Sunday’s State of the Union on CNN saw former Pennsylvania senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum describe himself as aligned with Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) on the issue of international trade.
Invited by Jake Tapper to comment on the politics and partisan loyalties of “white working class voters,” Santorum described the Democrats as “the party of Bernie Sanders.”
Jennifer Granholm – former governor of Michigan, a Clinton loyalist and current CNN commentator – interjected by casting Santorum and Sanders as sharing a platform on international trade.
Partial transcript below (emphases added):
SANTORUM: Yes, the problem with — the problem with that is that the Democratic Party has become the party of Bernie Sanders, I mean they are the progressives. That’s who control.
I mean, to say there is a substantive difference between Perez and Ellison, there is no substantive difference. I mean, it was a style that (INAUDIBLE) sort of connection difference. But on the philosophy this is Bernie Sanders’ party. And as striking as the Republican transformation under Trump is, it’s even more striking in my opinion from a policy point of view, the transformation of the Democratic Party to be really the party of a Vermont socialist, who has — who has been out there on the far reaches of the Democratic Party, now is the central figure in their party.
That to me is something that’s really remarkable.
GRANHOLM: But wait a second. Aren’t you the person who was talking about making sure that trade is fair? I mean, aren’t you raising the — haven’t you been raising these same issues? You and I have both been raising these same issues.
So Bernie Sanders has been raising those issues too. That economic core issue is a Democratic issue, you can brand it all you want, but you’ve been raising that issue too.
SANTORUM: Well, if I’ve been raising issues it’s not a core Democratic issue. Obviously it’s something I’ve been raising and if you recall the last president to put in tariffs was George W. Bush who put in steel tariffs. So — no, this is not —
GRANHOLM: But you’re in alignment with Bernie Sanders —
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: On the issue of trade — on the issue — on the issue of trade we — there is alignment but on just about everything else there isn’t much.
The above-mentioned Santorum-Granholm exchange comes on the heels of President Donald Trump’s recent description of the GOP as “the party of the American worker.” This attempt to rebrand and realign the Republican Party is at odds with left-wing and Democrat narratives and perceptions of “the working class” as one of their political constituencies.
Barack Obama marketed the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as a “free trade” agreement to lessen barriers to international commerce between participating states. What the TPP’s proponents generally neglected to mention, however, was the proposed agreement’s objective of consolidating regulatory standards and burdens of taxation on the production and sale of goods and services captured within its purview. Contrary to its proponents’ presentations, the TPP would have raised the costs of production and sales of goods and services between participatory states under the guise of “environmental,” “labor,” “equity,” and other regulations.
Sanders’s opposition to TPP resembled reflexive socialist opposition to free trade, describing the proposed agreement as having been drafted by “big money interests” and “multinational corporations.”
In an earlier interview with Tapper, Sanders expressed his opposition to TPP:
“We have had a series of trade agreements in this country, NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China, and the TPP, that were written by big money interests, to the detriment and the harm of working people.
We have lost millions of decent-paying jobs over the last 25 years through trade agreements that were written by corporate America that benefited corporate America.
So, I — the devil is in the details as to what Trump is going to do. What we need is a fair trade policy, not an unfettered free trade policy. Trade is a good thing, but it’s got to be fair to the American workers, not just the CEOs of large multinational corporations.”
Sanders described himself as a “democratic socialist.”
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