As a Government Major in College, I spent much of my last semester, writing a term paper based on the Great League of Nations Debate, where a small band of patriotic Senators vindicated the wisdom of Washington & Jefferson, by intellectually destroying the fatuous arguments of that generation of internationalists.
In the course of that debate, the Republican Leader in the Senate, Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr., who was a moderate, trying to steer a middle ground between that small band of patriots and the advocates of the League, did rise to deliver a classic speech denouncing those who saw all nations as the same, so long as they could make money in them. That, then (1919) reprehensible greed, has unfo0rtunately become the norm. No one would imagine Senator McConnell making a similar speech.
Trump's tough talk is not just about the economics of struggling American communities in every State in the Union. It is about something far, far more important than the economics of the next four years. It is about the very concept of what being an American actually means.
I certainly have no objection to Americans making money in other lands. The objection goes to Americans pretending that there is really such a thing as a "citizen of the world"; pretending that the peoples of the earth are interchangeable; pretending that the Founding Fathers were somehow benighted in charting an independent, unique course for the Americans who came together in the concepts of our unique Revolution; truly the clearest counter-Revolution against demonstrably unhealthy trends in the late 18th Century, parallel to many today.
The tariff debate is only one small--meaningful to be sure--but still relatively small issue, in the battle for the America that those brave men vouchsafe to their posterity.
Of course, I no long take any supposed expert on tariffs seriously, who does not couple the discussion with the social effects of other revenue devices. The Founders relied on excise taxes, including tariffs, for revenue. They did not want to ever employ incentive & achievement penalizing income taxes. Tariffs have certainly been employed to protect local industry; but they have other functions, being deliberately ignored.
Of course, the "protective" aspect would be less necessary--or even unnecessary--if we protected our labor & cultural imperatives, by closing the open border; if we reinstated immigration policies that protected both our labor, culture & identity. That is not an attack on any other people--far from it. It is a recognition of factors that rational people have always considered in the past, as the very concept of the "Nation," increasingly took hold.
And observing the conduct of the Left on all relevant issues; it is very clear that in their destructive pursuit, they have long recognized the inter-realtionship of these issues. It is well past time, we woke up to the war being waged on our continued existence as a people.
well said
bkmk
Your post is awesome.