2016 Postmortem

I made this post on another board on Sept 30, after the first debate:

The Democrats seem surprised that the 2016 election has now turned into a referendum on NAFTA, after they nominated the wife of the man who signed NAFTA's implementing legislation. I'm surprised that they are surprised.

If we elect a demagogue in 2016 it will be in large part as a backlash against NAFTA. It will be quite a direct belated rejection of the Clinton Administration, who invested so much political capital into passing NAFTA.

The worst moment for Hillary in the debate, and the best issue for Trump, was her curt dismissal of the manufacturing job losses and devastation of factory towns across the USA as "That's your opinion."

They don't call it the Rust Belt because manufacturing is booming.

NAFTA also hurt Mexican corn farmers, and sent a wave of undocumented immigrants to America. Decades later, they are still here, and their children have grown up to be Dreamers.

When one out of 20 workers in the US are exploitable, hardworking, very low wage illegal immigrants, it depresses wages for the entire working class.

Working class Americans feel a double hit from NAFTA: so many manufacturing jobs have been shipped south to Mexico, and the remaining hard jobs in the US are filled with low paid undocumented immigrants instead of native born Americans making a living wage, as it was 30 years ago.

Say what you will about Trump: he's at least noticed these people and their hardships. More than we can say about the Clinton Democrats.