Here’s the thing about economic anxiety among the white working class - We didn’t stop manufacturing stuff here. Manufacturing is at or near a record high. What we DON’T have are manufacturing JOBS, mostly because of automation.

And even if we suddenly brought back a lot of manufacturing from other countries, it wouldn’t pay a middle class income. It would probably pay minimum wage.

And if we DID make manufacturing jobs pay middle class wages, the goods manufactured would be A LOT more expensive. We’d sell fewer of them here, and nothing abroad.

That’s reality.

So, should we lie, and promise the return of Grandpa’s job in the Steel Mill that put your Dad through college? That’s what Trump did. And he didn’t mean a word of it. The ONE TIME he told the truth was when he said ‘our wages are too high’, meaning that it’s nearly impossible for us to compete with the world for low-wage manufacturing jobs.