Even Trump Can't Go Back to the Future

 

 

“"Make America Great Again" raises a question: When did the U.S. enjoy the greatness from which MAGA devotees think we have declined? The answer has become clear during President Trump's second term -- the 1950s.

 

America was a healthier society, they believe. There was no feminist or environmentalist movement as we now understand them. The civil-rights revolution was in its infancy. Immigration was at a low ebb, and nearly all Americans were born here. Most folks went to church every Sunday. Men were men and women were women, with no gray area. Men went off to work while women stayed home to raise 3.5 children. Hierarchies were stable; people knew their place. And Americans (the ones who mattered, anyway) were unabashedly patriotic because they knew that their country was a good and virtuous nation.

 

The economy was great as well. The U.S. bestrode the world like a colossus, and manufacturing was central to our dominance. Americans made things, and prospered in the making of them. Industrial workers moved into the middle class by the millions, with reliable jobs, rising incomes and secure pensions. Sons followed fathers into factories, and a high school diploma was enough to open doors. (Unions were central to this generation of upward mobility, a point most MAGA supporters play down.)

 

Mr. Trump's cultural policies won't succeed in restoring this bygone society. One example: the push to raise fertility rates, which have fallen in nearly every advanced economy worldwide. Many countries have tried to reverse this trend, with scant success. France has built an expensive system of assistance to families with young children, but its birthrate is no higher than ours. Not even the full power of the Chinese state has induced young families to have more children.

 

A key goal of Mr. Trump's tariffs is to restore the manufacturing economy of the 1950s. This won't happen either, any more than decades of 20th-century farm policy restored the agricultural economy of the late 19th century.

 

In the decades after the Civil War, more than half the U.S. workforce was engaged in agricultural work. As late as 1900, the agricultural share of the workforce stood at 40%. Now it is less than 2%, even though agricultural output has soared.

 

Manufacturing employment has followed a similar trajectory. Since peaking at nearly 40% during World War II, manufacturing as a share of total employment has declined steadily and now stands at 8%. And despite the enormous expansion of the U.S. labor force in the past half-century, the number of manufacturing jobs has fallen from a high of 19.4 million in 1979 to just 12.7 million today.

 

Mr. Trump believes that his aggressive tariff regime can reverse this trend. So far, it hasn't. Manufacturing employment has fallen every month since he announced his "Liberation Day" tariffs in April, representing a decline of 72,000 jobs in the past eight months.

 

The longer term could be different, of course. It is likely that some firms will respond to tariffs by investing in their U.S. manufacturing capacity, and changes in the tax code allowing firms to write off investments in plant and equipment more rapidly could accelerate this process.

 

At the same time, there are forces pushing in the opposite direction. Tariffs create winners and losers, helping some U.S. manufacturers while hurting others. Large corporations are much better positioned to lobby for exemptions from costly tariffs than small businesses are. And to remain competitive, new manufacturing facilities are likely to be highly automated. If so, manufacturing output will rise faster than manufacturing employment.

 

There are also supply-side constraints on manufacturing employment. According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs went unfilled at the end of 2025. Manufacturers report persistent shortages of machine tool operators and technicians who can repair complex new equipment, skills that take time and training to learn.

 

This isn't to say that Mr. Trump's concerns are wholly without merit. The decline of U.S.-based manufacturing created risks, many of which became apparent during the Covid pandemic. While autarky is both undesirable and unachievable, dependence on foreign suppliers in key areas such as medical supplies and advanced computer chips can generate dangers to the economy and national security. Doing what we can to reduce these vulnerabilities makes sense.

 

Still, the yearning for a vanished past is never a good guide to public policy. Making even the most optimistic assumptions about the demand for and supply of manufacturing workers over the next decade, Mr. Trump won't bring back the economy of the 1950s. Improving the well-being of hard-pressed working-class Americans, a central challenge of our time, must rest on more realistic assumptions.” [1]

 

1. Politics & Ideas: Even Trump Can't Go Back to the Future. Galston, William A.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 11 Feb 2026: A13.