How the Democrats Lost the Working Class (NYT)

[keep_left]

11. We need a lot more serious industrial policy in this country. The problem is...

...that there are too many people getting rich off all the outsourcing and offshoring, even when it endangers national security. Some DUers may recall that even Trump mentioned industrial policy (for a total of about two minutes) during his first campaign. And then afterward, it was as if the topic had never been discussed. A few left-wing and progressive commentators did notice, but that was about it. I never heard an explanation, but my guess is that some of the big-business types in the Republican party told Trump to zip it. (These are the same people that believe that industrial policy ipso facto leads to a Bolshevik society).

In more recent times, Biden supported and signed into law the CHIPS Act, which may finally bring to an end the hemorrhaging of our high-tech sector (in particular, high-tech manufacturing) which has been ongoing for about 40 years. We need a lot more of those kinds of laws. We also need a reinvigoration of the labor movement. There was an entirely missed opportunity to pass a "card check" law under Obama that would have made it much easier for workers to organize unions.