Fanfare for the common man

From the Economist: Fanfare for the common man

Is economic populism on the rise in the Democratic Party?

AS THE embers of this month's mid-term elections are raked over, a new conventional wisdom is emerging in Washington, DC. The outcome was not just about Iraq, corruption and voters' frustration with George Bush. It also marked the return of a phenomenon that has long hovered offstage in American politics: economic populism.

Frustrated by stagnant wages and rising health costs and fearful that their jobs will be sent to China, anxious voters, particularly in the industrial heartland, sent a new brand of Democrat to Congress: one who may believe in God and guns but who is wary of big business and even more dubious about free trade. The rise of these “Lou Dobbs Democrats” (a reference to a globophobic blowhard on CNN) could spell significant changes in American economic policy.

In my opinion, should globophobic protectionism become the order of the day, America will succeed in taking the world far closer to WWIII than anything that has happened in Iraq. Millions of poor people will suffer the most. Democrats would do well to follow the lead of the last Democrat president when it comes to free trade. The world needs free trade, not protectionism, from the US and Europe.