You're not wrong, but you're proving my point. I've said before [1] that "TPP [is] the largest cross-national, non-military cooperation pact of our time. It's a huge power play with serious geopolitical consequences", a perspective that likely echoes that of US allies [2] and yet the conversation in the tech sphere focused solely on IP.

This is a good fight -- one I applaud and support the EFF for pursuing relentlessly -- but this is just one issue in a gigantic compromise legislation that has to attain broad legislative support inside the US [3][4] as well as support from the other signatories, of which there are many.

It was in fact a failure of messaging to not get out ahead of, or in response to these vocal oppositions, as the public's ire was allowed to foment.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11893512#11894446 [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/world/asia/trans-pacific-... [3] http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/trade-trans-pacific-pa... [4] http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/293344-mcconnel...

Then they shouldn't have grouped the orthogonal issues together in an all-or-nothing affair.

My understanding is that the other countries were not pushing to adopt our IP policies (though Japan did), so construing that point as compromise is a bit disingenuous.

I think that, with the exception of environmental policy on the part of the poorer counties, I'd prefer the other countries' notiations. (Other than IP I have no evidence though, as others have said it's hard to come by.)

I do not see it as a communication problem because there's nothing they could tell me that would make me support those IP provisions.

> I think it's a bit more than a communications issue when they secretly negotiated a treaty

Sure, but at least they made this cartoon to help the plebs see the light:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtNfLixcJO4

The EFF was actually invited to negotiate the treaty too, but they refused, opting to instead throw stones from the dark.

EFF and Trump admin on same page on something? What is going on?

You are only now just seeing that Trump agreeing with something doesn't make it bad by default? It's not Good vs Evil here. Reality is more nuanced. Glen Greenwald, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange also espouse certain views that match those of Trump, even though they all despise the man. It's not like Trump just went down a check list and picked the "evil" option for every issue. And the left, such as Hillary, didn't go down the list and choose the "good" option for every issue. Both sides have issues for which they have horrible self-serving stances that the other side opposes, and thus you will find people you look up to often agreeing with your "enemy".

Your preconceptions are collapsing.

Well I'm pretty sure that they are against it for different reasons. Government surveillance is something that a paranoid, insecure person like Trump is going to love.

Sadly that seems to be a very bipartisan attitude:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveilla...

Actually, one might have some (small) hope that Trump is actually libertarian enough to tone the surveillance state down. Not hoping for much though.

No one can detect a joke when it involves Trump...