On trade, terrorism and nuclear proliferation, Democrats would rather not know.
Because a wing of the Republican Party is hostile to immigrants, it’s tempting to see the GOP as a descendant of the mid-19th-century Know Nothing Party, infamous for its antipathy to Irish-Catholic newcomers—the Mexicans of their day. But if the Know Nothings have a 21st-century heir, it is Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic Party.
So much was made clear last week, when House Democrats did their best to torpedo the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. So opposed is Mrs. Pelosi’s party to free trade—that is, so beholden are Democrats to organized labor—that the party was prepared to defy President Obama and vote against a $450 million retraining scheme to scuttle TPP.