Starting in the 1970s under Carter, carrying through the Reagan administration, and beginning its peak under President Clinton, we have seen American jobs outsourced to foreign nations, the politicians selling out Americans. This was when the political elite started to hollow out the American middle class. For the past 40 years, we as Americans have seen our jobs sent away to Nations that hate us, and what jobs remain here don't have high enough wages for us to survive and thrive in our nation, all while D.C. gets wealthier.
What is manufacturing? It's the large-scale production of material using heavy machinery. It's a job that requires training, not years of costly schooling that would burden a worker with decades of student loan debt. It's a field of employment that any American can enter, with wages that provide for a family's basic needs. Manufacturing is the backbone of the American middle class, creating and fortifying it.
Manufacturing in the United States was the strongest in the world by the end of the 2nd World War because we were one of the only two remaining superpowers after that brutal and destructive conflict. The GI generation returned home and entered the workforce, and many went into manufacturing. This great burst in production led to the Great Prosperity and made America solid and independent of the outside world. We had American cars filled with American petrol. However, this great prosperity started ending, and the middle class began shrinking when politicians sent these jobs away; Bill Clinton most notably sent millions of jobs to China, but this sell-out had been going on for years.
To save America and revive the middle class, we must bring our jobs back and re-industrialize. This is not just a suggestion, it's a necessity. We, as Americans, have everything we need except the crucial working knowledge that should have been passed down to us. To put it simply, we have soldiers and doctrines but no NCOs. The traditional image of a Blue-collar factory worker is outdated; technology on the production floor no longer requires raw labor. However, we still need a blue-collar workforce trained and proficient in working with technology. Universities are not addressing this need and are not training what I call 'Blue-collar engineers.' We need an institution that can fill this void. We cannot bring manufacturing home if we cannot train the workers needed.
The United States has the potential to build new factories with 21st-century standards, capable of producing what we need as a country, and not relying on foreign nations for our basic necessities. This is a future we can achieve. We've industrialized before, and we can do it again. As China's influence wanes, America will have to step up and start producing its goods again. Americans can and will regain their independence, and that will be possible by bringing our jobs back home.
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