Initially especially in the 1960s Democrats answer to fear was that an appeal to hope and the basic principles of America.  The way to fight fear was speaking of the Constitution and the Declaration of Indepedence and expanding who is included within those principles.

Somewhere, I think it was with the advent of the Vietnam War and Watergate, Democrats stopped appealling to hope and inclusion and instead offered our own version of fear.  Fear of being left behind.  Fear of evil corporations and other remnents of a failed Marxism.

During the debate over CAFTA here at the Cafe a few people refered to NAFTA as causing job loss in the United States and being bad for Mexico as well.  This made no sense.  The United States has more jobs now than when NAFTA was passed and how could it be a lose lose situation?

Tom Friedman addresses post NAFTA Mexico in "The World is Flat.  (I know he is not well liked here at the Cafe but I think that is because he is more correct than most and wont wallow in the fear mongering).  This quote from page 310 from Guuillermo Oritz of the Mexican Central Bank:

'That was a real shock. We started reducing our gains in market share and then started losing them.  We said that there is a real change here... And it was about China.'

China is such a powerhouse of low-cost manufacturing that even though the NAFTA accord has given Mexico a leg up with the United States andeven though Mexico isright next door to us, China in 2003 replaced Mexico as the number two exporter to the United States....

Democrats, Progressive voices have to stop fooling ourselves and demonizing people who are in business because we fear that the days of powerful unionized industries are fading and the comfortable life we had is going with them.  

If Democrats try to out fear Republicans we will live not only in a grim world in which we all race to the bottom but given that this country has never been all that hospitable to leftward politics, even domestic versions like Henry George, we will give this country over to the Republicans for a long time to come.