At RealClearPolitics former Indiana senator and governor Evan Bayh urges the Democrats to adopt an “America first” trade policy:
My message is simple: The elections this fall will be close and probably be decided by middle-class workers who feel fed up with both Washington and foreign nations that break the rules at our expense. Both presidential candidates and both parties have a strong interest in leveling the playing field for manufacturing.
I am confident our next president and our next majority party in the Senate will succeed by standing with manufacturing workers in critical swing states and standing up for American aluminum workers in Indiana and elsewhere across our great nation.
I have no doubt that we can ultimately prevail against the global pandemic and the economic destruction it is causing. To do so, we will need leaders – Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Republicans, Democrats – with the courage and strength to insist on a good deal for American manufacturing.
It shouldn’t be that difficult. Unions have been wary of trade, to say the least, for some time. The main barrier will probably be a reflex to identify an “America first” policy with xenophobia and racism.
xenophobia and racism
They can bite me.
Those are tactics used by our enemies.
Our xenophobic and racist enemies.
and racism
Why should Biden or Democrats change anything?
As Carville memorably phased it, “Trump is going to have his fat ass beatâ€.
Fox News has Biden up 8, at 50%.
Biden can have a gaffe like “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.“; and it will not affect a single vote.
I don’t call it “gaffes,†but rather it’s mindless ramblings of an incoherent person who is not qualified to be head of a household, let alone a country. The fact democrats would even consider this man for the presidency says volumes about their ability to decipher good from bad. Furthermore, when you add in Biden’s historical malapropisms, wrong judgment calls, onerous Ukraine behavior, self serving China relationship…..I see the Democrat party as being a political farce, and nothing more.
Are you familiar with the “mirror image” theory of foreign relations, put forward by Yuri Bronfenbrenner? I think it may apply to domestic politics, too.
Carville et al.
Gratuitous vulgarity from the Left is wearing thin for me. They need to go back to grammar school and pay attention this time, or I can’t take them seriously. They are not worthy of diplomacy or statecraft. Sophomores.
Giddy with the power they hope to grasp and turn to coin. That’s not conjecture, they have a history you know.
I find that to be a “vanguard of the proletariat” thing—middle class kids trying to establish working class bona fides by doing what they think is imitating working class people. Getting tattoos, wearing jeans, other things that started to be done in the 1960s fit that description, too.
I see it a bit differently. I spent my first ten years in a working class (if not non-working class) neighborhood and none of the people I ever encountered behaved that way. Even the hookers who worked down the street didn’t behave that way.
“The main barrier will probably be a reflex to identify an “America first†policy with xenophobia and racism.”
In gaming it is well understood that the game world is totally different than real life, hence you used “IRL” to note experiences that happen in reality. I dont know anyone IRL that would worry about xenophobia or racism with trade policy.
Steve
Biden:
By default and fear of the Bern.
The DNC needs a farm team, and elder statesmen who can envision a future that goes further than their next ejaculation. They don’t have that because they don’t even believe their own bullshit, just a means to an end. And that end is no more than continuance of position, of power.
America is ripe fruit for a demagogue with a little talent.
Trump is not even particularly good at it, but you can see that the crowds want him to be.