By "old" I mean as it was in the 1950s and 1960s, when a white man, at any rate, with only a high-school education could earn a middle-class income and good benefits from a blue-collar job.
But, that was only possible because of:
1. Strong labor unions.
2. A world where every other industrial power that fought WWII was devastated by it and had not yet entirely recovered, leaving America the global market in manufactures.
3. A domestic economy where the corporations had not yet discovered offshoring, outsourcing, and automation.
Trump implicitly promised the white working class that he would bring back those days, but he does not appear ever to have had any actual ideas in mind for achieving it.
Does anybody?
But, that was only possible because of:
1. Strong labor unions.
2. A world where every other industrial power that fought WWII was devastated by it and had not yet entirely recovered, leaving America the global market in manufactures.
3. A domestic economy where the corporations had not yet discovered offshoring, outsourcing, and automation.
Trump implicitly promised the white working class that he would bring back those days, but he does not appear ever to have had any actual ideas in mind for achieving it.
Does anybody?