Democrats don't have an easy answer for the Rust Belt

Still, terms like public-private partnerships, infrastructure investment, and workforce development don’t exactly excite people. And the idea of retraining men who had worked in manufacturing for jobs in healthcare or education often isn’t an appealing prospect. Many workers don’t show up for free retraining courses, as I’ve written about before, sometimes because the prospect of going back to school is intimidating, other times because they fear there won’t be jobs once their retraining is over. “The idea of ‘training people’ is a wimpish answer—there are only so many people who can do air conditioning repair,” Dave Robertson, a political science professor at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, told me. “The question is, how are we going to get jobs that make people feel proud again.”

Another strategy might be to double down on the importance of unions and other structures that will help workers earn more. That includes advocating for higher wages, better legal protections for part-time workers, and more robust retirement and health benefits. It could also mean talking more about anti-trust policies that could address some of the growing monopolies that have led to industry consolidation and job loss across the United States. “I think the goal is what Bill Clinton announced, which is good jobs at a good wages, and, I should say, good incomes, for hard-working people,” Robertson, at the University of Missouri, told me. “That’s what Democrats were really remiss at talking about in this election.”

Indeed, many of the voters who switched from blue to red in this election were one-time union members. And Republicans would be hard-pressed to say that the GOP is the party of unions, or worker benefits. Trump advisors have said he is seeking advice from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who systematically disassembled public-sector unions in his state; Vice-President-elect Mike Pence made Indiana a right-to-work state, making it harder for unions to recruit and keep members, during his tenure.

Yet talking about better jobs for better wages is tough because Democrats have been in charge for eight years nationally, and during that time, they haven’t been able to affect much change in wages.