusions. I can only put the pieces together for myself, but I don’t see a necessary connection between Trump and Brexit. I would have voted for Brexit, but unless something remarkable happens, I’d have a harder time voting for Trump. The situations are different.

I had the good fortune to lead a group of college students on a tour of parts of Europe several years ago. Our guide, an indefatigable Irishman named Tom, was a staunch supporter of the EU. Tom had worked as a translator and was very much a European, though that did not eclipse his love for his homeland. He believed the EU was the key to European peace and the foundation of economic prosperity. He and I argued over the issue good-naturedly a few times. I always countered that such an arrangement would grow to be corrupt and unaccountable. Besides, there is something lovely about Ireland and England and France and Belgium. I feared that a political power atop them all would eventually scrub away the cultural distinctions that define the nations. Could that be peaceful? I suppose, and I don’t want to minimize that, especially given Europe’s explosive past. At the same time, bureaucratic homogenization is its own kind of evil. The Borg never fights itself, but only due to radical assimilation that grinds away any differences.

Most of the Brexit advocates (see David Pryce-Jones, Rich Lowry, and Iain Murray) I respect focused on Britain’s gradual loss of sovereignty. Essentially, Britain was forced to choose between a distant government in Brussels or a step back toward self-government. The New York Times has characterized this as a “leap into the dark,” which is a bit comical since Britain has been self-governed for centuries. One assumes there is enough residual intellectual muscle memory to ease through the transition, such as it will be. These issues have been wrapped around economics and immigration–and, of course, those two issues are also woven together. Those who turn these into matters of race and hate, by definition, reveal their paucity of arguments. There is nothing inherently racist about citizens that wish to retain their own traditions and culture; nor is it necessarily hateful to reassert state sovereignty.

On its face, you could argue Trumpism is of a similar sheen. There is a crisis in confidence in leadership. Our economic recovery has been anemic at best, and the size and scope of our government is arguably out of control. Critics of our current immigration system argue about economics, culture, tradition, and security. They have valid and reasonable concerns.

The differences, at least for me, outweigh the similarities. Trumpism is not offering an institutional reform, but, let us say, a flexible approach to policy positions that overshadows any reforms offered. To the degree that Trump advocates policies I like, those likes are filtered through Trump, and their possible impact must rest in Trump’s trustworthiness and capabilities. Trumpism is a shot in the dark. Brexit is about a fundamental change that relocates Britain’s sovereignty. Brexit brings a change by definition. Brexit is not inherently tied to its advocates since it can accomplish its goals simply by being passed. To a degree, at least at the fundamental level, its changes are self-executing, even though much work is still to be done. To my mind, those are meaningful differences.