Donald Trump won the presidency in an upset victory largely because of his appeal to the white working class in a number of industrial states that have been reliably Democratic for years. His denunciations of Chinese mercantilism and U.S. transnational corporations that offshore jobs to low-wage countries resonated strongly in the parts of the South and the Midwest where most U.S. manufacturing is concentrated — while shocking defenders of the bipartisan orthodoxy in favor of unrestricted globalization and mass immigration. Trump’s astonishing success shows the potential in American politics for a party of industry.
