Yeah 48&34, and those who do not feel comfortable assuming what the administration does or does not know - and I hesitate to imply that it's cohesive unit on matters trade related - have not yet dealt with the consequences assumed - and the effects on our lifestyle.
They know how to hustle in Asia...it's a cultural thing. It’s an adversity thing. Like the emotion that fuels our own ripe and exploitable nativism, it is also a pride thing. That’s a gross generalization and there are too many nuances to the problem to gloss over it so easily. Alongside all of the happy efficiencies are the well-known sad realities of entire industries outsourced. And there is the technology theft that concerns people on both sides. But as far as the inequities of the bigger picture, you don't get elected to office telling people they are going to have to endure painful transformations alongside the world. You may do better as a politician if you tell your people the transformation is happening too fast and that you can slow it down with a plan for the future. But you can’t do better than by telling people they’ve been taken advantage of and that you can fix things in one term. That leads to the questions about how Americans feel about the trade war. The farmers are said to be a bit iffy but the administration put out a 16B farm-aid program last week that is mainly intended to help offset the problems being caused by tariffs. The famers I talk to are dubious but I’ve not talked to people who do large scale operations in the mid-west.
Anecdotal reports of what farmers feel are only as valuable as the subject’s general opinion of protectionism and this has to be balanced against the individual’s loyalty to a general cause; where the precise mechanics of the operation in their favor are not fully considered until it is too late to redirect the process. So it’s probably better to consider what kind of handwringing is happening up on the hill. This is not directly related, but you saw the skirmish at the White House this past week when the president walked out of the would-be infrastructure meeting because the House Speaker said he was involved in a cover up. The markets didn't have the best sessions after and the Speaker did follow up by saying impeachment was not on her agenda. That kind of thing might lead one to assume that the details of the trade war are going to take a back seat to the Democrats' conviction that this administration is not operating in good faith or using good sense. You can also look to the newspapers, vetting each by their editorial history. The NYT and the Post are both running detailed pieces about the consequences of the trade war and neither of those papers are traditionally embraced by Republicans. The WSJ is not making excuses for the president in this particular area. I will try to find some hard polling data to satisfy the spirit of the question.
Back to the local scene. If I ask the men who come to help me with my tractors and implements what they think about the trade war they are going to answer me based on their allegiance to the cause of America first. These are some of the nicest people anywhere and while they would agree with me on most things, I doubt they want to hear a lecture on the history of protectionism when their heads are under a few ton of metal so I go with the flow. If things get out of hand, the ones who have not concerned themselves with about it are going to learn about that history real fast. And then they can apply that history to this modern situation and judge for themselves. Stated another way, Americans might not yet know how they feel about the trade war.
There is a common wisdom that comes with making your living from the land and it is good faith wisdom. It is a pure wisdom and it is given to trust. It is in the end at the mercy of honesty. Plato's characters described the relationship between what you do and your personal frame of reference very well in the Republic. A person who busies himself with day to day responsibilities can only get so much from newspapers. The conclusions drawn in the symposium were not so pleasant and the Republic with its descriptions of political transformation and inconclusive dystopian despair is very applicable to what is going on here – on many levels. This does not mean that people who don't concern themselves with the bigger picture are unable to make an informed decision. But if you have not thought about something much because it’s not your thing or you are too busy saving your own life…you are a potential victim to your leaders. If your leader is someone who has a penchant for self-aggrandizement or psychological manipulation or padding his own wallet then you had better hope he falls unwittingly into doing the right thing despite himself. American institutions might be misused by those who prefer brute force over finesse but they also provide the legal frameworks for reigning in self destructive behavior.
The people who created and fostered those institutions were not fools. Contrary to some historical revisionism, their writings clearly show they did not think might makes right. That is in stark contrast to the world’s long history of barbarism by those who could get away with it. But finesse is a personal choice and it takes thought, planning, work and cooperation. It is not quick and exciting and you can’t talk about it in a tweet. Its results are achieved mostly by those who will never be known to the world.
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