Examples include “We must fight them there to avoid fighting them here” to justify the American military’s unending conflicts and presence in some forty countries. Another perennial is “Trade barriers are immoral and will crash the economy, while free trade is indispensable and benefits all,” even as free trade contributes to the decimation of manufacturing, destroys communities, hollows out the middle class, stomps down wages, fuels the opioid crisis, and causes mortality rates to spike.
