After decades of shouting into the void that free trade is good, those of us in the "eliminate tariffs, embrace comparative advantage, and let me buy my haggis-flavored chips online without an import tax" crowd are experiencing something that hasn't happened in a while: new friends. Things have been especially lonely in recent years, as the right veered away from offering even lip service to free trade while the left coasted on the fumes of its union-driven protectionist past.
But a recent poll from the Polarization Research Lab shows those same lefties making a sudden and striking turn. At the start of 2024, liberals and conservatives were nearly identical in their lukewarm support for unrestricted trade—about 20 percent each in favor. Following President Donald Trump's electoral win and renewed protectionist rhetoric, liberal support has more than doubled to over 40 percent.
Some analysts see this as classic negative partisanship: Democrats embracing trade mostly because Trump doesn't. Others—such as the lab's director, Sean Westwood—argue the shift is pragmatic rather than tribal: an economic reaction to market instability and broader uncertainty, not just a red vs. blue reflex. Either way, the political winds around trade are blowing harder than ever, and not always with reasoned consistency.
