It’s also worth remembering that when Hillary and other Democrats talk about “manufacturing,” they’re not picturing steelmaking and textiles, or any industry producing well-paying, self-sufficient jobs. For them, “manufacturing,” like most things, is a social engineering venture: leftist terminology for bailing out union shops or funding some green corporate welfare project that will have minimal, if any, impact on growth.

It’s a moral good with a dose of economic wishcasting. The green energy sector is small and, even then, it survives only on subsidizes. If voters judged the economy on how many “clean-tech” factories Democrats have visited over the past few years, they might be under the impression that green energy, rather than a boom in fossil fuels, had driven this brittle recovery of ours.

Needless to say, in politics — and it’s probably always been this way — empathizing with the working class is far more useful than being honest with it. So, doubtlessly, mentioning that American manufacturing is actually in pretty good shape would put you in league with establishment elitists and various other unsavory characters.