re: #43 Charles

The US government has intervened plenty of times on the behalf of private companies.

This is done, nominally, so that jobs stay in the US.

A non-trivial portion of our foreign aid goes to countries so they can buy products from American defense companies… which employ many people in congressional districts all over this country.

The US stepped in to save Chrysler over 3 decades ago.

The US used to use import tariffs to protect industries and sometimes specific companies. However, under the movement to expand free trade worldwide and the creation of the WTO the tariff option is mostly gone.

So, those speakers up there tonight were just blowing whistles, hoping their favorite dogs will come yapping.

A great deal of historical revisionism underlies these far right talking points.