I realize trade policy has been a very contentious issue among Democrats during the last 30 years or so. But they absolutely must seize the current opportunity to go after Trump’s tariff program, as I argued at New York:
For months, Democratic elected officials have been trying to figure out a compelling message on Donald Trump’s agenda that will gratify the grassroots Democratic demand for vocal and united opposition. At the moment, the headlines are full of extremely high-profile turmoil involving Trump’s “Liberation Day” agenda of tariffs and trade warfare. It is likely getting the attention of not only politically active people but anyone whose investments or 401(k) accounts are affected by equity markets. And there is zero question that rank-and-file Democrats hate what Trump is trying to do with greater unanimity than on any of the other things they hate about Trump 2.0. If you have any doubts about that, check out the very latest, post–Liberation Day findings from Quinnipiac:
“97 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of independents and 44 percent of Republicans think the tariffs will hurt the U.S. economy in the short-term. Forty-six percent of Republicans, 19 percent of independents and 2 percent of Democrats think the tariffs will help the U.S. economy in the short-term. …
“95 percent of Democrats, 57 percent of independents and 10 percent of Republicans think the tariffs will hurt the U.S. economy in the long-term. Eighty-seven percent of Republicans, 35 percent of independents and 3 percent of Democrats think the tariffs will help the U.S. economy in the long-term.”
You don’t see polling that conclusive very often, even in this era of hyper-polarization. But beyond the simple fact that the Democratic base instinctively hates Trump’s tariff agenda, this should strike Democratic politicians as a heaven-sent opportunity to expose Trump on an issue of maximum vulnerability: the cost of living. One would think, given the crucial importance of this issue to his victory over Joe Biden last November, that the 47th president would do anything imaginable to avoid a spike in consumer prices anytime soon. But instead, Trump is courting exactly the worst kind of disaster, and voters across the board recognize it:
“Most Americans are bracing for higher prices on a wide range of consumer goods following President Donald Trump’s move to impose sweeping new tariffs on imports from most of the world, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
“The three-day poll, which concluded on Sunday, found that 73% of respondents said they thought prices in the next six months would increase for the items they buy every day after the new taxes on almost all imports took effect.”
So in recognition of this potentially earth-shaking own-goal by Trump, the product of his economic ignorance and long-held ideology, Democratic elected officials should be issuing a trumpet call of great volume and total clarity, right?
Check out this description in the Washington Post of a speech by one of the Democratic Party’s brightest stars and see if it reflects the total opposition to Trump’s tariff agenda that is clearly called for at this particular moment:
“Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, sought Wednesday to distinguish herself from fellow Democrats who have been strongly criticizing President Donald Trump and his tariffs, offering a more nuanced assessment during a speech emphasizing bipartisanship in Washington.
“The speech came ahead of a meeting with Trump at the White House, her second since Trump returned to office.
“Whitmer made clear that she disagreed with Trump’s sweeping and abrupt use of tariffs, saying it has been ‘really tough’ on her state and the auto industry that powers its economy. But she withheld more pointed criticism of the president, saying she understands the “motivation” behind his tariffs and agrees that Americans ‘need to make more stuff in America.'”
Now, as it happens, Whitmer made her mixed message immeasurably worse by immediately going into a private Oval Office meeting with Trump that the president (either craftily or fortuitously) turned into a photo op in which the Michigan governor stood there while he signed some particularly obnoxious executive orders. It’s not exactly the picture of vicious hand-to-hand combat with the authoritarian of the White House that grassroots Democrats have been demanding. But Whitmer’s not alone in struggling to bring herself to blast Trump’s tariffs entirely, as Jonathan Chait quickly pointed out at The Atlantic:
“Two days after President Donald Trump’s shambolic “Liberation Day” announcement, which set off a full-scale economic meltdown, House Democrats released a video response. It was oddly sedate, almost academic in its nuance. The video featured Representative Chris Deluzio, from western Pennsylvania, who calmly intoned, ‘A wrong-for-decades consensus on “free trade” has been a race to the bottom’ and ‘Tariffs are a powerful tool. They can be used strategically, or they can be misused.’
“As the American public was screaming, ‘Please, God, no!’ the Democrats were calmly whispering, ‘Yes, but.’”
From a purely historical perspective, this anti-anti-protectionism is astounding. Until very recently, basic support for free trade (albeit sometimes with exceptions) was the oldest continuing policy tradition of the Democratic Party. Every Democratic president from Martin Van Buren to Barack Obama favored expanded global trade to create new markets and reduce consumer prices. But, as Chait observed, that changed with Joe Biden, who embraced “a decade-old strategy designed to co-opt Trump’s appeal to working-class voters by backing away from the party’s general support for free trade under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama” (and, I’d add, under Wilson, FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, and Carter). This reversal was reinforced by multiple factors, including the longtime protectionism of manufacturing unions, the hostility to globalization among progressive activists, and the pivotal role Rust Belt swing states have played in the politics of the Trump era. It’s no coincidence that Whitmer represents one of those states, and one in which Democrats have long embraced trade restrictions.
In the current Trump 2.0 emergency, maintaining an anti-anti-protectionist position is incredibly shortsighted. Democrats do not need to declare themselves 100 percent free traders in order to 100 percent deplore what Trump is doing, instead of tut-tutting that he’s doing a good thing in a bad way. Trump’s innate 19th-century protectionist instincts will always create enormous pressures for falling economic growth and rising consumer prices; indeed, the ultimate economic nightmare of stagflation is precisely what some economists consider the most likely consequence of a MAGA trade war.
If Democrats believe half of what they are saying about the threat to democracy Trump 2.0 represents, they’ll recognize that a strong pushback against Trump’s tariffs is absolutely the best way to undermine his political position and divide Republicans, a majority of whose elected officials are stone free traders in the Reagan-Bush tradition. Democrat thinkers and political practitioners have plenty of time to figure out exactly what their own international economic policies will be if they regain the White House in 2028. But if they don’t take full advantage of the present opportunity to unite grassroots Democrats and inflation-hating voters generally and exploit Trump’s unforced errors on trade policy, they will have nobody but themselves to blame if power continues to remain elusive.
It is true that cell phones are not called. This probably has a very little impact in polls, since all polls are weighted by age groups.
It is possible that people who only own cell phones MIGHT BE more liberal then other young people, therefore making that age group seem less liberal then it really is. but this is just an assumption, i have’nt seen any evidence to back this up.
Speaking of partisan.
Good old Bill Schneider and “CNN” were nice today admitting the regime were doing JKs work for him this week, what with the various blunders regarding Iraqi Weapons programmes, Rumsfeld’s statements on Saddams’ links with ALQ. and lack of troops on the ground (Bremner)
Lastly they even admitted JFK ahead in the elec. college!!! It was something like 245 (JK) to a meagre 218 (for Pres Awol) with 6 ‘swing’ states going either way. Whooh way to go eh…?
DS-
The problem with weighting is knowing the appropriate weights to use, which has been a topic of some discussion around here.
Phone polls don’t target cell phones. The argument I’ve seen is that there are not that many people who just use cell phones, and that they can weight to get appropriate age relevant numbers. But you’re left with the question of whether those with just cell phones are typical of others of their age group.
Phatcat, Regarding:
“Zogby is NOT a partisan. It makes no sense for a polling company to undermine its credibility by favoring one party over another. Its reputation is based on its ability to deliver accurate results, not serve the Democratic or Republican party.”
As I’ve posted on this board previously, Zogby was well regarded as an independent pollster until 9/11; Since then he has increasingly become sympathetic to the views of his Bush Hating brother Jim, the head of an Arab American organ in the US.
We don’t know the weighting he uses, so for all we know, he can jimmy the numbers the way he wants them to come out. Moreover, I can assure you that he has many more Dems subscribing to his site than Reps, and that makes his numbers suspect – notwithstanding his claim of fudging, er, weighting, the numbers to balance party ID.
Perhaps most important, He claimed in not so subtle languange around the time of the Abu Gharib prison scandal that the race was Kerry’s to lose, thereby undermining his position as an independent pollster in the view of many. Given this previous statement, it’s in HIS interest to tweak his polls in order to support his pre-disposition.
But that’s OK, both sides have partisan pollsters in this fight: The Reps have Strategic Vision & McLaughlin, the Dems have Zogby, ARG & Demo Corp, among others.
Just because you’re a partisan pollster doesn’t mean you’re wrong – It just means people have to look at your polls through the prism of your bias.
Interesting discussion of interactive v. telephone polling. At least the interactive is weighted by party ID, something many of the telephone polls have ignored. I’ve heard that no cell phones are used in the telephone polls. Doesn’t that exclude the large number of us youngsters (& more liberals across the board) who only have a cell phone? Can anyone confirm or deny the assumption?
Thanks.
-DS
This links to Zogby’s summary of their interactive poll method:
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=830
The results are weighted by party ID, so even if there are more Dems (which is probably not true), the weighting scheme compensates for that. Interactive polling is still relatively new and has its own unique set of problems, but telephone polling has problems that in many ways are worse. The only difference between the two right now is that telephone is more established in the public mind and therefore more acceptable, but as a practical matter online polling is as accurate or more accurate than telephone.
Zogby is NOT a partisan. It makes no sense for a polling company to undermine its credibility by favoring one party over another. Its reputation is based on its ability to deliver accurate results, not serve the Democratic or Republican party.
Mara, Regarding:
“Weak employment report this morning, and last month’s numbers were revised down. Bush is getting slapped from all sides. Pity.”
“Weak” and “getting slapped from all sides”, to be sure, are in the eyes of the beholder – No doubt your “sides” represent DNC types and mainstream media outlets already in the bag for Kerry.
That same report also showed that 236,000 jobs were added over the past year, bringing the net job loss since President Bush took office to 500,000, and not the 1,000,000 on Terry McCauliffe crib sheets and blaster Emails.
Thus Presidnet Bush is an a position tonight to respond this way when Kerry’s lips start moving on this issue: SINCE I TOOK OFFICE WE’RE DOWN 500,000 JOBS IN SPITE OF TERRORIST ATTACKS, COPRORATE SCANDALS, THE DOT BOMB MELTDOWN AND 2 WARS. MOREOVER, WE ARE IN A GREAT POSITION TO END BY FIRST TERM IN JAN 2005 AT BREAK EVEN OR WITH A SMALL NET GAIN (HERBERT HOOVER RIP).
I’m open to the argument that interactive polling will do better than telephone polling. Given declining participation rates in telephone surveys, I think there are some real questions there.
But I’ll simultaneously be skeptical of the interactives till I’ve seen more of a track record. I’m inclined to use interactives for trends (thus I’m encouraged by the movement toward Kerry from the last Zogby poll, while being unsure whether the overall numbers are on one side or the other of truth). And when interactive state polls are confirmed by phone polls, I’m encouraged that the answer is pretty close.
When there’s a conflict, I scratch my head and fall back on the “this thing is close. Keep working!” mantra.
So now there’s photos showing that Bush may well have worn a radio receiver to the first debate, in violation of the rules. Incredible.
This is excellent news. If tonight’s debate goes well, and I believe it will, I think Kerry will win by about 10 points.
Hey, I think I’m in there. I got a Zogby Interactive email last week and got polled. And I’m sure if they were trolling for LV’s, I was certainly included.
Then again, I live in Texas which isn’t a battleground state (yet!), but I really think that getting polled by Zogby went more towards getting my vote counted than actually showing up on election day (though I plan to do that too).
KE04 FOREVER!
Weak employment report this morning, and last month’s numbers were revised down. Bush is getting slapped from all sides. Pity.
As someone who desperately wants kerry to win, I still have to question the accuracy of interactive polling. What do you all think? It iseems quite possible to me that people could be seeking out to participate in these polls to influence the news coverage.
Some other encouraging news…SUSA shows Kerry up by 10% in Michigan, the Becker Institute shows Kerry up by 6% in New Hampshire. And Gallup has Colorado dead even, which suggests that we might just be able to pick that one off.
It’s close in Iowa, with SUSA showing Kerry up by 1%.
The bad news is that Gallup has Bush up by 3% in New Mexico and Wisconsin.
If the only changes from 2000 are that Kerry flips Ohio and New Hampshire to his side, but Bush gets New Mexico and Wisconsin, the race ends deadlocked, unless Colorado passes its proportional bill or one of Maine’s districts goes to Bush.
These polls are nice to see. But an 11.4% lead in New Mexico? When most polls show NM to be very close? Seems doubtful that Kerry could be so far ahead.
You got to be kidding me – Then again this is a partisan Dem site, so I guess it’s understandable. Read by bytes: This is an internet poll based exclusively on Zogby subscribers. It should only be used as propaganda in a DNC blaster Email, rather than a microcosm of our electorate.
Insofar as Zogby has become more of a partisan Dem, as opposed to being an independent poll taker, Reps are less likely to subscribe to his site – And thus less likely to participate in hiw “battleground” poll.
Zogby doesn’t publish internals for this poll but I bet his party ID mix is something like: Dems 50%, Reps 25%, Ind 25%. With a party mix like this, how can this poll be credible??