Make America Great Again?

“Make America Great Again” has been Trump’s rallying point that has found resonance in many people.  Why?  And, what does “Great” mean anyway?  Does it mean to be the mighty world military power?  We are already there.  Does it mean to be the dominant economic power?  Again, we are already there.  From what I understand, most Trump’s supporters are middle class white Americans who feel they have lost something and want it back.  So what is it that they want to make America “Great” again that they feel they can get from Trump?  Some people feel that that slogan is a substitute for "Make America White Again.”  But I don’t think so.  I think the issues are a more deep, although many of Trump’s supporters may not be able to articulate them.

Let's look into this:  Do Trump supporters really want to bring manufacturing jobs back?  I don’t think so.  Like I said, most Trump supporters are middle class Americans with jobs or some sort of income in the $70K range.  But let’s assume that “getting jobs back” is the driver for their support.  Trump says he will bring companies back to the US from places like China, Mexico, etc.  News Flash:  JOBS ARE NOT COMING BACK!  Why?  The answer is technology.  Look at the labor intensive manufacturing and consider the skill labor required in tool and die and production lines:   Robotics and 3-d printing will wipe out over 90% of the labor required to manufacture anything – no jobs being brought back from manufacturing.  How about farming and food production – Labor intensive farming has been driven out by “industrial” farming with technology.   So, those jobs that have left will never come back because the cost of labor in “those countries” is less than the current cost of technology in this country.  When the cost of labor in “those” countries is brought up to a livable wage, what then?  That is what Trump is saying indirectly – he says he will use tariffs to equalize the cost of foreign production and that will bring manufacturing back to the U.S. because it will make it cheaper to produce it here. The problem with that policy is that any companies that might come back will bring back high technology and automation – not jobs.  At least not skilled manufacturing jobs!

The reality is that there are 7 billion people in the world and more every day.  Because of high technology, there will not be jobs for unskilled people and many fewer jobs for skilled manufacturing people.   One may argue, what about construction and service industry jobs?  Construction is a small percentage of our labor requirements and technology and automation will reduce the demand even more.  The success of service industry jobs depends on a strong and growing middle class to drive the demand for service.  But Republican policies are getting rid of Unions and the middle class.  No middle class, no service industry jobs, or at least very few service industry jobs.  How about a “gig-based’ society?  Taxi drivers, Uber drivers, day laborers and other casual support labor like day nursing, etc.  But between the cost of insurance, gas and auto maintenance, that minimum wage or the five dollars an hour Uber drivers end up making isn't going to cover living expenses it will never allow people to save up for a new car, since for Uber and most day workers cars ware out prematurely from excessive use. But with the onset of driverless cars, there will be no need or “gigs” for drivers.  How about being an entrepreneur?  Yes that is possible for a very small number of people.  Again, success in this area is based on a strong and large middle class not everyone can start an internet business selling products to others who have no money.

How will they earn their daily bread to survive?  That is the challenge that politicians and all of us have to face.  There are about a little under 6 million jobs currently open in the U.S. according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. Trump may be shocked, but the number of unfilled manufacturing jobs in the US is at a 15-year high; however these require skills such as electrical maintenance of automated manufacturing facilities. Estimates are that here are more than 500,000 software jobs for which companies have been unable to find candidates.  The U.S. workforce needs to be prepared for today's economy, not yesterday's. Flight of manufacturing and unfair trade, as Trump claims, is an issue, but it pales in comparison to workforce readiness.

The "first step in solving a problem is recognizing a problem exists" and Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have certainly articulated the problem that exists - inequality.  The problem is that Trump has no real solutions that will impact the middle and lower class in a positive way.   A good start should be equity in sharing the costs of society. Some redistribution of wealth from the richest downward while upgrading educational opportunities seem logical next steps. But that doesn't solve the long term problem.   Large scale public works projects, improvement of the ACA (not its abolition), and real regulation of a crooked financial system will go a long way to help.  The bottom line is that the rich will not share their wealth and privilege voluntarily out of the goodness of their hearts.  A wealth and privilege often unearned except by accident of birth or through destructive lying and cheating and predation.  So society, through government, must be compel them to share these cost of government through a more equitable distribution of wealth through taxation and policies that ensure that this nation's people get to share in this nation's prosperity.

But labor and economics are only part of the problem we have in this country.   Fox News and talk right wing radio have been hard at work for over 20 years, hand in hand with the GOP, creating a movement (predominantly white and male) who feel that everyone else is conspiring to steal the country from them, or even trying to destroy it.  They believe that they represent "real America" and the rest of us do not, and that they're uniquely entitled to set the tone in this country.  The danger to our system of government will endure as long as many millions of citizens are in the grip of what amounts to a cult.    

Our long term solution has to be based on education and a strong capability of inductive and deductive thinking by our educated workforce.  But learning is difficult for people, especially ones who want to or are trained to take the “easy road” to success.  The anti-intellectualism characteristic of Trump and many of his supporters is not the path to the country’s solutions.  Instead they follow Trump who lies to them that brawn work will come back and make them richer than the educated workers in high technical jobs.   Until we make education a national priority and value it as the treasure it is, and provide consistent retraining opportunities that lead to real jobs in high technology, we're going to have a large group of angry people out there supporting wannabe dictators like Trump.