Pres. Obama tells Dems, on TTP: "Get informed, not by reading the Huffington Post"

[Jeff Rosenzweig]

350. This thread provides a great example of a few things, but not what you're talking about.

First, the "split" you're so desperate to believe exists "in the Democratic Party" is a localized phenomenon stemming from the junior high cliquishness you, among others, have tried to impose right here on this website, and has nothing to do with the party. It's of a piece with your standard boilerplate about an "Elizabeth Warren Wing" or a "Conservative Wing" of the party, or your mournful musings about "Oligarch Rulers" and whatnot. It's not analysis; it's a cartoon, a stick drawing.

Are some Democrats farther left than others? Sure. But you look at a spectrum of opinions and attitudes (on trade and other issues) and seem compelled to divide it into "either/or" or "myself/other," apparently motivated by nothing more than a need to identify yourself with some self-selected group of brave Resistance fighters. In the real world, survey after survey has shown that more Democrats are inclined to support the TPP than Republicans. Are those Democrats all misinformed? Maybe, but you never even address the point, despite your penchant for believing yourself an expert on the issue; you simply pivot to talking about a "split" or about those who lack your acumen and insight simply acting on "faith."

And speaking of faith, you seem oblivious to your own susceptibility to it. You take it on faith that this trade deal is simply a monstrous calamity, you take it on faith that the President's intention is to put the nail in the coffin of the American worker, you take it on faith that this is something he advocates because he's simply a servant of the One Percent or whatever your preferred term is this week. Your faith and your confirmation bias allow for not even the smallest possibility that, just maybe, he believes this is a good thing for the economy, for the country, for American workers. He could be very much mistaken, of course, if he thinks that, but maybe he's sincere in that belief. Yet your faith precludes you from even considering the idea.

Is this trade deal a bad thing? Yes, I think it probably is, though unlike you I don't pretend to any deep knowledge of it, since my opinion - just like yours - is based on leaked drafts and a skepticism born of widely noted, sometimes fatal flaws in the prior trade pacts routinely and mostly dishonestly oversold to the public by both Democratic and Republican Presidents over the years. But it's a hell of a leap to start talking about this or any other multilateral trade deal as the "destruction of the middle class" or the "death of democracy" or similar apocalyptic hyperbole.

And when those who subscribe to such dire views, like you do, are asked why Barack Obama would push such a thing, the answers offered never make sense. To take just one example: he's doing this to ensure his financial security when he leaves office, it's been suggested here. I mean, really? The advance on his memoirs alone will probably be sufficient to keep any eventual grandchildren wealthy into their own retirement years. Hell, he could write a volume of haiku on the topic of his dog Bo and he'd make a small fortune from it. He'll be offered fat fees by everyone from environmental coalitions to the US CoC to international humanitarian groups to give 20-minute speeches at their conclaves. He could take a nominal partnership with a firm like Boies Schiller which would pay him six figures a year just for the privilege of having his name on their roster, doing little more than picking up the phone a couple of times a year to give a partner advice and amusing himself writing op-eds for the New York Times.

I'm inclined to agree with you about Trojan Horses, and I definitely concur that big corporations will "steal our wealth" any way they can (something I can attest to from personal experience). And I'm prepared to come down squarely against this trade deal once we find out more about it, although perhaps I won't. But beyond all that, this Great Divide that you posit, and your shallow characterization of those you're determined to consider your enemies, are constructs made from equal parts hot air, wishful thinking, and a conventional "wisdom" derived wholly from the echo chamber you want this site to be.