That Buchanan quote must've knocked you off balance. You became terse. Ha.
Wait, what? You're assuming again. Buchanan is no surprise to me or anyone. I've read him for years, since he left the *Nixon* White House. During the dark days of 1974-1980 he was one of the very few Conservative voices published in the media back when they had a total monopoly. His would be the only column worth reading in an entire newspaper. It was that bad. I had to subscribe to newspapers from around the country just to get certain columnists ( e.g., Don Feder in the Boston Herald ) and get them in the mail several days late. The best thing we had in those days was Human Events, thank God for them.
Anyway, you cannot cherry pick "free trade" positions and papers from the Cold War and make assumptions about those people as if they were in a theoretical new timeline, sans anti-Communism. History is history, it is the product of all preceding events. And you certainly cannot project those cherry picks to this current era after almost 30 years of experimentation with the pilfering of America.
And let me save you the trouble of dropping quotes from more "free traders" to support your confirmation bias, Levin himself is talking this up as I type this, saying that a Tariff on Ford cars built in Mexico is bad. All I can say is that some people take much longer to learn something, and this includes Mark. For example he's finally come around on the subject of Constitutional Amendments ( well only if he writes them ), but he came around too late. If you can count to 13 leftist States that will refuse to ratify, well then it's all over.
In your previous post you say ...
And I am an unabashed free-trader. And I'm not worried a bit. The market, free or not, wins every time. No government official can do a darn thing about it.
That tells me you have your own battle with cognitive dissonance to wage. You have three decades of evidence to sift through to update that rigid ideology. When huge hi-tech massive employers hire abroad and then layoff at home, that all-important "free market" has indeed won, but can you please answer a question, then who lost?
However, your "No government official can do a darn thing about it" is absolutely wrong. Since you, or Mark Levin, or Rush and also the GOPEe have no real answers, just loyalty to vague principles of free trade, something else will need to be explored. On that latter point is what we are going to find out if Trump or someone similar gets in there. These corporations have their home base in America for a simple reason, personal security, favorable taxes, protection from lawless regimes. I suspect they are going to be asked for something in return.
Your position really is two levels down the ladder to hell. On the first rung are the 'Constitution *is* a suicide pact'ers. But you are pushing something worse yet. This "free trade" theology is NOT part of the Constitution or Declaration or Federalist Papers. At least the suicide pacters try to make a Constitutional argument, you have no such ability. Free Trade suicide is a new phenomenon that comes out of the robber baron era nearly a century beyond the Founding. The first step to recovery is to remember that it is not an American core principle. The next step is to try to think of solutions to the large scale destruction of American jobs and manufacturing base.
If your wife starts a basket weaving business but gets undercut by China/India imports for 10% the cost, what do you tell her? 'Well them's the breaks, honey. They are able to use cheaper supplies and labor so try something else instead.'
There are some simple things to try. For example we should ignore the political correctness and fully embrace the term "jingoism" and start applying a Made In America labeling program. And then we can publicly shame and demonize the traitors. That is a small, easy way to begin. But I'm positively sure that the "free trade" zealots will even cry over that.