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Comment by pbourke | Hacker News Reader

Do you think that corporate America somehow wants this trade war? I think it would have preferred to stay in the TPP trade deal and operate under a predictable regulatory environment.

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I don’t know. I do know my conservative friends and conservative personalities all seem to support the trade war.

I believe a large part is identity politics. A symptome is that a voter will agree with the policy of their preferred candidates, rather than choosing a candidate based on their preferred policy.

I'm implying this for both sides of the aisle.

At the least republicans accuse democrats of being in identity politics and then practice extreme versions of it themselves. I like the op above us who sees the contradictions. 'Some (rich) Americans' don't like the choices that free american companies made to move their factories to China; they liked them before because it was more profits, now the Chinese are becoming too powerful.

There are more libertarian types who have been consistently for unrestricted trade. And there are patriotic types who see the role of government as booster-in-chief, taking the side of its companies whatever the implications are.

There are definitely people who use identity more than ideology to make decisions, and there are hypocrites, but it's not strictly useful to complain about them as if they are the only people in the discussion.

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