This year take a look at it. Back in 1992 to ‘94, when I was on the radio between presidential runs, and we were fighting NAFTA, when I needed somebody and I didn’t get the guest I wanted, I’d say ‘Well, give Bernie Sanders a call, he’s good on NAFTA.’ What’s happened now is not only has Trump moved the Republican Party strongly in the direction of economic nationalism, Hillary Clinton has abandoned the TPP. We have won the argument nationally. We actually were very close to winning it back then, but now we have won it politically. And even the Republican Party I don’t think can go back to the TPP and free trade without committing suicide.
Secondly, I think if the Republican party goes to amnesty on illegal immigration, the way Bush was moving toward it and McCain was, they will be committing suicide, the country doesn’t want that, it wants the border secure.
Third, the Beltway elites, the neocons, and the others, no matter who wins, will be pushing for a war with Russia or Iran or somebody. We haven’t yet won on the war issue, Obama’s got no enthusiasm for a war in Syria or a war against Russia, but a key questions is if Hillary wins, what happens? There’s a segment in the Republican Party that remains interventionist and hawkish and really I think still rooted in the Cold War.
Do you feel vindicated by this election?
I am elated that Trump has raised these issues, the issues that have tremendous currency now. They were decisive issues I think certainly in the Republican primaries, where he wiped up the floor with 16 establishment Republicans. I’m elated that it’s been recognized and that people are coming around to the damage done to the country in the last 20 years by masses of illegal immigration, the division in the country, the change in the country that’s taken place. All these factories are gone, the economic dynamism of the country is gone.
Am I glad everybody is aware of it now? Sure, but it’s very sad. I’ll never understand why the establishment — even if they don’t like me — why they couldn’t see the truth of some of the issues, the popularity, and the real pull of the issues we raised, and the votes we got, and why they didn’t move themselves as a good politician does to really co-opt and seize them, and deal with the problem before it became the crises we have today. I’m delighted we were proven right, but I’m not happy as to what’s happened to the country because these folks didn’t address it.
