Short Economic Analysis

 Starting in the 1970s more or less, the US entered a period of deregulation that has shaped our world today.  After World War 2 and during the period following we had significant Government regulation but economists and the Republican party (and some Democrats) argued that free market would reduce prices, increase production, create jobs and generally create growth.

The premise certainly worked in many ways, but the jobs weren't always here.  Take the electronics industry.  We pay a lot less for electronics than we would if they were American made.  So we stopped building televisions and started selling imported ones.  The consumer won but the electronics worker lost.  

This is still the era of free markets but free markets work when the playing field is level.  China was a great winner from this era as well as the American consumer.  Most of the job losses were in manufacturing states and more jobs were gained in service industries.

Is this model a bad one?  Well if you lost your job in manufacturing, not so much but if you work in Health Care or many other service industries, it was pretty good.

Now this continues while we also increased technology and complex service suppliers.  The odds are that your technology was manufactured elsewhere but your software wasn't.

Consider this a great leveling of resources where expensive unskilled labor can be found in cheaper locations.  This brings down our costs of products but leaves our unskilled labor unemployed.  

The obvious answer is to train them, but realistically, many of them don't want to be trained so the reality is they take low paying jobs, drink too much and resort to things like opioids.  They turn their resentment to visible targets, immigrants, liberals, and the coastal elites while still thinking the business owners and Republicans are their friends.  Well their hero, Ronald Reagan cost them dearly even if the trade bill was signed by Clinton.  

This will ultimately self correct for the nation but not for individuals.  The political consequences are a significant number of  discontented people who feel betrayed.

Maybe they were.