That wasn't really the wonks. That was the message from Big Business. A reasoned tariff policy is a pretty good idea, but a scattershot one is much, much worse

That wasn't really the wonks. That was the message from Big Business. A reasoned tariff policy is a pretty good idea, but a scattershot one is much, much worse. Unfortunately, that reasoned tariff policy is not easy to write. The good low-paying jobs are part of a system. You need to bring back whole industries. You can't build just one factory; you need many. It requires the government to subsidize and coordinate the industries as they get going, not just throw a tariff at it. They may not trust the wonks, but if they can't recognize that what they did vote for was a spectacularly idiotic idea, then we've got much deeper problems.