Grayson (and others) Explain TPP

But Obama hasn't really split the Democrats. They are almost unanimously opposed to him on trade. The upcoming battle over fast-tracking and the Trans-Pacific Partnership shows how dramatically the center of gravity in the Democratic Party has shifted.

Twenty years ago, half of Senate Democrats and 40 percent of House Democrats voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement. This time, even if Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, signs off on a fast-track deal, proponents say a best-case scenario has them winning only 10 of the 46 Democrats -- and an even smaller percentage of House Democrats, despite aggressive lobbying by the usually passive White House.

Part of the change reflects the loss of moderates in Congress, and part is because of empirical experience with NAFTA. But the shift also is indication of the ascendancy of the populist wing of the party, in numbers and, particularly, energy. Obama, not up for re-election, can afford to defy the populists, but future Democratic leaders, including Hillary Clinton, don't have that luxury.

The populist muscle was on display Wednesday at the rally, hosted by United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, who sprinkled foul language in his introductions of the various speakers. Privately, lawmakers expressed doubts that they could block passage, but publicly they were full of fight.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the Democrats' populist star, pumped her fist and shouted into the microphone: "No more secret trade deals! Are you ready to fight? No more special deals for multinational corporations! Are you ready to fight?"

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who is planning a symbolic challenge to Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, warned of a Congress "totally owned by billionaires and their lobbyists." American Federation of Government Employees chief J. David Cox proposed they "open up one gigantic can of whoop-ass" on legislators who support the deal.

Cox didn't propose using whoop-ass on Obama, if only because it's "a lost battle" with him. But it stung that a Democratic president was siding with Republicans on trade and against the Democratic base. Fred Rolando, head of the letter carriers union, addressed U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman "and the rest of you at USTR and in the White House: We don't trust you on this."

Grayson, after the rally, called Obama's position "unfortunate" and demoralizing. "We've done this experiment where we try to drift over to the other side and see whether we can win Republican votes," he said. "We've done that experiment just like we've done the NAFTA experiment, and both of them have failed."