Im-Politic: 2016’s Real Trump Effect

Tags

2016 election, Chris Christie, CNBC, Donald Trump, economy, Fox Business, Fox News, Im-Politic, Immigration, Iowa Caucus, Jeb Bush, Jobs, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Obamacare, Rand Paul, Republican debates, Republicans, Ted Cruz, wages

I have no idea who’s going to win tonight’s Iowa presidential caucuses in either party, but I feel confident in making one prediction: If and when Republican front runner Donald Trump either drops out at some point on the primary trail, or gets denied the delegate count needed to win the nomination either before or during the convention, most serious talk in the Republican race about the economy’s biggest problems will come to an abrupt halt.

Right now, given Trump’s strong showings in the latest Iowa polls, and even better performances in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and other surveys, such speculation seems besides the point. But I can’t dismiss out of hand one possible result unfolding tonight: A Trump defeat, or relatively poor second-place showing, could – as many commentators have suggested – puncture the aura of invincibility that’s been created by a combination of his unexpectedly broad appeal and his brash personality. In other words, a disappointing showing tonight could turn this “winner” into a hype-dependent “loser” in the public eye.

And as I’ve written, even – or especially – if Trump survives Iowa in good shape, the Republican establishment he’s run against could start consolidating behind a single champion as the more “conventional” hopefuls drop out. This candidate might start winning near-majorities in the polls while Trump remains stuck in the 30s or at best low 40s.

If and when the campaign becomes Trump-less, most signs indicate that the Republican campaign will give the shortest possible shrift to the pocketbook issues that matter most to the public. The most compelling evidence so far? The last Republican debate, on October 28 in Iowa, was Trump-less (by his choice). And judging from the proceedings, you’d never know that the United States has spent more than six years crawling out of an historically deep recession at an historically slow rate, and that living standards for the typical family have been stagnating literally for decades.

Economic subjects weren’t completely ignored. But throughout the two-hour event, they were a clear afterthought. There were zero questions on jobs and wages, and when the Fox News panelists did touch on the economy, it was for two main purposes. They either wanted to draw the candidates out on philosophical questions, like the ideal size and role of government, that Trump’s rise in particular suggest have become marginal even to committed “movement” conservatives. Or they sought to plumb the candidates’ views on the Iowa-specific issue of ethanol subsidies.

Of course, immigration figured prominently that evening. But the candidates almost exclusively focused on its national security aspects, not its potential to either strengthen or weaken American growth or employment.

Exceptions to these patterns did pop up. Though the topics were completely ignored by the Fox interrogators, Governors Chris Christie and John Kasich touted their job growth records in New Jersey and Ohio, respectively, as did Jeb Bush for his years in the statehouse in Florida. Texas Senator Ted Cruz did promise to end welfare payments to illegal immigrants, while Florida Senator Marco Rubio mentioned the need to ensure that immigrant flows contain more skilled and educated newcomers ready to contribute economically upon their arrival, and fewer immigrants whose only entry qualifications were family connections to existing legal residents. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul used his closing statement to warn of the dangers of the national debt. And Cruz answered the single question about Obamacare in impressive detail – in the process calling it the nation’s “biggest job-killer.”

But that paragraph pretty well sums it up.

It’s entirely possible that the Fox panel neglected the economy because its members thought Iowa is prospering, and that therefore the issue hasn’t resonated. (Here’s why they’re wrong.) So maybe when the primaries move into states with more obvious troubles, this focus will shift – for all the networks. In principle, Fox might also have concluded that the Fox Business debate in Milwaukee in November covered the economy adequately (along with the October CNBC debate in Colorado, which wildly veered into numerous other areas as well).

It’s also revealing, however, that unlike Trump, few of the other Republican contenders consistently take the opportunity to pivot to economic issues when asked other questions. Perhaps they believe the economy has been superseded by terrorism and related national security issues? Could they be holding their economic fire for the general election? Are they convinced that the economy simply is no longer bad enough to harp on? That last possibility has me particularly intrigued, since it strikes me as so stunningly wrong. But by the same token, it could be just the latest evidence that the Republican party’s mainstream power brokers really are out of touch with the national mood.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Signs that Obama is Getting It on Islam and Terrorism

Tags

gun control, Iraq, ISIS, Islam, Middle East, Muslims, No-Fly List, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Pakistan, profiling, radical Islam, Rand Paul, refugees, Republicans, Sunnis, Syria, terrorism

President Obama’s prime-time address on terrorism last night shows that he’s deeply conflicted about the role played by Islam in fostering these attacks. Which is good news, and not only because it’s a complicated issue. It’s good news because, as the president’s critics have been insisting, “words matter” in America’s efforts to counter this threat. That’s true whether you believe, like me, that the key to success versus ISIS and similar groups is securing the nation’s borders because they are eminently controllable. And it’s true whether you believe, like Mr. Obama and almost everyone else (including his critics), that the key is some form of improved intervention in the Middle East.

His most recent presidential statement on the terror threat shows that the president is still trafficking in the largely straw man argument that “We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam” and that “ISIL does not speak for Islam.” Of course, relatively few Americans believe that an entire religion and all of its adherents should be stigmatized.

More encouragingly, however, the president also specified that a refusal to condemn all Muslims and their faith “does not mean denying the fact that an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities. This is a real problem that Muslims must confront, without excuse.” Moreover, it’s consistent with remarks he made in his otherwise petulant press conference following the G20 economic summit in Turkey last month. They’re worth quoting in full:

“…I do think that Muslims around the world — religious leaders, political leaders, ordinary people — have to ask very serious questions about how did these extremist ideologies take root, even if it’s only affecting a very small fraction of the population. It is real and it is dangerous. And it has built up over time, and with social media it has now accelerated.

“And so I think, on the one hand, non-Muslims cannot stereotype, but I also think the Muslim community has to think about how we make sure that children are not being infected with this twisted notion that somehow they can kill innocent people and that that is justified by religion. And to some degree, that is something that has to come from within the Muslim community itself. And I think there have been times where there has not been enough pushback against extremism. There’s been pushback — there are some who say, well, we don’t believe in violence, but are not as willing to challenge some of the extremist thoughts or rationales for why Muslims feel oppressed. And I think those ideas have to be challenged.”

So however reluctant he is to cast matters this way, the president has accused the world’s Muslim community of failing to counter extremist variants of Islam vigorously enough. And other than fear for their own lives (which would be understandable, if not praiseworthy) what else could explain this unwillingness, especially on the part of Muslim clerics and Muslim theocratic governments, than their conviction that the religious pitches being made by ISIS and similar groups contain important elements that they find neither entirely alien nor entirely repellent?

As just implied, acknowledging that Islam in particular, as opposed to violent extremism as such, presents special problems in the fight against terror means that America’s current anti-ISIS campaign will need at least one major change of emphasis. After all, today’s strategy relies heavily on the belief that the Sunni Arab world (including those theocracies) will (eventually) contribute the bulk of the ground forces needed to defeat ISIS militarily. If many of these putative allies, and the populations they rule, have mixed feelings about what the terrorists stand for, then something dramatic will need to be done to convince them that their stakes in the fight warrant assuming major commitments and risks. The only other option is to send into the fray enough U.S. ground troops to accomplish the mission, a step that even most of Mr. Obama’s hawkish critics are reluctant to endorse. (This explains much of their enthusiasm for the Sunni option).

Of course, a more realistic take on Islam’s responsibility for ISIS-style terrorism would involve recognizing how fatally it undermines the case for the Sunni option and other interventionist-centered approaches, and strengthens that for a borders-focused anti-ISIS strategy. But the importance of acknowledging Islam-related problems doesn’t stop there. Most important, it also militates for concentrating restrictions on entry into the United States on the Muslim world, or at least certain parts of it.

Which countries justify the most concern is legitimately debatable. But certainly it’s hard to understand why any American not affiliated with a legitimate international aid organization or the U.S. government should want to or be able travel to Syria nowadays (and come back), and similar questions need to be raised about Iraq and Pakistan (though commerce with those countries so far is much more extensive). Another possibility: tighter curbs on travel to theocracies.

Interestingly, the President and Congressional Republicans reportedly will both back legislation containing some such country-specific restrictions on travel – though not on refugees. Even Kentucky Republican Senator and presidential candidate Rand Paul, a libertarian stalwart, recently introduced a bill that would suspend the resettlement of refugees from 34 “high-risk” countries – mainly from the Muslim world.

And as I tweeted yesterday, it’s not too difficult to imagine a compromise that handles the refugee – and a related – matter: Mr. Obama and his party agree to suspending the admission of Middle East refugees until vetting and screening procedures have been acceptably tightened, in exchange for Republicans agreeing to bar anyone on a government No-Fly List from legally buying a gun once the process of creating these lists gets more precise.

No doubt these decisions and proposals will be greeted with cries of “profiling!” from both political fringes. But the country’s reasonable middle has clearly been roused and the above are signs that it is pulling a critical mass of Democrats and Republicans toward a common sense consensus on domestic security. As Winston Churchill reportedly said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing — after they’ve tried everything else.”

Im-Politic: Why Trump’s Debate Victory over CNBC Really Matters

Tags

2016 elections, Ben Carson, CNBC, diplomacy, Donald Trump, fast track, Im-Politic, multinational corporations, offshoring, presidential debates, Rand Paul, Republicans, Ted Cruz, Trade

No, this isn’t an endorsement, but the way Donald Trump handled the dispute over its planned presidential debate format between CNBC on the one hand, and several Republican candidates including him on the other, shows precisely why he could well transform U.S. trade policy – and possibly American foreign policy – dramatically for the better if elected.

Along with Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul, Trump protested CNBC’s original plans for two hours of actual debating time, plus up to 16 minutes of commercials, with no opening or closing statements by the contenders. The four protesting candidates wanted the event’s total time capped at two hours, and insisted that opening and closing statements be included in that total.

As these disagreements indicate, the gulf between CNBC and the four Republican hopefuls wasn’t terribly wide. But what’s important about this story is how and why these candidates – and especially Trump – prevailed even though the rest of the much more numerous Republican field apparently was fine with CNBC’s intentions.

Essentially, the four dissenters recognized that they had decisive leverage. (Their absence – especially Trump’s – could cost the cable network valuable ratings.) They threw around their weight. And they won. And when it comes to trade policy (and many other international challenges and opportunities facing the United States) that’s exactly what U.S. leaders from both parties have consistently failed to do for decades, even though the United States typically holds all the main cards.

This is especially true in trade policy, because the United States has long served as the market-of-last resort for a world full of major and minor trade powers alike that desperately depend on ever higher exports for adequate growth. But Washington’s failure to wield its relative power and leverage effectively arguably has undercut important American objectives in the national security sphere, too – for example, in persuading free-riding allies to bear a greater share of the West’s common defense burden.

I single Trump out because none of his three comrades in arms in this tussle has made trade policy a centerpiece of their campaigns. In fact, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his Kentucky counterpart Rand Paul have been strong supporters of the substance of America’s current trade strategy, though both opposed (for procedural and political reasons) the recent (successful) attempt in Congress to award fast track negotiating authority to President Obama. Moreover, unlike Trump, neither Carson nor Cruz nor Paul has touted deal-making and bargaining as among their strongest suits. 

At the same time, Trump’s victory over CNBC underscores how incomplete his attacks on American trade diplomacy have been. For Washington has signed deficit-fueling and deals and reached similarly counterproductive trade policy decisions (like long coddling China’s currency manipulation) not mainly because U.S. officials can’t size up a situation accurately – a charge consistent with Trump’s claim that they’re incompetent and lack elementary street smarts.

Instead, they repeatedly fail at trade bargaining tables to advance and defend the interests of the American economy as a whole primarily because they haven’t considered that their job. They view themselves as agents of offshoring-happy multinational corporations, whose campaign contributions have ensured that their trade priorities prevail even when success comes at the expense of America’s productive sectors.

That’s why, as I keep arguing, Trump’s trade policy rhetoric should mainly demonize these U.S. corporate special interests, not foreign governments. (And why it’s encouraging that he’s shown signs of making this pivot.) At the same time, since the United States no longer dominates the world stage as in the early post-World War II decades, accurately assessing power balances and recognizing when compromises are needed has also become an important ingredient for diplomatic, and presidential, success.

So Trump should promise that he’s independent enough to be working for Main Street (because he doesn’t need that special interest money), that he’s tough enough to press clear advantages hard, and that he’s smart enough to “know when to fold ’em.” What other candidates can credibly make this combination of claims?

Im-Politic: What the Debate & its Fallout are Showing About Trump

Tags

2016 elections, Carly Fiorina, chattering class, Chris Christie, conservatives, debate, Donald Trump. Jeb Bush, Fox News, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, independents, Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, Megyn Kelly, Mitt Romney, Obama, Rand Paul, Republicans, Rick Perry, Roger Stone, Ted Cruz

Three days after the event, I’m still struggling to get my analytical arms around that first Republican “front-runners’” presidential debate. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it took many more days and even weeks to gauge the effects. In part of course the problem is the so-called Summer of Trump, and the inherent difficulty in analyzing phenomena. But there’s also the matter of assessing the mood of those large numbers of Republicans, Republican leaners, independents, and others who clearly at various times have been drawn to Donald Trump’s campaign. Trump’s refusal to rule out a third party run in the fall elections is another huge complicating factor, as it’s bound to give pause to anyone determined to prevent a Democrat from winning the White House in 2016.

And let’s not forget the upteen other Republican candidates – including former Hewlett Packard boss Carly Fiorina and her supposedly breakout performance at a prior event for those GOP hopefuls considered the also-rans at this stage of the campaign, at least according to the polls. There were some of the questions from the Fox News moderators, which I found downright weird – and I’m not even talking solely or even mainly about Megyn Kelly asking Trump about his derogatory comments toward women, an exchange which of course then exploded into an even bigger uproar. Finally, since it’s still just so darned early in the cycle, making any predictions can be hazardous for any observer’s health.

Since Trump has dominated the Republican campaign so far, let’s start (and, for today, end) there. The place to begin is right at the beginning, with Fox News’ Bret Baier asking the front-runners (and Trump of course in particular) to promise to back the party’s nominee whoever it might be. Trump has explained his refusal in tactical terms – focusing on the importance of leverage – and has indicated that he could change his mind. But after eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, and the still strong possibility that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic race to succeed him, there can’t be any doubt that this wasn’t the answer many Republican primary voters – the chunk of the electorate Trump needs to win first – wanted to hear. Certainly the reaction of the boisterous crowd in Cleveland last Thursday night was decidedly mixed.

Concerns about Trump’s 2016 plans, moreover, are sure to reinforce Republican primary voters’ worries about his allegiance to conservative positions on issues like health care, taxation, and abortion. The GOP base isn’t thrilled with his campaign contributions to Democrats, either. Trump has responses: He’s “evolved” on the above, and other, subjects. He mastered the existing campaign finance system. Will these answers be convincing? Forecasting is further complicated by Mitt Romney’s experience in 2012. On the one hand, he won the Republican nomination despite charges that he was insufficiently conservative and a repeated “flip-flopper.” On the other hand, much of the Republican base now argues that, for these reasons, his nomination stuck the party with a loser.

Curiously, though, the rest of the Republican field is divided enough over some specific issues to render suspicious some of the silent pledges of party loyalty made last week. For example, would New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (who was consigned to the also-ran event) endorse Kentucky Senator Rand Paul as long as the latter opposes using more electronic snooping by intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism? And given his strong stated belief that such measures grossly violate Constitutional protections against privacy, would Paul endorse those two if they stuck to their guns?

In addition, would any of the sitting Senators seeking the Republican nomination support their Texas counterpart Ted Cruz if he doesn’t apologize for calling their Senate leader Mitch McConnell a liar? Finally, would Jeb Bush or Graham or Rick Perry – all if whom have blasted Trump, the latter two in especially angry terms – really support Trump if he prevails? As the GOP field undergoes its inevitable winnowing, some of these questions are sure to come up.

Like everyone else, I’m still waiting to see the first major polls’ verdict, but I suspect that his attacks on Megyn Kelly will ultimately damage his campaign. The main reasons, though, have nothing to do with Kelly. Yes, she’s popular with conservatives. But my sense right now is that current Trump supporters and others receptive to his pitch and personality not only have no special feelings about Kelly, but probably started lumping her in with the rest of a media/chattering class that they despise because she asked precisely what they view as the kind of “gotcha” question now dominating journalism.

The worst damage could well come from two other sources. First, his exchange with Kelly and his follow-ups so far have added up to a major lost opportunity. Trump’s first instinct – to brush off the charges of women-hating with a joke about Rosie O’Donnell – was the right one. When Kelly persisted and pointed to insults directed at other women, he should have reminded her that he savages lots of men, too, and that he’s sure he’s stepped over the line in the past – especially in his role as an entertainer – just like all human beings have.

More important, he should have gone on the offensive by taking her to task for focusing on relative trivia rather than leading off with a question about a major issue voters care about – like jobs or national security. And even though Trump has now had several days to fine tune his “Megyn Kelly” message, he still hasn’t gone after her where her performance was most vulnerable. It’s still early in the 2016 campaign, but it’s far from too early for Trump to recognize that the longer he bogs himself down in personal – and trivial – feuds, and fails to deliver truly telling blows, the likelier he’ll start coming off as a simple, and increasingly uninteresting, crank.

Second, Trump’s trashing of Kelly suggests that, as many so-called political insiders believe, he’s got a big staffing problem. More specifically, he doesn’t seem to be working with anyone willing or able to tell him when he’s messed up. If Trump keeps surrounding himself only with Yes-Men, bet on him to suffer the same fate of other non-traditional office seekers. Like Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan, he’ll fail to make the transition – not from phenom to “conventional politician,” but from phenom to “candidate with staying power.”

In this vein, the departure (or firing?) of longtime Republican operative (and Trump adviser) Roger Stone from Trump’s team could be a big turning point. And even though I think Americans so far owe Trump a debt of gratitude for highlighting policy catastrophes in areas like trade and immigration, a Trump collapse for this management-related reason would be good for the country – because that modus operandi is a formula for disaster for any leader.

A final (for now) Trump observation: The longer the debate lasted, the less his presence seemed to dominate. In part that was a function of the crowded stage, and the need to give other candidates their rightful shares of the floor. In part that was a function of too many superficial questions that prevented Trump from drawing sharp policy distinctions with his fellow contenders.

But in part it stemmed from the same kind of weakness he showed in dealing with Megyn Kelly. Just as Trump failed to use that opportunity to make a larger point that would have resonated both with his followers and beyond their ranks, he failed to seize on any chance to use this immense platform to speak directly to Republican voters, and to all the other viewers, and connect with them anew in ways that his more conventional counterparts clearly haven’t.

It’s true that Trump faced format and other obstacles in meeting this challenge. But it’s also true that the real superstars of American politics use the slightest pretext to create these openings. That’s easier to do for politicians who understand that their highest priority isn’t subjugating their rivals – or beating down reporters – but reaching the electorate. In other words, most of the biggest political winners need enough ego to treat their rivals, in effect, as nuisances, but not so much as to obscure the centrality of the audience. And at this point, it’s difficult to imagine Donald Trump realizing that, in this most crucial of ways, his campaign isn’t all about him.

Im-Politic: Where We Stand So Far with Trade and the 2016 White House Race

Tags

2016 elections, Bernie Sanders, Carly Fiorina, Democrats, fast track, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, manufacturing, Martin O'Malley, Mike Huckabee, Populism, Rand Paul, Republicans, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Tea Party, TPA, TPP, Trade, Trade Promotion Authority, Trans-Pacific Partnership

“Something” is definitely going on with the politics of international trade in the United States these days – I just wish I knew exactly what it is. But in the last few weeks, as the national and Congressional debates over President Obama’s trade agenda have heated up, any number of apparently conflicting and potentially important developments in this area have broken into the news.

The chief inconsistency seems to involve presidential candidates in both parties on the one hand, and some new poll results on the other.

If you were just following the 2016 presidential campaign so far, you’d think that support for new trade deals like the president’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has become absolutely toxic. Among Democrats, declared candidate Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is dead-set against them, as is former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, whose announcement is imminent. Front-runner Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has a mixed trade policy record, but even though she pushed the Pacific Rim trade agreement as Mr. Obama’s Secretary of State, she’s evidently so wary of alienating voters that she refuses to take a stand either way now.

Opposition to new trade agreements is just as pronounced – and in many ways much more startling – among many Republican contenders and hopefuls. The GOP’s Congressional leadership has become a bulwark of the president’s hopes for fast-tracking such deals through Congress and thus greatly enhancing their chances of approval. But lots of the current Republican field is marching to a much different tune.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was a trade policy skeptic when he last ran in 2008, and still is.  Rick Perry has no such history. In fact, he was last seen as governor of Texas welcoming with open arms investments in his state by Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications manufacturer that’s viewed as a likely threat to U.S. national security by the executive branch and the Congress. But despite supporting TPP, he’s expressed major reservations about its transparency and about entrusting it to Mr. Obama.   

And then there are the cases of Carly Fiorina and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. The former, when she ran Hewlett Packard, defended her record of sending jobs and production to China with the (widely blasted) statement that “There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore.” More revealing, she accused trade policy critics of naively seeking to “build walls around America” and “running away from the reality of the global economy.” Now she says she’s “very uncomfortable” with TPP.

Paul, of course, has been a darling of libertarians, but voted against fast tracking trade deals like the TPP through Congress. (Paul’s father, former Texas Congressman and presidential contender Ron, opposed many such agreements also, generally due to fears regarding American sovereignty and Constitution-related fast track concerns.)

The most interesting conversion, however, might be that of former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. As I’ve written, when he last sought the GOP nomination four years ago, Santorum was the only Republican who spoke seriously about the importance of strengthening American manufacturing. But he also upbraided his rival Mitt Romney for risking a “trade war” with China by supporting currency-related sanctions and generally during his years in both the House and Senate was a reliable “Aye” vote for new trade deals.

But this time around, Santorum is showing signs of recognizing that credibly championing manufacturing isn’t possible without opposing the trade policies that have done so much to weaken its production and employment levels – along with its innovation capacity.

I can imagine that many readers will respond by noting that many Republicans are so hostile to President Obama that they would naturally oppose enhancing his authority in any way – and doubly so since there’s such widespread anger regarding his other alleged unconstitutional power grabs. But Fiorina for one has also hit America’s poor record of monitoring and enforcing trade deal provisions against cheating-minded governments and noted that one of the most notorious – China – could be added to the TPP without any Congressional input. In addition, as I’ve previously noted, opposition to current trade deals has dovetailed with other major elements of Tea Party platforms and the movement’s values since its birth.

Yet despite the trade skepticism throughout the field in Campaign 2016 so far, polls keep showing that Americans have become more receptive to new agreements. Typical is one just released by the Pew Foundation. It finds that 58 percent of U.S. adults “say free trade agreements with other countries have been a good thing for the U.S., while 33% say they have been a bad thing.” Moreover, according to Pew, this level of support is ten percentage points higher than in 2011.

In what will be heartening news to GOP presidential trade skeptics, only 53 percent of avowed Republicans view trade deals so favorably – a majority, but a much lower share than for either Democrats or independents. Of course, by the same token, the results raise questions about the Democratic hopefuls’ so-far unanimous opposition to new agreements absent major changes.

Since primary voters – which comes from each party’s hard-core base – are more partisan and ideologically fervent than the electorate as a whole, it’s likely that for that reason alone, attacking current trade policies will remain a big feature of Election 2016’s first half, and that few candidates will send much time defending them. That’s essentially what labor unions and environmental groups want to hear from Democrats, and what movement conservatives want to hear from Republicans.

But the Pew findings themselves are odd in several respects that makes their political interpretation less obvious for the general election. For instance, the poll reported both substantial and growing overall agreement that free trade agreements have benefited the nation, and less impressive (43 percent) but still growing overall agreement that such trade deals have helped their personal finances. Yet it also shows that by 34 percent to 31 percent, the public believes that these deals have slowed rather than sped up economic growth. By 46 percent to 17 percent, respondents said that they have fostered job loss instead of job creation. And by 46 percent to 11 percent, that they have reduced rather than increased wages. Also noteworthy (especially given the personal finance result above), nearly as many Americans (30 percent) blamed free trade agreements for raising consumer prices as credited them with lowering them (36 percent).

I can think of many possible explanations for these apparently paradoxical results. All polls suffer from the tendency of respondents to tell researchers what they think the latter want to hear as opposed to what they actually believe. Further, Main Street Americans can’t be expected to understand fully how trade policy effects the economy, in part because the Mainstream Media does such a lousy reporting job on this front. At the same time, a case can also be made that the Pew survey underscores consumption’s dominant role in both the U.S. economy overall and on Americans’ economic priority scales. Why else would they be so keen on the agreements, while believing that they depress growth, employment, and wages? Unless most Americans don’t believe that trade deals really affect them much personally at all? Or that they themselves are reaping the benefits while largely escaping the costs?

So it’s anything but clear how trade issues will affect the next presidential election on net. But if they stay in the spotlight, as seems distinctly possible given that the TPP itself is still being negotiated, that itself would be a big change.