My complaint is that far too much importance is attached to free trade and free market theory and not on real world market realities. We don't really have free trade or free markets on an international basis. And the more the US opens its markets and pretends free trade really does exist when it usually doesn't, the more harm is done to the US economy.
That's also why the worlds "Smoot-Hawley" get on my nerves because that was minor element in extending he GD, but some act like it was the major element, and some act like it was the cause, and some act like it proves a lot more about tariffs that I believe it does.
A simple sentence that came down from some ancestors explained more about the GD than most of what was taught in schools until recently: "Nobody had any money." And that was the cause of the GD. It just took decades before economists uncovered the reasons why nobody had any money.
"the more the US opens its markets and pretends free trade really does exist when it usually doesn't, the more harm is done to the US economy"
I don't see the harm. Excepting the current debacle cause by loose money and bad mortgages (see my epic post above regarding the non-trade causes), we have had full employment, rising living standards, lengthening life spans, lowered infant mortality, growing productivity, etc. since about 1980. I'm in favor of all that. It was coincident (and I'll argue somewhat caused by) Free Trade. I don't want to go back to the bad old days of Jimmy Carter. Life sucked then.
I agree people put too much emphasis on Smoot Hawley. It contributed to the lengthening of the GD, in my (and many other economist's) opinion. Far worse were the Keynesian and semi-Marxist policies of FDR. Friedman blames monetary policy, which I'm sure had its disastrous effect. In comparison, I agree with you that Smoot Hawley was small.
But a small bad effect should not be the cause of euphoria for reinstituting a bad idea, a la the poster.