Trade War Decimates Farm & Rust Belts & Family Separation Erodes Trump Support

By paulgibson51 on July 10, 2018 • ( 0 )

Time for a dramatic shift to the left? Trump trade and immigration policies are eroding Trump’s base and provides a powerful video of family separation and evidence that the Midwest may be primed for a revolt. Also, Parkland students come to NM tomorrow.

Parkland Students Come to NM!

Could Trump Indifference to Working Class & Religious Right Could Create Once in a Generation Opportunity to Move Left

As reported previously by Retake Our Democracy, Trump’s Tax Plan benefits only the 1% and the GOP unraveling of Obamacare will leave millions without health coverage. Trump misinformation has apparently convinced most of his base that claims that these policies hurt his supporters are ‘fake news.’ But the deafening cries of mothers and small children being separated at the border are penetrating the defenses of the religious right (view YouTube video at the bottom of this post). What’s more, as the third piece in today’s blog reveals, the Midwest may be increasingly receptive to left-leaning policies. Hope may be on the horizon.

Evidence that Family Separation Policies Are Eroding Trump’s Base. Voices are being raised from religious conservatives, morally offended by Trump’s family detention policies. From The Atlantic: “Groups including the Southern Baptist Convention and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released anxious statements about immigration last week. Typically outspoken Trump supporters like Franklin Graham, the son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham and head of the charity Samaritan’s Purse, condemned the separations: During an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Graham said it is ‘disgraceful—it is terrible to see families ripped apart. And I don’t support that one bit.’ ” At the Southern Baptist Conference, a resolution was passed calling for immigration reform with an emphasis on maintaining “family unity.” In the context of the GOP’s continuing failure to pass anything like immigration reform and the obvious failure of the Trump administration to have made any plans for family reunification, Trump could be highly vulnerable in the November general election.

Evidence Trump’s Trade War Policies Could Further Erode Support from His Base. The projected impact of trade war policies and projected reprisals by China and Europe will most seriously impact Trump’s Rust Belt and Farm Belt support.

From Business Week: “In President Donald Trump’s trade war, the states he won during the election are the most defenseless. That’s according to economists at Citi, who last week published a research note on which US states are most exposed to a trade war and what this means for the midterm elections.” The table below left profiles how over 20 historically Red states stand to bear a a far larger proportion of the impact from the tariffs while only one blue state (Oregon) stands to be impacted above the median.

“With several economies now imposing retaliatory trade actions in the wake of the Trump administration’s trade tariffs, the stakes have risen for, and the evidence more compelling against, ‘red’ states by several measures,” Citi’s Dana Peterson said in the note. Trade wars may reverse the “hiring bonanza,” she added. Click here for the Business Week report.

From a Financial Post report: “It’s a nightmare scenario for Canada, the United States and Mexico, but the biggest hit will be on the U.S.,” said Dennis Desrosiers, president of consulting firm Desrosiers Automotive Consultants. “There would be a serious shortage of supply into the United States, and it doesn’t have capacity to build more vehicles, so the prices of all vehicles would go up quite radically…. It’s so outrageous and so negative to the U.S., it’s unlikely Trump can be serious.”

Desrosiers estimates that such tariffs could lead to job losses of between 300,000 and 500,000, with most of those being in the U.S. A Petersen Institute for International Economics report estimates that 195,000 U.S. workers would lose their jobs if the tariffs are imposed. The figure would jump to 624,000 jobs if other countries retaliate with their own tariffs. That is an awful lot of out-of-work voters and most of them live in swing states that swung right in the 2016 election. Click here for the Financial Post report.

And since Trump doesn’t listen to opposing views from the Democrats, from industry or from his own inner circle, a Trade War it will be and the devastating impact can represent an opening, if Democrats are willing to shift their rhetoric from corporate caution to left-leaning activism, see below.

Socialist Chicago Council Member Points to History of Midwest Rejection of the Status Quo Economic System from Debs to Now

Carlos Ramirez-Rosa has served as alderman of Chicago’s 35th Ward since his election to the City Council in 2015. Queer, Latinx and a democratic socialist, Ramirez-Rosa served as a deportation defense organizer prior to his election and was an elected Bernie Sanders delegate in 2016. He was named an “emerging power player” by Chicago Magazine in 2017.” And along with Ocasio-Cortez in the Bronx, Beto O’Rourke in Texas and a long history of Midwestern socialist activism, there is mounting evidence that the Nation could be ready for radical change.

From an NBC News Report: “From the workers’ struggles in the 19th and 20th centuries thatwon the 8-hour workday to the growth of a fighting labor movement to my own election as a millennial socialist city council member in Chicago, Midwesterners have consistently backed socialist movements and socialist candidates that reject the political status quo and fight for the working-class values of solidarity and equality.” As reported in Tuesday’s blog post, Trump’s misguided trade war policies are impacting farmers in the farm belt and manufacturing in the rust belt, Trump’s base of support. What’s more, his family separation policy and the transparent disregard for families evident in his administration’s inability to reunite families is not playing well among another Trump base: the religious right. Together, the ground could be prepared for a revolt such has not been seen for generations.

Also from NBC: “Eugene Debs, whose labor and political activism in the around the turn of the 20th century made him the most important socialist organizer in American history (and one of Bernie Sanders’ icons), is from Terre Haute, Indiana. “Sewer socialists” governed Milwaukee and other areas of Wisconsin for decades, including Victor L. Berger, who in 1910 was elected to the House of Representatives — the same position Ocasio-Cortez is on the verge of winning this November. Midwestern cities and towns such as Dayton, Ohio, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Flint, Michigan also have proud socialist backgrounds.”

Click here to read more from NBC News on how the midwest may be ready for socialism. The article also includes a great short video with Bronx House Representative to be, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

On Thursday, we will present still more evidence of what may be possible if Democrats and activists pay less attention to Wall St. and heed the calls from their progressive populist base, (with Beto O’Rourke profiled Thursday) and learn from inspiring models of collective action and collective reorganization of economic production evident in Jackson and Montreal, also profiled on Thursday.

Maybe enough is finally enough and something good is on the horizon.

In solidarity,

Paul & Roxanne