Americans: Government corrupt, elite serving only themselves
Curtis Ellis
The government is corrupt, out of touch and indifferent to the interests of the American people. Politicians are more interested in protecting their own power than in doing what’s right for America. Powerful interests have rigged the political system for themselves. A corporate elite craving cheap labor ships American jobs overseas and brings low-paid immigrant workers into the country.
That’s what a huge majority of Americans now believe, according to a new poll.
The explosive findings are in a major survey of voter attitudes commissioned by Americans for Limited Government and conducted by renowned pollster Pat Caddell.
The survey was released Thursday at a Washington, D.C., news conference with Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
Sessions has been leading the fight against immigration and trade policies that hurt American workers.
“This poll confirms what I’ve felt for a long time – that the people of America do not believe these trade agreements are serving them effectively, in fact are hurting them,” the senator said.
“The basic establishment is all for this and they are trying to push now a 5,000-page TransPacific Partnership trade agreement that cannot be justified. It will create an international trading unit where the Sultan of Brunei has the same vote as the president of the United States. We are opening the most valuable resource to all those nations, the American market, to them, and we should use that leverage and insist that they make basic commitments that can be enforced, too.
“This polling data is huge. It shows growing hostility and further movement against this,” Sessions said.
He insisted “no one should be elected president who favors this treaty, and all of the candidates have not made their position clear, and none of them have been asked aggressively about it in any debate, which is utterly amazing.”
“It is one of the biggest issues before the country and one of the highest impact issues before the American voters and these debate moderators don’t even ask about it,” Sessions said. “The Obama administration is hoping to keep this unnoticed and perhaps slip it through in a lame duck session. Great attention needs to be paid to this by the American people and the media. And no gigantic treaty like this should go through.”
The poll comes on the heels of the Michigan primary where Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders rode to victory on a wave of popular opposition to globalist free trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, and the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership, TPP.
The survey’s findings reflect the voter uprising and anger that has startled establishment politicians and corporate media pundits.
Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, said voters, particularly Republican voters, are “sick to death of corporate cronyism.”
“The Trans-Pacific Partnership emblemizes the rigged system of too-cozy relationships between lobbyists and the politicians they fund. It would be the ultimate slap in the face if Congress attempted to pass the TPP in a lame duck session,” he said
The poll shows Americans have a deep distrust of Washington politicians and so-called free trade. But the issue goes even deeper than trade, said Caddell. Americans see their personal economic plight, which they blame on globalization, as part and parcel of the decline in America’s leadership position in the world.
“The trade issue and economic nationalism have become a nexus issue for the electorate. The concerns of economic anxiety, national security and particularly the high alienation of the American people are flowing into that issue,” Caddell said.
Caddell has conducted public opinion research for five decades, beginning with Democratic candidate George McGovern’s campaign in 1972. He has worked for President Jimmy Carter and candidates Gary Hart, Joe Biden and Jerry Brown. A regular on the Fox News Channel, Caddell sharply criticizes a bipartisan political establishment he sees as dangerously out of touch with the American people and a threat to representative democracy.
The poll finds a profound depth to the alienation Americans feel. An astonishing 82 percent of those surveyed said, “Political leaders are more interested in protecting their power and privilege than doing what is right for the American people.”
A nearly equal number (81 percent) said, “The power of ordinary people to control our country is getting weaker every day.”
Such extreme readings show Americans “have left the room” as far as the politicians are concerned, said Caddell
Americans see so-called free trade deals as Exhibit A for crony capitalism, created by and for a cabal that has captured the government, he said.
Nearly three quarters of respondents (72 percent) said, “The same political elite who have been rigging the political process in Washington are the same ones that have been rigging trade deals that hurt Americans, but benefit themselves.” That number rises to 76 percent among Republicans.
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The poll also shows Americans identify the political elitists not as Democrats or Republicans, but globalists. Nearly two thirds (64 percent) of those surveyed said the real division in the country is between “elites who see themselves as global citizens of the world and the mainstream of America which says put America’s economic interest first and the needs of the ordinary American people above all.”
America’s integration into “the global economy” also triggers national security concerns. By five to one, respondents say relying on China for manufactured goods and for debt financing compromises America’s security and economic interests.
And more than 80 percent said the United States cannot remain the world’s leading power if it continues to lose factories and manufacturing jobs.
The survey also shows Republicans reject the “free trade” agenda of the donor class in even greater numbers than Democrats.
Overall, a majority of Americans (53 percent) oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, TPP, a sweeping international regulatory and trade agreement linking a dozen countries on four continents. But a super majority (66 percent) of Republicans oppose the pact. President Obama wants Congress to approve the TPP before he leaves office.
Nearly six in 10 (58 percent) said opposition to TPP would make them more likely to support a congressional candidate. That number rises by eleven percentage points (69 percent) among Republicans.
Acknowledging the poisonous politics of the pact, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he would wait until after the November elections and bring the TPP up in a lame duck session of Congress.
But such a move would be fraught with danger. The survey found voters overwhelming oppose bringing up the TPP in a lame duck session. Overall, 57 percent, and 63 percent of Republicans, are against it, and 56 percent of Republicans said candidates for Congress should oppose consideration of TPP in a lame duck session.
“Surprisingly, the voters of the party traditionally strongest for free trade, the Republican party, have become the most consistent and strongest opponents of Washington’s free trade policies,” said Caddell.
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