To be elected president, Donald Trump rode a wave of anger and disillusionment among white non-college voters who are bitterly disappointed over their recent economic experiences and hopeless about their futures.
Trump exploited their anger brilliantly, feeding them false hopes that he would restore their lost jobs in manufacturing and mining, thus resurrecting the pathways that once enabled Americans with only a high school education to join the middle class.
But this plan will fail. The new digital technologies and market forces that enable goods to be manufactured much more cheaply by machines or foreign workers cannot and should not be reversed; any remaining manufacturing jobs will be far fewer in number than before and require much more technical skill than most workers in these industries ever had.
Continue reading at The Hill.
