Undaunted by his predecessor’s failure to spark a manufacturing renaissance, President Trump also dreams of reindustrializing America. He won’t succeed either, because no president has the power to undo a half-century of post-industrial evolution.

Why have our two oldest presidents fixated on “bringing back” factory jobs? Both grew up in the ‘50s, when the United States bestrode a war-ravaged world like an industrial colossus. But the answer isn’t just nostalgia for a lost “golden age.”

There’s also a pervasive feeling that our country owes a promissory note to working families hit hard by deindustrialization. The disappearance of manufacturing jobs with decent pay and benefits — traditionally their ticket from high school to the middle class — has undermined their living standards and social standing.

Since 1971, the share of Americans who live in lower-income households has increased, reports the Pew Research Center:

“Notably, the increase in the share who are upper income was greater than the increase in the share who are lower income. In that sense, these changes are also a sign of economic progress overall.”

The emergence of a highly educated upper middle class, however, is scant consolation to economically insecure working families. This divergence in the economic prospects of college and non-college workers is at the root of today’s working-class revolt against political elites here and across Europe.

Populists insist that the cure for economic inequality is more factory jobs. But is this really what working Americans want?

Urged on by progressives, President Biden spent trillions to rebuild the economy “from the middle out,”........

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