NAFTA was sold to us on the premise that by improving the economy of Mexico and Central America it would keep those populations for feeling like they had to go to work for the cartels or come into the US illegally for work.
I was skeptical as hell because I couldn’t see how we’d improve their standard of living without lowering our own and in the end that’s exactly what happened, the cartels have just gotten bigger and more powerful and illegal immigration is worse than ever.
Not surprising as we are all rebels in our own conservative way.
It’s a great story, if you haven’t read it I’d encourage you to buy it and read it.
My vote in a deep blue state was a throw-away anyway, so I threw it at him.
However, Perot threw the election. Most counts show that the Clintons would have gone back to being small town shysters if not for Perot.
Not sure how bad HW would have been over Clinton, but we would have been spared Hillary-care and the blue dress.
I see your point, but my comment is mostly predicated in hindsight knowing that it may have been a throw away vote at the time, but in present tense you should feel vindicated that your vote was based on substance.
We would have been spared two decades of and ever growing divide in the country between right and left as well.
It was the Clinton years which began the purge of anyone conservative or even moderate from the democratic party. That went into high gear during the Obama years resulting in the complete purge of anyone even modestly reasonable from the party.
Odds are without Clinton none of us would even know who Barak Obama even was and he wouldn’t even be much more than a footnote in history at best.
No need for vindication or validation. I grew up working in my Dad’s metal manufacturing plant. I knew what NAFTA would do, and mourned as it did.
The Bushies have turned out about as Proggie as the Clintons, inside our borders.
I would have to see more of a logical chain to follow that one.
I had a libbie Dem friend that told me in 1999 about how American needed more Socialism and pre-cursed most of the SJW themes that have become de-rigor in modern media. The proggies on both sides are playing out a chess end-game.
Ponder it. It was Clinton that brought back racial divisions to use as a weapon to divide the country, it’s only grown since then.
Without Perot we’d have had two terms of GHWB followed most likely by Phil Gramm or someone similar.
Most likely then Osama Bin Laden would have been dead by 97-98 so no 9-11 and no exponential expansion of Islamic Jihad.
The big purge of conservatives from the Democratic party started over Hillarycare and expanded dramatically over his impeachment.
At most, Obama becomes a major figure in Illinois politics, maybe eventually moving into the house or senate but without the racial divide to exploit he doesn’t become a presidential candidate.
No WOT and even with Katrina we return to balanced budgets, so the national debt is about 1/3 of what it is currently.
We still end up eventually having to go in and Remove Saddam but there’s no Bin Laden pouring in Jihadists to turn a six month campaign into a decade of off and on again sectarian civil war.
No Bin Laden, no 9-11, no invasion or 20 year occupation of Afghanistan.
No Clinton or Obama, millions of more jobs in the energy industry, no hundreds of billions wasted on windmills that don’t work or solar farms that never will work.
No Obama, no BLM, no Occupy movement, no rise of Antifa because the divide was never created to be then weaponized.
Remember, before Obama came along race relations in the US were the best they’d ever been, Sharpton, Jackson et al were just jokes for the most part.
No Clinon, no radicalized and empowered Jackson, no blackmail of the major banks, no redline settlements forcing them to make loans to minorities they could never repay, no housing crisis.
No Clinton, China doesnt’ become a nuclear threat, neither does NK, and Iran remains neutered.
We’d be living in a completely different world today and China would not have risen to the power it is because we’d have not been exporting millions of manufacturing jobs to them, we’d not have turned our backs on their industrial espionage, patents, etc.
Most likely while there would have been some up’s and downs in the economy minus Clinton and Obama, we’d still be riding the expansion that began under Reagan.
I seriously doubt we’d have even seen GWB as president until maybe somewhere around 2012-2016. We might have had a one term much more moderate dem in 2000 but most likely then would have gone back by 2004 to another conservative republican from 04-2012, then another one term dem and we’d be then looking at eight more years of actual conservative dominance into 2020.
That is well thought and worthy of consideration, right until the above quote.
The Bushies are Progs, GHWB would have grabbed the pen out of Clinton’s hand and signed NAFTA twice given the chance.
To summarize, I don’t have any faith in the mushy middle of the GOProgressives, they are not conservatives.
No argument at all on NAFTA or on MFN Trade status with China, Bush was a huge proponent of both.
The difference with China is that without Obama and Clinton turning a blind eye to the patent infringement and industrial espionage or the anti business taxes and regulations imposed during both administrations they aren’t where they are today.
Most likely their economy would be about a 1/3 of what it is today and we don’t have a trade deficit with them at all. The original purpose of granting them MFN was to open up markets for US industry and agriculture in China.
I Opposed MFN for China for numerous reasons not the least of which was the fact that pretty much every dime we were sending to China was going to build the Chinese Military and build their Nuclear capability.
Bad news on research/patent crap. China is invading through our universities…
Absolutely and I think if our FBI/DOJ started investigating the Chinese owned/operated Chinese res truants where many of the Chinese students are employed they’d find a direct pipeline to Peking.
It is way worse than that.
I don’t care to explain here.
We’re probably on the same page, I’m just winding the clock backwards a bit.
Those Chinese professors and researchers working in our universities started out as those same students I’m talking about and working for the same people.
Odds I think are very high that the pipeline runs through there directly to China’s military and intel.
Good news is there are several Universities that are changing and are on to this by eliminating the Confucius Institutes which are fronts to the very thing you are eluding to.
Well who would have guessed this?
Of course he would have, his administration negotiated nafta…
Yeah? And your point is? Tell us something we don’t know!