In practice, the renegotiated NAFTA was crafted in secret with industry lobbyists, continued to facilitate outsourcing, put downward pressure on wages, and included a full panoply of new corporate special deals that progressive groups determined to change, and it had all the ingredients that now enflamed sentiment in the New America.
And that is exactly what I found when conducting focus groups and surveys for Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.45 The administration’s case for the renegotiated plan was unconvincing because it was crafted by the same players and process and didn’t change NAFTA very much. Critics labeled it “NAFTA 2.0.”
Just learning that the renegotiated NAFTA so unashamedly benefited the pharmaceutical companies that were driving up health care costs and oil companies that already had so much power turned voters strongly against the agreement. In the focus groups, exposure to that information made participants wonder whether all trade agreements were corrupted and whether they should become more critical of the original NAFTA.
Simply giving people information about ways the revised agreement benefited special interests produced very serious and intense doubts about the agreement. Each was like throwing little bombs, reinforcing the bigger narrative that this was another corrupt deal that underscores how rigged are the economy and politics. The intense doubts clustered at the top—about U.S. companies able to import food that doesn’t meet U.S. safety standards, the ten-year monopoly for U.S. drug companies that blocks competition from generics, and special corporate rights for oil companies to attack Mexican environmental laws.
This information about the agreement got the attention of every voter, but particularly the majority that would be voting Democratic for president in 2020 and the white working class. The white working-class voters were pushed back by food safety and prescription drug prices, particularly working-class women, who expressed the most intense doubts on these two issues (56 percent and 52 percent serious doubts, respectively). Even the Trump voters had trouble dealing with food safety (43 percent serious doubts) and prescription drug prices (34 percent serious doubts), though they now viewed the revised NAFTA as an important accomplishment for President Trump.
People quickly integrated their response into an anti-corporate message framework. The inclusion of the pharmaceutical provision led them to connect the dots: “Pharmaceutical shouldn’t be in the NAFTA agreement” in the first place because “it just doesn’t have a lot to do with the purpose of the agreement” (Macomb woman, Seattle man). “What I care about is sustaining jobs here in America,” but “the lobbyists” are “throwing all of that stuff in there—they are not looking at truly protecting U.S. jobs” (Macomb man).
So, fighting to get rid of the deal for Pharma set up the integrated attack that shifted so many white working-class voters and turned the bloc of Democratic voters strongly against President Trump’s agreement that he had promised would put the worker first.
Defining the agreement as another corrupt deal for the corporate lobbyists that rigged the economy raises serious doubts for half of Trump’s 2020 voters and two thirds of the white working class. It angered those voting Democratic in 2020, 59 percent saying it raised serious doubts. It was the frustration with corporate influence that raised even more serious doubts for those who then opposed the renegotiated agreement after it was so tarnished.
An engaged battle against the renegotiated NAFTA could disrupt what normally happens when the president presents a trade agreement to Congress. After this hypothetical battle, over 40 percent wanted major changes negotiated before the plan went to Congress and another 15 percent wanted Congress to oppose it period, even if that meant President Trump would have to abruptly withdraw from NAFTA. Just a third wanted to move quickly to pass it, as President Trump called for in his State of the Union Address.
That does not change the challenge Democrats face if President Trump and Republicans join the trade issue in elections ahead. The New America does not pay close attention to trade agreements, and just a small minority of the newly elected House Democrats mentioned “trade” on their websites.46 The Democratic base of voters is pretty fond of the North American Free Trade Agreement, particularly with President Trump working so hard to withdraw from every trade agreement. Democratic presidential candidates might well defend the legacy of NAFTA and support TPP-like agreements that enhance our national security. Vice President Biden and Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke could embrace that tradition.
This time other voices could be louder. Senator Elizabeth Warren declared the new NAFTA is “stuffed with handouts that will let big drug companies lock in the high prices they charge for many drugs,” gouging “seniors and anyone else who needs access to life-saving medicines.”47 The top Democrats leading on trade in both the Senate and House and Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared it must be dramatically changed.
This time President Trump’s protectionist policies will push Democrats to better manage the effects of globalization and technology. His unilateral tariffs, “mindless undoing of the global rules-based system” and “reckless deglobalization,” Stiglitz warns in People, Power and Profits, will wreak so much havoc that Democrats will be united on trade. His tariffs are pushing up prices, making American firms less competitive and “destroying jobs again.”48
At the same time, William Galston wrote a kind of mea culpa for moderate, free-trade Democrats in The Wall Street Journal. The leaders of both parties dramatically misjudged how many manufacturing jobs would be lost, particularly outside the metropolitan areas, and how much China would become less autocratic and change its trade practices.
Democrats may argue for a rules-based international system that promotes American jobs, large-scale investment in people and infrastructure, and finally managing and mitigating the effects of globalization.
The forgotten Americans may well be contested by Democrats in the pivotal 2020 election.
IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AMERICA
The escalating Republican assault on immigration has allowed the GOP some tactical victories with nontrivial consequences for the country.
President Trump’s tactical victories on immigration led many to think America was moved by the same forces that propelled ultranationalist, anti-immigrant leaders and parties in Britain, France, Hungary, Poland, and Italy, even Spain and Germany. Steve Bannon’s European tour was premised on the power of shared worries about white “birth rates” and streets “flipped” to mostly Arab businesses. Unfortunately for the GOP, America is on a different path.49
In the 2016 primary battle, immigration was the top issue for the Tea Party and base that propelled Trump into the lead and the top issue in nearly every primary down-ballot. In the general election, it was one of the top two reasons voters supported Trump in the end. It was the top issue for white working-class voters who pulled back from Democrats. Indeed, attitudes toward immigration had supplanted racial equality as the strongest correlate of switching from President Obama to vote for Trump and switching party identification to the Republicans.
When I asked independents and Democrats who voted for Trump after the 2016 election what their biggest hope was for him, it was that he would get immigration under control and deport those immigrants who were here illegally.
President Trump declared war on immigrants and refugees in the 2018 election and had some success. He made immigration the top reason to vote for him and against Democrats, yet Republicans faced grievous losses anyway, and a large majority of Americans said immigration benefits the country. Nonetheless, immigration was the top voting issue for white workers, even if support eroded from 2016 in 2018.
It is very hard for Democrats to make a full run at working-class voters who are grappling with the results of globalization without a developed position on how to manage immigration.
It is not hard to offer a comprehensive plan for managing immigration because that is precisely what the U.S. Senate passed with bipartisan support and what is now a touchstone for all Democrats who
are running for president. Democrats have forgotten how they built broad support for that plan at the time.
Donald Trump’s demagogic rants against immigrants and his outrageous policies have made it difficult for pro-immigration leaders to remind voters of what progressives really support. They have to condemn the Trump administration for separating children from their parents, for his attacks on the caravans as hiding Islamic terrorists, for his description of undocumented immigrants as murderers, and for his willingness to deport the Dreamers.
And when they did so, voters plausibly thought Democrats prioritized only legalizing the undocumented immigrants and getting them on a path to citizenship. In the 2016 presidential election and probably in 2018 as well, it seemed as if Democrats were interested only in immigrant rights. It seemed like Democrats might prioritize non-citizens over citizens.
That is precisely the inference Donald Trump, Fox News, and Breitbart have been intent on spotlighting.
Democrats believe America is an immigrant and multicultural country, that immigrants enrich the country, and that immigration has to be managed in ways that benefit the country and all its citizens. By making that clear in the Democrats’ contrast with Trump, they both strengthen their electoral position and become more deeply associated with the country’s growing diversity and multiculturalism.
America is a country shaped by increased immigration and those who are foreign born. As I wrote in chapter 6, “The New America Strikes Back,” the massive growth in global migration has dramatically increased the number of immigrants, and the percent of foreign born in 2017 reached its highest percentage since 1910. Our big metropolitan areas are over 30 percent foreign born and 44.2 percent of the millennial generation are people of color.50
Unlike almost any other country and despite President Trump, a big majority of Americans believes immigration enriches, rather than burdens, the country. In my own surveys over the year leading into the 2018 election, voters gave an almost three-to-one positive reaction to the term “immigrants to the United States.”51
White college-educated women are the most favorable and white working-class men the least favorable toward immigrants. In Democracy Corps’s surveys in 2016 and 2018 and in my focus groups, African Americans and Hispanics expressed levels of concern about immigration that would surprise you. African Americans have come to view Trump’s attack on immigrants as a civil rights issue, so they are more pro-immigration than Hispanics. By the midterm elections, I found a quarter of Hispanics thought immigrants competed for jobs and public resources.52
Americans are positive about the economic effects of legalization of immigrants and see many immigrants as hardworking, but they do worry about the costs. In 2018, 34 percent believed granting legal status would lead to greater competition for public services and more than half believe it would take jobs from American citizens. Those numbers were not driven entirely by Republicans. About one in five Democrats also thought immigrants would “take jobs from U.S. citizens, as well as housing and healthcare.”
President Obama led the battle for immigration reform and was fairly trusted at the time on this issue. He always began talking about it by defining “real reform.” It meant “stronger border security,” and his administration did in fact put “more boots on the Southern border than at any time in our history.” “Real reform” also meant “establishing a responsible pathway to earned citizenship” that included “paying taxes and a meaningful penalty” for violating U.S. laws and that those who came illegally would be “going to the back of the line behind the folks trying to come here legally.”
Pro-immigration advocates won majority support for comprehensive immigration reform only after the public became confident that leaders wanted to manage immigration and that they took borders and citizenship seriously. The reform that passed the U.S. Senate in 2013 increased enforcement at the border, introduced new technology to ensure lawful employment, expelled those with criminal records, and allowed a path to citizenship for those here illegally who paid a fine and back taxes and learned English. That combination allowed progressives to proudly advocate a new law that would greatly expand the number of legal immigrants and make America more culturally and economically dynamic.
By the time Hillary Clinton ran in 2016, however, the path to citizenship had moved to the center of her offer, as did concern for immigrant rights in the face of Trump’s promised Muslim ban and Mexican border wall. But that is precisely what President Trump wanted.
In polling, Democrats gained electorally by affirming, “We are a nation of immigrants,” a “diverse” country, enriched by each new generation of immigrants who “create our hardworking middle class and our innovative entrepreneurs.” In firmly opposing President Trump and GOP efforts to reduce immigration, almost two thirds think more positively of the Democrats. When voters hear that Democrats believe America must continue to be an immigrant country and oppose the GOP effort to reduce immigration, it increases the probability of voting Democratic for Congress by 10 percent.53
But Democrats get even stronger and broader support—three quarters positive, and almost half strongly positive—when they embrace comprehensive immigration reform “to fix our broken immigration system.” That message reflects what President Obama articulated in the past and acknowledges that the current system is not okay. Democrats want to reform immigration to promote “legal, not illegal immigration.” That includes a “responsible” path to citizenship and managing immigration “so it works for our country.”
If they want to reach white working-class voters, Democrats have to offer the “responsibility” part of the message, too. Half of the white working-class women react positively to the message affirming immigration, but three quarters respond that way to passing comprehensive immigration reform.
It is clearly time to stop being defined by the battle against Trump’s outrageous policies and being on the defense on immigration. The Democrats’ positions and values win broad support and can change the country.
Passing comprehensive immigration reform would be transformative. If it became law, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it would expand the population by 10 million people in ten years and 16 million in 2033. It would allow the roughly 11.7 million undocumented residents to gain legal status and place them onto a path to citizenship after ten years. The “Dreamers,” those who came to the United States as minors under age sixteen, would obtain citizenship on an accelerated basis. It would remove country-specific visa caps, a legacy of a more racist past, which limited applications from countries such as China and India. It would remove limits on family-based visas for spouses and minor children, immediately clearing up the backlog of family visas and impacting future immigration. It would create new guest worker visas for low-skilled workers in industries such as construction and hospitality. Additionally, agricultural workers who meet certain requirements could be eligible for registered provisional immigrant status within five years.54
Green card limits would be lifted for the highly skilled and exceptionally talented, including researchers, professors, artists, executives, athletes, and those graduates with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from U.S. universities. The bill would introduce a point-based merit visa system that takes into account skills, employment history, and educational credentials to grant visas to between 150,000 and 250,000 immigrants a year, depending on the number of applicants and the U.S. unemployment rate. The H-1B visa program would be reformed, the cap for high-skilled workers substantially raised, and the exemptions for advanced STEM degrees increased. Finally, a start-up visa would become available to entrepreneurs abroad who wish to start a company in the United States.55
Rather than taxing the resources of the government, the newly legal immigrants will participate in the labor force at a higher rate and pay more taxes. According to the CBO, the new tax revenue will offset the extra costs for border protection required by the law in the first dec
ade and in the next, will reduce the deficit by $300 billion.56
The passage of comprehensive immigration reform would be like the passage of the civil right acts in 1965 and 1966 in terms of settling the immigration issue. That could be true if led by a president who made the case for a multicultural America, enriched by each generation of its immigrants.
9 AFTER THE CRASH
LANDSLIDE
The year 2020 will produce a second blue wave on at least the scale of the first in 2018 and finally will crash and shatter the Republican Party that was consumed by the ill-begotten battle to stop the New America from governing. As the battle was lost, it justified suppressing democracy, dancing with tyrants, and shuttering government just to show it could be done. The GOP is the ultimate anti-government party, even when the voters repudiate it, trash the place, causing lasting damage. If the president is home alone in the White House and the government is tarnished and denuded, it is a victory, with or without the wall, that symbol of America standing against foreign penetration and foreign risks to our safety.
Unsurprisingly, my first survey of 2019, conducted during the government shutdown in January, shows those saying the country is on the wrong track rose sharply. This is a stunning start of the new year. Since Trump took office, voters have only been more pessimistic when the Republicans made their last heave to repeal Obamacare and didn’t deliver.1
Unsurprisingly, every national leader of both parties was tarnished by the shutdown, except the new speaker, Nancy Pelosi, whose image improved sharply in her first official confrontation with President Trump.
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