The UK Election ... Tells Us Nothing About Ours

One of the hot takes coming out of the UK election was this one: Labor’s catastrophic defeat means a liberal Dem can’t win in the US. It is a bizarre position.
The contexts of the two countries and their candidates bear not even a passing resemblance to each other. No matter how this election went, it would offer no insight into US elections happening a year from now. (If Elizabeth Warren loses to Trump, the reasons won’t resemble the reasons for Johnson’s win even passingly.) Because:

• The election was fundamentally about Brexit. There is no analogue to this in the US. It’s significant because Brexit, unlike any issue in US politics, cuts across party lines. The Labor leader, Jeremy Corbin, like many traditional Labor voters, was predisposed the Brexit. He took no position on it. That’s really bad for a party entering a campaign in which it’s seen as the “Remain” ticket!
• Brexit itself illustrates a dynamic absent in the US—the politics of the EU. We have nothing like that issue, nor the real-world issues attendant to it (immigration, travel, trade).
• Corbyn is unlike most Dems in that he has a factional appeal in Labor. He is, within his own party, a divisive figure. People compare him to Sanders, but this isn’t quite right, either. Sanders’ supporters are like Corbyn’s—and some will wander to Trump if he’s not the candidate (polls suggest ~3-4%). But Sanders is himself not divisive. He’ll enjoy broad and unified support if he’s the nominee. As will any Dem.
• Corbyn is wildly unpopular. His approval is at a staggering 16%, while disapproval is 76%. Boris Johnson isn’t loved, but he had the whip hand in terms of support vs Corbyn. Dems are broadly popular and their net approval is higher than Trump’s.
• There were many scandals or dust-ups that dispirited Labor, chief among them a badly-handled anti-Semitism scandal that beset the party. Dems are very spirited! And they’ll vote for a ham sandwich if it gets Trump out of office.
• Just structurally, the multi-party system creates very different dynamics. This is especially true because of the UK demographics—and here the results were anything but encouraging for conservatives. The social-democratic Scottish National Party won 48 of 59 seats in Scotland, and party leader Nicola Sturgeon immediately announced a desire to leave Britain. Brexit again. And you don’t see the people making the U.K./US parallel mention this outcome, which illustrates how different the two countries are.
• In Northern Ireland, both liberal and conservative parties lost votes (though only the conservative DUP lost seats). The moderate Alliance Party, which doesn’t fix its identity on the leave/remain axis, was the gainer. 

 Human brains are hard-wired to draw associations. We see faces in clouds. And, when foreign elections happen, we see our own politics in them. But despite the many ways in which the U.K. is similar to the US, this election was decidedly not a good example. The moderates who forward the idea that it means anything about American politics are seeing faces in the clouds of U.K. politics and engaging in wishful thinking.