Pat Buchanan may have a point. After the election fever has died down and the Democrats have stopped back slapping and get in the game, we still have a problem. The growing inequality in the economy and the dilemma of Globalization are creating shockwaves of resistance within the rank and file of America. Between the growing scarcity of natural resources, the exponential increase in demand as three billion people come on line as consumers, and America’s addiction to hegemony there is a growing nationalism that is increasingly xenophobic and essentialist – we have work to do

“Protectionist Stance Is Gaining Clout,” ran a headline inside the Wall Street Journal election eve. “Democrats Benefit by Fighting Free Trade, and Next Congress Could Face Changing Tide.”

Almost no embattled Republican could be found taking the Bush line that NAFTA, or CAFTA with Central America, or MFN for China, or globalization was good for America and a reason he or she should be re-elected. But in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, attacks on free trade were central elements of Democratic strategy.

With the 2006 election, America appears to have reached the tipping point on free trade, as it has on immigration and military intervention to promote democracy. Anxiety, and fear of jobs lost to India and China, seems a more powerful emotion than gratitude for the inexpensive goods at Wal-Mart. The bribe Corporate America has offered Working America – a cornucopia of consumer goods in return for surrendering U.S. sovereignty, economic security and industrial primacy – is being rejected.

China and Japan manipulate their currencies and tax polices to promote exports, cut imports and run trade surpluses at America’s expense. Europeans protect their farms and farmers. Gulf Arabs and OPEC nations run an oil cartel to keep prices high and siphon off the wealth of the West. Russians have decided to look out for Mother Russia first and erect a natural gas cartel to rival OPEC. In Latin America, Bush’s Free Trade Association of the Americas is dead. Full

America is fragmenting along lines of class, race, class/race, and orientation – there is an increased division between rural, urban, ex-urban, and between poor(under 50K), working class (50k – 200k), middle class (200k – 500k), wealthy (lower-upper 500k – 100k), mega- wealthy.