Mainstream media outlets and conservative analysts are in rare agreement on the Democratic contenders’ stance on free trade, calling them either ignoramuses or cynical liars. If the first, they have deceived their advisers, who doggedly stick to the belief that their candidates are really smart enough to know that free trade creates jobs and is an essential component of international economic health and entirely in our own financial and diplomatic interests. They can’t be that dense, their admirers contend. No economist worth his salt would support returning to protectionism.
That leaves the second option. As DLC leader Will Marshall argues:
Apparently, the rule is that in the primaries, facts and evidence don’t matter, so bashing trade becomes a way of validating the emotions of people who feel stressed by global competition, and the facts get trampled underfoot in the process.
On the merits, this is not a tough issue. As to the Colombian trade deal, the Washington Post points out that the result of the deal would be to lift numerous restrictions on U.S. goods going into Colombia. The Post castigates both Democratic candidates for their “flimsy” rationale for opposing the deal. The Los Angeles Times points out that ripping up NAFTA “could spark a trade war with Canada and Mexico and reverse more than a decade of growth for all three North American economies.” There just isn’t much room to argue that the Democrats have attempted to resolve this issue on the merits.
So, if we go with the cynical liar option, the question remains why Democrats and their media supporters do not extrapolate a larger lesson from the candidates’ conduct. If both of them make up facts, play on voters’ fears, and shirk from telling voters unpleasant truths, how is either going to govern? It is not as if trade is unique–most issues which reach the President’s desk require hard choices. It is worth asking whether we should have similar concerns about the candidates’ pronouncements on Iraq, health care, taxes, and every other “hard” issue. This seems to be a “teachable moment” about their leadership style and personal character.
But criticisms of this kind never seem to continue beyond trade: what would follow would be a wholesale indictment of a very old-style type of politics–divisive, dishonest, anti-intellectual and fear-mongering. Too broad a criticism might shed doubt on the entire storyline for both Democratic contenders, and especially for Barack Obama, who is supposed to be above all this. And we can’t have that, can we?
