The voters wanted to get rid of Dubya because he employed illegal immigrants in a time of 10% unemployment & wanted to expand the H1B quota. The protectionist agenda eventually got democrats elected in 2008, but for the next recession, public opinion reversed course, despite unemployment crossing 20%. The next generation was much less concerned about the size of the workforce & more concerned about new unemployment entitlements, healthcare entitlements, mortgage entitlements. Once the government created these new entitlements, sharing them with the rest of the world became the public's top priority.


Not sure if this was because of the giving attitude programmed into millenials or because the rest of the world deteriorated so significantly. Many economies collapsed after 2008, yet only 8 years earlier, "globalization" was the word. China's booming economy was an unending source of pent up demand, not a source of tired weary masses yearning to be free. At least for now, public opinion is globalization is dead. Come to US or die.



Whether the fickle voter opinion is right or wrong, you can't have 1 part of the world be a completely different standard of living from the rest of the world for a long time & the evidence is US is currently lightyears above the rest of the world. Lions are keenly aware that the current bargain basement $3000 rent & 40 million people living in the space of Rhode Island are artificially low because of an artificial border that no-one supports. The rest of the world pays the equivalent of $40,000 rent & packs 1 billion people in the space of Rhode Island. Whatever the laws, eventually economics win.

Now, on to next week's news cycle about gun violence.