I think I kinda agree with your post. But just want to nitpick, I guess.
we became a society divided by class.
We are definitely going back to a society with class. I just think it's becoming much more stratified into haves and have nots with less in the middle.
And that digital intelligence isn't the key to being a have. It's money and power. They'll come after the desk jockey's money, too.
The defining feature of that class division is the intelligence necessary to participate in the new digital economy. A good amount of Americans were not able to move forward with America into this future. America brought immigrants with the skill sets to make computing work but also decided to collectively ignore the needs of everyone who couldn’t gain the skills necessary to move into computing. So a bunch of Americans think that they can just send the immigrants home and the jobs will come back. They think if they get rid of DEI then they and their children will suddenly become qualified for and receive gainful employment.
You can bring some manufacturing back to America, but many blue collar jobs in America will be much more technical in nature than they were years ago. And, yes this does
include computers but not solely. To compete with countries where the populace can live on a few dollars a day, factories will be more automated, but you will still need people to run that automation. AI will reduce that even more, but you will still need some people.
So, I agree that many people think that you can force all the jobs back to America and they can go down the road and mindlessly assemble widgets for good pay and that that just ain't so. You're gonna have to go to work sharp enough and with enough basic skills to be trained in something a little more technical than that for even entry level jobs.
Guess I'm just saying that it wouldn't all be sitting at a desk on a PC, but that, yeah, a lot of these Trumpers don't want to put in the effort to change.
Personally, I was a grunt factory worker who was unemployed during the Reagan recession. Had to move 1,000 miles away and live with family for 3 years to keep working. Unemployment was in the double digits in my home state for 3 years and stayed high for some time after that.
Didn't vote before that and always voted after.
When I finally came home, I was eligible for quite basic govt training in electronics (a few months) which did get me back to work in my state. The job I landed paid for college classes and I took 10-15 night classes related to machining since I had a basis in the field. Bid into machine shop and continued my education to advance there. AutoCad, MasterCam, NC programming, yadda. All that to advance as a machinist, never landed that office programming job.
Enough tooting my own horn. Point is that decent factory jobs do exist and can be increased with
surgical tariffs, but you have to be the cream of the crop to get a good one anymore. Think skilled trades. Manufacturing can be brought back to some degree, but it will be competing against very cheap labor and thus production will have to be high using automation, etc.. The grunt jobs are in other countries where you can live on $5 a day and they ain't coming back.
But, you do need to manufacture shit here for a more stable economy.
As a machinist I very often set temporary workers up to just change parts on large quantity jobs. There were still basic skills you needed to learn like reading inspection equipment, reading blueprints, and some of the basic machine functions. Screw ups could ruin thousands of dollars worth of equipment. A individual who cared could be trained to be an entry level "helper", but they were expected to take notes and be sharp. About one in five did well at this and were possibly hired full time. Many others were mentally and physically lazy and, strangely enough, surprised when their temp contract was not renewed. The ones that cared could possibly go on to learn machining on the job, but making peanuts for many years.
I'm reminded of the coal miners being interviewed and many saying, "I don't want free re-training. I want the coal mines back.". Is this a freaking Dickens novel?
Times have been tough before. You have to adapt and put in the work to survive. You can't just vote for a dear leader to hand it to you. Someone will promise the sun, moon, and the stars I'm sure, and then pick your pocket.
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In addition, non-surgical use of tariffs to bring back jobs just starts trade wars. They don't happen in a vacuum. You have to consider what other countries will do.
Bringing back jobs is a worthy goal, but can't be done at the level he is promising. Tariffs need to be carefully used.
And, I don't think that's actually what he is trying to do. I think it's much more insidious than that.
