The American public has made it quite clear: so-called "free trade" has been a disaster for the working men and women of the nation. They made it clear in the 2006 election and, now, a new poll should put a further stake in horrendous trade policies. The question is will the Democratic Party hear the people?
In today's Wall Street Journal, the paper reports on the regular joint poll it does with NBC News, a poll conducted by Democratic pollster Peter Hart and Republican Neil Newhouse. There are a whole series of findings on the mood of the public but here is what caught my eye:
By 46%-28%, Americans say trade deals with other countries have harmed U.S.; a 42% plurality of conservatives agrees.
The results don't surprise me if you look at the last election and, in fact, a host of other indicators from past polls and pre-2006 elections. But, the fact that such a significant number of conservatives are rejecting so-called "free trade" should make Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid sit up and take notice. This gives us an enormous opportunity to make additional gains in House and Senate seats in 2008 and beyond.
I pointed out right after the 2006 election how important the trade issue was in securing a number of Democratic seat in the House and Senate. Heath Schuler, who is fairly conservative on social issues, made the loss of jobs in North Carolina due to so-called "free trade" a central point in his successful ousting of Republican Charles Taylor. In the open Iowa 1st District seat, the Democrat Bruce Braley seized a Republican-held seat in a campaign in which he argued that we need a new trade policy that is fair to workers and farmers.
On the Senate side, Sherrod Brown had been a long-time opponent of so-called "free trade" in the House (he even wrote a book about it called "Myths of Free Trade: Why American Trade Policy Has Failed"). Senators Bob Casey, Claire McCaskill and Bernie Sanders ran television ads on trade, as did--Senators Jim Webb and Jon Tester. This is good news because, in the past, Senate Democrats have been far more inclined to support so-called "free trade" than their counterparts in the House. Public Citizen has an even more detailed breakdown of the success Democrats had in taking positions opposed to so-called "free trade."
There is a clear feeling among the people, regardless of where they might themselves on the ideological spectrum on other issues, that so-called "free trade" benefits corporations but does little for the average worker. And, let's be clear: so-called "free trade" does not benefit people elsewhere and, in fact, sometimes means they could face destitution or death.
Frankly, the only reason, it seems to me, that any Democrat would still support a disastrous trade policy is the enormous flood of corporate money stuffing the coffers of our party. But, if a pure political calculation is the thing that motivates us, it is clear that rejecting so-called "free trade" is a powerful message to voters. It will resonate with voters in every region in the country. It will clearly distinguish the Democratic Party from the Republican Party: Democrats are the party that protects the average worker from corporate so-called "free trade," while the Republicans want to push these deals through even though the evidence is clear that the deals hurt working people.
We have a very practical way of showing that we hear the American people. In the past few weeks, I have focused on the upcoming vote on the extension of "fast track," particularly as it relates to the presidential race. This is legislation that essentially greases the way for so-called "free trade" deals: it allows the president to present trade deals to the Congress for an up-or-down vote. That's right: your member of Congress has no right to introduce any amendments to these so-called "free trade" agreements--nothing about labor rights, nothing about the environment.
So, we need to make the defeat of "fast track" (which expires at the end of June) a top priority for the netroots. In the economic arena, I believe that this issue is as central as the Iraq war is in foreign policy (though, yes, the war is a huge economic issue). Allowing "fast track" to pass will cause the continued impoverishing of people here and abroad, impoverishing that does cause illness, malnutrition and death for too many people. The failure of so-called "free trade" fits right in the sad line of Iraq and Katrina.
When we make these arguments, we are going to hear a lot of rhetoric about the "global economy" and how "the world has changed" and you just can't be a "protectionist." To such nonsense, we need to respond pretty simply that:
1. We have always traded in the world, throughout human history. Nothing is new.
2. The fact that trade can now happen faster, sometimes in the blink of an eye, is irrelevant to the question of WHAT THE RULES SHOULD BE THAT GOVERN TRADE. If we can talk about what the rules should be, we can get past the marketing phrase of "free trade" (which doesn't exist) and epithets like "protectionist" (though, since the root of the word comes from "protection" I have no personal problem arguing that I do want to protect tens of millions of workers from corporate avarice)
3. We don't accept economic rules that are simply made to benefit corporations.
