ICYMI: Isolationism and the fear of the foreign: Saunders

Saunders largely nails the electoral calculations of political figures:

What caused a complete reversal of positions in 2016? It certainly wasn’t logic or ideological coherence. Rather, it was electoral calculation: In 1975, fear of economic ruin was a potent driver. In 2016, fear of outsiders was equally strong.

Arguments in favour of cutting off trade and political relations have almost always been, at root, election bids based on fear of the foreign. That doesn’t mean that every trade agreement is a good idea, or that policies to protect or bail out national industries are wrong. But exits, prohibitive tariff walls, or complete isolation are never rational or principled.

The original free-trade battles of the 1860s pitted isolationist segregationists and colonialists against movements that linked free trade with peace and anti-slavery campaigns. The 1930s isolationism was tightly linked to the exclusionary nativism of the time. A large part of the opposition to Canada-U.S. free trade in the 1980s was pure anti-Americanism. Donald Trump’s pitch to completely cut off China and Mexico has nothing to do with economic logic, or conservative values, but with a manipulated hatred of the foreign.

The fact that left and right have traded positions so many times shows isolationism for what it is: not ideology or economics, but a reflex appeal to fear.

Source: Isolationism and the fear of the foreign – The Globe and Mail