Someone please explain to me why so many alleged liberals favor protectionism

Since it is an inherently nationalistic - and arguably, xenophobic - economic policy that rewards domestic business interests at the expense of consumers (especially the working classes and the poor, who my liberal/progressive comrades say they want to help).

Liberal icon FDR was one of the most forceful advocates for free trade and bringing the US into the global economy:

FDR’s Comprehensive Approach to Freer Trade

Quote:

It is also important to note that Hull, like many of his contemporaries, including FDR, regarded protectionism as antithetical to the average worker — first, because in Hull’s view high tariffs shifted the burden of financing the government from the rich to the poor, and secondly, because Hull believed that high tariffs concentrated wealth in the hands of the industrial elite, who, as a consequence, wielded an undue or even corrupting influence in Washington. As such, both FDR and Hull saw the opening up of the world’s economy as a positive measure that would help alleviate global poverty, improve the lives of workers, reduce tensions among nations, and help usher in a new age of peace and prosperity. Indeed, by the time the U.S. entered the war, this conviction had intensified to the point where the two men concluded that the root cause of the war was economic depravity.

Quote:

...it was U.S. reciprocal trade policy — a policy that had changed little since its inception during the New Deal — combined with a newfound determination to play a leading role in world affairs, that guided U.S. policymakers in the mid-1940s towards a new post-war international economic order — an economic order still largely in operation to this day.

Quote:

This comprehensive approach, though not always pretty and sometimes contradictory, was nevertheless based on the simple principle that it is a fundamental responsibility of government — even a liberal capitalist government — to ensure that the free market is managed in such a way as to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people, not the other way around.

http://ift.tt/292whkQ

Cutting the US off from the global economy is quite literally the most foolish decision that I can think of. Fortunately, most policymakers recognize this; unfortunately, a disturbing number of voters do not.

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/291bXD1