General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Want to know just how fake some pro-TPP people really are? [View all]TiberiusB
(487 posts)...it is the Republicans, Third Way Democrats, the Chamber of Commerce (come on, is there a bigger red flag?) and corporate interests that are the most adamant backers of President Obama on the TPP. The republican base might suspect anything and everyone foreign, but their representatives have no qualms about selling them out, and do so, repeatedly. Obama is free to negotiate any treaty he wants, but it shouldn't be done in secret with the details withheld from the public until it's too late to fight back.
Remember the fight over the ACA? Can you imagine the GOP trying to push for passage of that bill by handing Obama "Fast Track" type authority? Consider the polls showing the public against the ACA, but hugely in favor of many of the elements in it. It's easy to leverage ignorance to your advantage.
As for polls and support for Obama, democrats like him and that's pretty much where the analysis can begin and stop. I guarantee that virtually none of the people asked actually have any idea what's in the TPP. How could they? The poll, like a great many polls revolving around Obama and policy "X" are measures of his popularity, not the policy in question. Much like these threads, which inevitably revolve around establishing how people are wrong because "Obama is awesome and popular, see poll numbers don't lie!"
Debate policy and not personality, it should be a rule.