Will the GOP stab its voters in the back?

It appears GOP leaders in Congress are ready to take the very people who have given them the majority and throw them under the bus.

Senator Mitch McConnell, eager to show the world a GOP-run Congress “can govern,” wants to give President Obama extra-constitutional “fast track” power. Obama would use this power to bypass Congress and enact the globalists’ newest so-called free trade deal, the TransPacific Partnership. It’s better known as Obamatrade because Congress would have to pass it to find out what’s in it.

Obamatrade is deeply unpopular with the American people, and even more unpopular with conservatives and the other voters Republican rely on to win elections.

We know this from a series of polls. It’s more useful and reliable to look at series of poll than a single survey, likely commissioned by someone with an axe to grind.

Luckily, the non-partisan Pew Research Center has been polling the public’s attitude about globalization and so-called free trade for years.

What they have found consistently is that a majority of the American people believe deals like Obamatrade are bad for America, bad for jobs and bad for them.  And even greater numbers of conservatives share that belief.

Let’s start with the Pew Research Poll from September 14 that surveyed opinions in the U.S. and other countries that would be part of the TransPacific Partnership aka Obamatrade. 

It found only 1 in 5 Americans believe Obamatrade will create jobs, and even fewer - 17% - believe it will raise wages.

However, 78% of Vietnamese believe Obamatrade will create jobs.  If your congressman says Obamatrade will create jobs, ask him who’s he representing - you, or Hanoi Jane?

If you want to know just how disgusted Americans are about outsourcing, look at the Pew poll from December 2013.  By more than three to one – 73% to 23% - Americans say outsourcing - moving factories overseas - hurts the economy. 

What’s interesting is that when members of the Council on Foreign Relations were asked the same question, the numbers reversed: 73% of the dead-ender globalists at CFR think outsourcing is good, 25% bad.  This goes a long way toward explaining why the crowd in Washington support these so-called trade deals even though the American people oppose them

The Pew poll from September 2012 found that 71% of Americans feel loss of jobs to China is a very serious problem. The number is even higher - 76% - among Republicans.  The pollsters summed up: “Republicans are far more likely to favor toughness with China on economic and trade issues”

An earlier survey found the same dynamic: while 53% of all surveyed said we should get tougher on trade issues with China, 60% of Tea Party conservatives said so.

Their post-election survey after the Tea Party wave flipped the House in 2010 found “increased skepticism about the impact of trade agreements such as NAFTA and the policies of the World Trade Organization.” The pollsters said “Support for free trade agreements is now at one of its lowest points in 13 years of Pew Research Center surveys.”

Most revealing, the survey found Republican and conservatives hate these lousy trade deals more than Democrats do!

Here are the numbers:

While 35% of Democrats said trade deals like NAFTA and the WTO have been bad for the country, 54% of Republicans and a whopping 63% of folks who identify with the Tea Party said they’re bad.

And while 47% of Democrats believe the trade deals lead to job losses, 58% of Republicans and fully 67% of Tea Party conservatives see them as job-killers. 

So, while the effete intellectuals at Beltway think tanks try to peddle the myth that only the labor unions in the Democrat Party oppose so-called free trade, the truth is patriotic conservatives understand it is just more of the open-borders globalism that is destroying the country we love.

And there’s even more bad news if you’re an Obamatrade-loving Republican: Supporting Obamatrade is especially bad if you need the votes of blue-collar white men to get elected.  And most Republicans do.

Let’s turn to Henry Olsen of the American Enterprise Institute, hardly a liberal front group: “Non-whites’ increased share of the electorate has left the GOP heavily dependent on substantial majorities among blue-collar whites for even a shot at victory.”

Blue-collar whites are a key swing vote: for Republicans, the road to victory runs through the working class voter.  So how do they feel about Obamatrade?

Olsen cites the definitive Pew research, Beyond Red and Blue.  It found white working class voters oppose free trade agreements by a two-to-one margin - and they oppose increased immigration. These voters see so-called free trade and amnesty as two sides of the same coin: “they are pressed by competition from foreigners at home (immigration) and abroad (free trade), and they don’t like it,” Olsen writes.

The takeaway?  “Conservatives do not gain the political advantage they seek on immigration when their free trade views convince working class whites that conservatives are not on their side.” In other words, a vote for fast track and Obamatrade is a sure fire way to turn off these crucial voters.

Republicans who support Fast Track are stabbing their voters in the back, and shooting themselves and their party in the foot.