Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?
The memory is that these old factory&#x2F;manufacturing jobs were high paying (middle class), secure, and accessible to people of low intellect, minimal education, and limited social grace.<p>The proposed replacements &quot;caregivers, retail workers and customer-service representatives&quot; are significantly lower wage and also require more &quot;EQ&quot; that the working man of the prior generation didn&#x27;t need.  The voters these politicians are addressing are working from a memory of a time when &quot;men were men&quot;, that worked hard in a physical way to produce a physical product; in the memory, these working men didn&#x27;t think and didn&#x27;t emote, they produced.<p>Now, the voter says, men have been &quot;feminized&quot; by being forced out of a productive, provider role where a single income could support the family.  Instead, they are placed into a role where they need to express concern, care, and use soft skills instead of physical strength.<p>And when they want the same pay and security they had before, they are instead told to &quot;learn to code&quot; (or learn whatever, get an education).  Which is easy for a coastal educated person to say, but to a line of family men who have not just eschewed education but actively resisted it, this is a tough pill to swallow.