The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a 12-nation global trade pact, of which Obozo and the vast majority of GOP, Inc (including most the GOP POTUS contenders) support. In a Breitbart article titled “Jeff Sessions: Obamatrade Can Be Killed“, is a snippet of TPP’s anti-democratic, corporatist mechanisms to enable end-runs around Congress:
[W]hile the text of Trade in Services Agreement (one of the other two deals that will be fast-tracked after TPP) has remained a secret even to lawmakers who voted to expedite it, leaked portions of the highly-secretive deal reveal that the agreement includes an entire chapter on immigration with 38 different foreign worker programs through which immigrants could enter the United States. Policy experts have said that this leaked chapter shows that the bill “will constrain the future ability of the United States Congress to regulate U.S. immigration policy.”
Now this extraordinary gap (the Silent Majority is getting yuge) between GOP, Inc and its base:
Polls show that conservative voters are those most likely to oppose so-called free trade deals. A recent YouGov poll shows that Republican voters—at higher rates than Democrats—think that free-trade agreements make U.S. wages lower, have resulted in job losses, and have hurt their household…
A 2014 Pew Poll found that Americans by more than a two-to-one margin believe free-trade deals reduce wages (45 percent vs. 17 percent); and believe that free-trade deals destroy jobs by nearly a three-to-one margin (55 percent vs. 20 percent). An NBC poll from June of this year found that 66 percent of “Americans say protecting American industries and jobs by limiting imports is more important than allowing free trade so they can buy products at lower prices from any country.” NBC noted that this, “sentiment is held across party lines, with majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and independents agreeing.”
So, with all this in mind, where does Trump stand on the matter?
Of the top-polling candidates, Trump has taken the strongest position against Obamatrade’s TPP — making opposition to globalist trade policies one of the signature issues of his campaign. Trump and Sessions argue that redistributing manufacturing wealth from the United States to poor and developing countries in order to further global parity has made foreign workers richer, but has made U.S. workers poorer on average.
Methinx The Donald is very much aligned with, and advised by, Sen. Jeff Sessions on a myriad of issues, and this is something that pleases me greatly.
And GOP, Inc. wonders why Trump dominates in the polls.
On issues like this, and immigration, the crossover potential (i.e., pulling votes away from Independents and even sizable numbers of Dems) is yuge.
On issue after issue, Trump is re-enacting the past campaigns of Pat Buchanan.
And I have used this gedanken when rhetorically trying to ‘prove’ the existence of gargantuan Silent Majority in this country: If Pat Buchanan ran his exact same 1996 campaign today… do you think he would get a lower percentage of the vote or a higher percentage?
