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Comment by FooBarBizBazz | Hacker News Reader

But, the Democratic Party does adapt. Biden's economic policy is notably different from Obama's. It's in some ways like Trump's. TPP is dead, there are significant export restrictions, and domestic manufacturing is getting subsidies. That's all different. Will this lead to good outcomes or just to inflation? I don't know! But it's absolutely a reaction to the political events of recent years.

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TPP was a trade agreement that was meant to align Pacific trading partners with the US instead of China. Four years were lost where China gained ground on trading agreements with the other TPP countries, but the idea is still the same.

The text of the treaty was kept secret even from congress [0], and to read it, they had to request the exact (single) chapter ahead of time, and were not allowed to bring any means of copying into the room where they read it in solitude. If they even got the text itself, and not a 'summary' [1].

Meanwhile, "industry representatives" had free access to it, and were largely the ones writing it.

The TPP (and other similar trade agreements) are nothing but backdoor means of subverting national legislations in favor of corporations. If four years were lost to China, the corporate authors of the TPP have only themselves to blame, as it was so hideous and anti-consumer, it was one of the few things Trump and Bernie Sanders agreed was bad.

[0] But, obviously, not from the other governments negotiating it, showing that the secrecy was not to gain an advantage over the other parties, but over ones own voters and politicians.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Secr...

That is the standard procedure by which all treaties are written according to the US Constitution. The executive branch writes and negotiates treaties, taking input from who they think will be affected, with only the Senate having oversight. The reason for this was explained in The Federalist Papers, and this setup is so successful that every developed country in the world does essentially the same thing and has since before the Constitution was written.

The US constitution requires that treaties be kept secret, even from congress, during negotiations? I'd like a citation on that, and an explanation on why wikipedia implies the secrecy around TPP as unusual - if such secrecy were so standard and great, one would not expect it to be criticized this way.

I now don't think the writer had hoped we would argue the article's flawed premises (analysis of an argument would be an "coastal elite" activity), but rather consider what "the base" might possibly be attempting to convey with their "real American" tantrums[0]. As best as I have been able to suss out, it is: "Fine, alright already, some White males do have their thumbs on the scale. But {I'm/my town is} obviously not among them"

    [American Chopper Meme Blank]

    You're helping Black people!         They need our help!
    
    We need to help poor Whites too!     So let's help everyone?

    No! That's Socialism

[0] eg https://indyweek.com/news/Letters-to-the-Editor/op-ed-oath-k...

> I didn't really see Trump as a savior, I saw him as the Bigly-est brick the American people could pick up and throw through the White House windows.

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