Why Trump Can’t Restore Andrew Jackson’s America
Manufacturing employs roughly 10% of the population worldwide. If America were brought up from 13 million to 10% of population that would be roughly an additional 21 million jobs.
In reality the number and impact of more manufacturing is much less. First brand new factories would use the latest automation technology and this technology is always improving. So very, very conservatively that cuts those jobs in half to 10.5 million.
Now also imagine cheap workers in other countries replaced by Americans paid a decent wage (or there is no point). That will raise the price of manufactured goods and suddenly the age of disposable goods will be over. Things will be built to last or they would be unaffordable. Some non essential goods will just disappear. So very, very conservatively cut those jobs in half again to 5.25 million.
It gets worse because those 5.25 million jobs aren’t instantaneous. It takes years to build a new factory and years to convince investors to spend the money. So very, very conservatively those 5.25 million jobs come in at 200,000 a year over 26 years.
But the economy was adding 186,000 jobs per month in 2024. Maybe these manufacturing jobs will be better than those jobs but still the numbers are not there. The numbers are especially not there when you consider that tariffs are a regressive tax that hit low income workers much harder.
Plus whatever supposed very modest gains will be made in manufacturing will be more than wiped out by Trump’s reduction in government programs including research and development. Destroying American R&D alone will wipe out whole future industries or move them to other countries.
But of course that’s the whole point. Trump was never about improving anyone’s life. His sole aim is to show his voters that he brings the pain to many of those who benefit from rising inequality even if it means his voters suffer also.
What about socially though — could Trump restore early 19th century treatment of other races and women? Again no that idea fails on paper as well. Women and black people are already in the workforce. You can’t change that without completely destroying the country.
Here again Trump voters know this. They are nowhere near organized or interested enough to pull off a Handmaid’s Tale outcome. Their real goal is much more virtual. If full patriarchy cannot be restored then at least we can make women and other races less loud about their gains. We can withdraw into some corner of the internet and Fox News and play pretend.
That’s the same virtual world that Trump and Musk already mostly occupy. A world where a movie like Anora that shows their dream patriarchy sweeps the Academy Awards. A world where DEI is never mentioned even if women and other races continue to make gains. A world where new immigrants know their place even if American birth rates continue to plummet and actually stopping immigration is unthinkable.
Another words it’s a performative early 19th century. America won’t be great again by Trump voter standards, but they will make believe really hard that the emperor’s new clothes are spiffy.
However American politics won’t go back to “normal” even if everyone recognized Trump is a fraud. Chuck Schumer voting fascist for an enabling act of sorts revealed that all of American politics is naked. That it’s between poison pill radical Republicans and status quo conservative Democrats.
Trump can’t go back in time but neither can Democrats maintain order while allowing inequality to continually increase. No matter what else he accomplished as soon as Biden kept Jerome Powell as fed chairman his presidency would fail — nothing will fundamentally change.
The Republican party of fascists are of course much worse than the Democratic party of corporate lackeys. Unfortunately both party’s goals, time travel and time freezing, are equally impossible.