According to this article, the UAW is quite happy to work with Trump to kill or renegotiate NAFTA:
Democrats mostly voted against NAFTA I believe, and still aren’t big fans of trade deals. This seems like an issue tailor made to either a) set up a spirit of cooperation between Trump and Democrats, or b) can split their coalition in very damaging ways. Or both. The GOP coalition is also split by trade and I’d imagine would like to work on any issue besides this one first.
So how should Democrats approach this? Seems like a win for Democrats to me. Keep the unions in the fold, even if they support Trump on this one issue, and it wastes time and political capital that Republicans woiuld rather spend on other things in the first 100-200 days. Plus if it damages the economy, as is likely, Republicans get blamed for it. No one will remember that Democrats were the more helpful party in Congress, it’s still Trump’s issue.
Apparently the thing to do when the other party controls the White House, House, and Senate is to not cooperate on any issue at any time. So whatever the Orange Rube proposes, Democrats should vote no on. For the next four years, we get to celebrate any bad news like rising unemployment rates or increased debt. I say Democrats should behave in 2017 exactly as Republicans behaved in 2009.
Well that’s the problem. If Democrats uphold free trade, two things happen: they lose the union vote in the next election, and the economy is better off.
I think this is a bad call. Like it or not Trump is President and this President is an egomaniac. If Dems work with him when he is being reasonable and doing what they want he will be more likely to care when they say no in the future. If they just say no to everything he’s going to dig in and figure out ways to work around and is more likely to do real lasting harm.
The best move for Dems is to be VERY vocal when Trump is doing things they like. Praise him loudly to stroke his ego and to make sure that no conservative can miss that he is being a good liberal.
Democrats can obstruct and it can be profitable on issues like tax cuts, entitlement changes, ACA repeal, etc., but this is one issue where Trump’s only doing what Democrats keep on saying they will do to keep the union vote Democratic. About half of union members went Republican this time around and Democrats can’t afford for union voters to go Republican in future elections. So obstruction is just not an option, they will have to do something, whether that’s agree with Trump or insist on certain things that aren’t a Trump priority.
Agree on the second point. Free trade in general benefits everybody.
As to the first, the Democratic Party has been the party that preserves the safety net, reproductive freedom, promotes social justice issues like raising the minimum wage and preserving unions, and many other things that make it morally superior to the Republican. Republicans are better at political strategy and making chicken salad out of chicken shit. If adopting their tactics, but not their goals, benefits Democrats I say we should do it.
The problem is that trade is a different kind of issue. Republicans cooperated with Obama on trade because he was pursuing Republican goals. Real Republican goals, not just things he said were Republican goals but weren’t. Likewise, Trump is pursuing a goal in which Bernie Sanders and Liz Warren and at the LEAST the Michigian delegation are going to start out on his side. It’s going to be hard for Democratic leadership, already in the doghouse with their base, to resist what Sanders and Warren want.
Economists have favorable views of free trade. Then again, they also have favorable views of child labor. Keep an eye on those folks, is all I’m saying.
Republicans get to dust off their talking points from the GWB era about liberals wanting America to fail.