The progressives have it absolutely right on trade. I hope they don't back down. This is the one issue where I'm completely with them.
So you're a social conservative who hates elites and blames the business community's love of free trade for good ole American workers' problems? Ever considered just being a reincarnation of a Southern Democrat and ruin their party instead?
Populism is hardly new to the Republican fold, my Northeastern friend. The GOP specifically structured their platform to create an alliance of the north that went beyond the immediate business of slavery as well. "Vote yourself a tariff! Vote yourself a farm!" as the saying went. Western independent farmers in a strange alliance with the Eastern business interests. It was an odd reversal of the Jacksonian Era in which Southern slaveocracy was allied with Western farmers against the monied New England. And, naturally, the Grand Old Party was no friend of immigrants. Teddy Roosevelt as well, regardless of what you think of his presidency, certainly
portrayed himself as a man of the people. President Ronald Reagan himself signed off on tariffs against the Japanese automobile industry in 1985, though, admittedly, the rest of his record is favorable towards free trade.
