HE SHOULD PICK BERNIE FOR VP:

[T]rump took care in his speech yesterday to quote Sanders and to cite research from the left-labor Economic Policy Institute. 

But the question immediately presents itself: Are Bernie Sanders voters mostly horny-handed sons and daughters of toil, the quintessential 55-year-old former manufacturing worker now getting by as a Walmart greeter? Not really. The further we got into the Democratic presidential nominating contest the more it became obvious that age, more than economic class or ideology, was what was mostly feeding the Bern. And young Sanders supporters were much more likely to be motivated by a desire for free tuition or forgiven student loans, or legalized pot, or maybe busting up the big banks, than by a determination to cancel NAFTA. Indeed, polling has consistently shown that millennials are reflexively more positive about globalization generally and trade expansion specifically than their elders. 

Nor was it obvious that anger over trade agreements was sweeping the Rust Belt during the Democratic primaries. In Pennsylvania, where Trump conjured up the protectionist ghosts of Smoot and Hawley, Democratic primary participants said trade "creates" rather than "takes away" jobs by a 44-42 margin. Hillary Clinton, by the way, won both categories of voters. But even in states like Michigan and Ohio where anti-trade sentiment was stronger among Democrats, neither Sanders nor Clinton voters were monolithically on either side of the question. So the idea of a big batch of Bernie voters ripe for the picking because Donald Trump is promising to somehow make Mexico and China cough up and return to the U.S. the jobs they've "stolen" is dubious from the get-go. 

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