From Robert Reich’s Facebook page:
An acquaintance from my days in the Clinton administration, who has been advising Hillary, phoned this morning.
ACQUAINTANCE: “Don’t you think your blog post from last night was a bit harsh?”
ME: “Not at all. The Democratic Party is shooting itself in the foot by not officially opposing the Trans Pacific Partnership.”
ACQ: “But you know why. The Party can’t take a stand opposite the President’s. He’s the leader of the Party, for chrissake. And he wants the TPP.”
ME: “Yeah, because he sees the TPP as a way to limit China’s economic influence. So he made a Faustian bargain with big global corporations who want more protection for their foreign investments. But he’s wrong. The TPP won’t crimp China. Global corporations will give China whatever it wants to gain access to the Chinese market. The TPP ….”
ACQ: “Look, it doesn’t matter what you or I think. The President wants the TPP, and the Party isn’t going to oppose him.”
ME: “You mean Hillary won’t oppose him.”
ACQ: “Hillary won’t, and Debbie [Wasserman Schultz] won’t, and neither will Nancy [Pelosi] or Harry [Reid] or Dick [Durbin] or Chuck [Schumer].
ME: “But it’s terrible policy. And it’s awful politics. It gives Trump a battering ram. Obama won’t be president in six months. Why risk it?”
ACQ: “They don’t see much of a risk. Most Americans don’t know or care about the TPP.”
ME: “But they know big corporations are running economic policy. They think the whole system is corrupt. Believe me, Trump will use this against Hillary.”
ACQ: “He can’t. She’s inoculated. She’s come out against the TPP.”
ME: “But it’s her delegates who voted not to oppose it in the Democratic platform. Her fingerprints are all over this thing.”
ACQ: “I think you’re being too cynical.”
ME: “Actually, the real cynic is you.”
Wow!
Thank goodness the American people “don’t know or care” about a trade deal so large that it sets the rules for 12 nations, including the world’s largest superpower, and 40% of the global economy! Otherwise, the Party might have to go on the record in directly opposing a trade deal that 83% of Democrats in congress (including Senator Elizabeth Warren, the House Minority Leader, and the Senate Minority Leader) have gone on the record opposing, that 450 environmental groups oppose, that 1,525 civil society organizations (including some mentioned here) oppose, that Doctors Without Borders oppose, that all the major unions oppose, that the 700,000+ signatories to a Democratic Party petition oppose, and that every single Bernie Sanders delegate to the platform committee oppose as well.
No one would want the Party to actually oppose a toxic trade deal, so toxic it was labeled a
”disaster for climate change”, like the TPP would they? It could spoil the nice little illusion of party unity!
The President is wrong in pushing the TPP. And virtually every significant player in the Party's grassroots has told him he's wrong. Again, and again, and again. How many more times must the environmental groups, the public interest groups, the trade experts, the scholars, and the members of his own Party tell the President he is wrong before the so called Democratic Party decides to do the same? It is time this Administration and the Clinton campaign stopped playing politics with trojan horse trade deals like the TPP and started listening to their base. It is time that Hillary Clinton showed that she meant what she said when she came out against the TPP. Actions, like those of her delegates on the platform committee, speak louder than words.
That said, the current spinelessness on the TPP only helps the FTA bashing Trump and threatens to alienate Sanders supporters, many of whom are also anti TPP. With Clinton ahead in the middle to low single digits in most national polls, and manufacturing heavy states like Pennsylvania and Ohio in play, is that a good thing?
Maybe not. Or maybe it won’t matter. At least, it won’t if the Obama Administration gets their way in keeping most Americans in the dark about the TPP.
Indeed, as filmmaker Michael Moore once said, “what would happen if the American people knew about this?”