Remember all that TPP trollery here during 2016?

[JHan]

74. You can't separate Clinton's position from the political climate at the time.

Certain actors were already pushing ignorant narratives about trade, and even Obama got slammed and smeared for it. I'll never forget an idiotic post by Robert Reich where he flat out insinuated Obama may have been paid off or worse, with all sorts of conspiracy theory mongering in the comments.

The NYT editorial board finally decided after the damn election to post a column about the fall out if the U. S reneged on the TPP. Lazy journalists, ignorant Cable News Anchors just ran with populist narratives instead of interrogating and analyzing those narratives. And they had no excuse given the length of the 2016 election cycle. VERY LITTLE POLICY was discussed, and Corporate Media heads were focused on maximizing populist rhetoric for profit.

You must contextualize Clinton's position in light of these factors.

Appeasing "allies" was the approach Clinton took. In what happened, she says that President Obama advised her to not go after Bernie too harshly - it was obviously her choice to take his advice on board and that's on her but the stupid establishment/corporatist vs progressive fake dichotomy factored in trade with Sanders and his allies applying pressure to say no on the deal. It was a disgusting dominance game. And Clinton did not want to alienate the most vociferous of Sanders' allies. It was a thoroughly fucked up situation.

Triangulation and brief appeasement on an issue aren't new concepts in politics, it was obvious Clinton had to make a "political choice".