[central_va]

Our partners on the left were labor Democrats who did not want to see American workers lose their jobs as factories closed in the Heartland.

I would say that is a non partisan issue. Patriots don't want to see that either.

[central_va]

There was a time when Republicans weren't Free Traitors™.

Pre WWII platform:

The Tariff

We reaffirm our belief in the protective tariff to extend needed protection to our productive industries. We believe in protection as a national policy, with due and equal regard to all sections and to all classes. It is only by adherence to such a policy that the well being of the consumers can be safeguarded that there can be assured to American agriculture, to American labor and to American manufacturers a return to perpetrate American standards of life. A protective tariff is designed to support the high American economic level of life for the average family and to prevent a lowering to the levels of economic life prevailing in other lands.

In the history of the nation the protective tariff system has ever justified itself by restoring confidence, promoting industrial activity and employment, enormously increasing our purchasing power and bringing increased prosperity to all our people.

The tariff protection to our industry works for increased consumption of domestic agricultural products by an employed population instead of one unable to purchase the necessities of life. Without the strict maintenance of the tariff principle our farmers will need always to compete with cheap lands and cheap labor abroad and with lower standards of living.

The enormous value of the protective principle has once more been demonstrated by the emergency tariff act of 1921 and the tariff act of 1922.

We assert our belief in the elastic provision adopted by congress in the tariff act of 1922 providing for a method of readjusting the tariff rates and the classifications in order to meet changing economic conditions when such changed conditions are brought to the attention of the president by complaint or application.

We believe that the power to increase or decrease any rate of duty provided in the tariff furnishes a safeguard on the one hand against excessive taxes and on the other hand against too high customs charges.

The wise provisions of this section of the tariff act afford ample opportunity for tariff duties to be adjusted after a hearing in order that they may cover the actual differences in the cost of production in the United States and the principal competing countries of the world.

We also believe that the application of this provision of the tariff act will contribute to business stability by making unnecessary general disturbances which are usually incident to general tariff revisions.

[central_va]

[central_va]

"In the past, opposition to "free trade" among Republicans was the minority position despite the fact that the GOP had been born as the party of protection and had dominated politics during the growth of the U.S. into the world's largest manufacturing power from the Civil War through World War I. As the "arsenal of democracy" the U.S. won World War II and the Cold War. By recognizing the return of Great Power rivalry, President Trump has pulled the GOP back from the extreme laissez-faire attitude it had succumbed to during the fleeting post-Cold War euphoria. The actions taken to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and to end China's plunder of American technology have been based on national security concerns about sustaining a domestic industrial base capable of underpinning American preeminence in global politics.

[central_va]

Where all all of the FR Free Traitors™?

Crickets.....

[central_va]

Calling all Free Traitors™, where are you?

Crickets.

[central_va]

bump

[central_va]

you coward.

[central_va]

bump.

[central_va]

Are any of the Free Traitors™ out there ever going to comment on this piece?

Crickets...