Americans have turned against free trade!

Check this out from SLDInfo.

American voters have turned against the proponents of free trade and are expressing themselves at the ballot box, to the shock of “establishment” politicians, and economic and media “elites” who have pushed the free-trade agenda for decades.

Free-traders in the administration, Congress, trade associations, think tanks and corporate America have been slow to recognize that a “revolutionary change has taken place,” says pollster Pat Caddell. “The trade issue has become the concrete nexus issue for the American electorate,” he says. The animosity toward trade “is flowing into the issue of economic insecurity and the high anxiety of the American people.”

Record high levels of alienation and the sense that average Americans have little chance of succeeding in an economy that is rigged against them have merged together, something that has rarely occurred in American history, says Caddell.

Alienation and trade have become an “activation issue,” Caddell found in a survey of 1,950 Americans. “It is no longer, ‘I’m unhappy and can’t do anything about it,’ to, ‘We must do something.’

Then this.

 When presented with the following statement that the “same political elite who have been rigging the political process in Washington are the same ones that have been rigging trade deals that hurt Americans but benefit themselves,” 76 percent of Republican voters agreed, while only 15 percent disagreed (10 percent said they don’t know). Among Democrats, 70 percent agreed, while 15 percent disagreed (15 percent didn’t know).

When combined with the 83 percent of Americans who agreed with the statement that “there are different rules for the well connected and people with money,” Caddell found himself “shocked” by how trade and alienation had merged together and are “driving a new paradigm” in American politics.

Eighty-one percent of Americans said that “political leaders are more interested in protecting their power and privilege than doing what is right for the American people.”

Alienation and concerns about national security and economic security “have all flowed into the issue of trade and has become a voting issue — a super issue,” Caddell explains. “It is not just about trade. It is being fueled by many of these other attitudes, and it is significant. When you get an issue like that, and it’s very rare that you get them, you see major changes politically.”

When asked if trade agreements signed by the United States government are more beneficial to other countries, 63 percent said yes. Only 12 percent said that trade agreements are “more of a benefit to the U.S.”

I wonder how the Trans Pacific Partnership can pass in this environment.  It also explains why no one is talking about it in Washington to include the President.

Its about time.  The American people are finally waking up to the reality of modern globalization.  Its just an organized scheme to rob from the US to give to the rest of the world.