That rhetorical question is the title of my new piece in the Economists’ Voice.  My favorite part:

Once researchers accept the fact that noneconomists tend to see international trade as a
zero-sum game, though, the democratic longevity of protectionism becomes easy to explain.  It’s called “populism” because it’s popular. If people imagine that tariffs “protect” their nation from poverty, they will be protectionists. 

On this view, lobbyists can still play a role.  But instead of force-feeding protectionist policies on a pro-trade majority, lobbyists’ main function is fine-tuning policy details. The steel lobby doesn’t waste its time refuting the general principle of free trade. That would be like beating a dead horse that was never alive in the first place. Instead, the steel lobby aims to convince the American public that foreign steel is a special threat to the health of our economy.

Interestingly enough, I’m sandwiched between a bunch of more famous economists (Stiglitz included!)  If I’d written the article a few weeks later, I might have changed my fear-mongering lobbyist example.  We’ve seen quite a week of policy fine-tuning, as the bail-out bill grew from 3 pages to 451!