Donald Trump’s Bogus Dream

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/opinion/donald-trumps-bogus-dream.html

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To the Editor:

Re “The Age of Reaction” (column, Sept. 27):

David Brooks is right. In less sophisticated language, Donald Trump has sold a fairy tale that he can lead America back to its past glory.

Those of us who were there remember those golden years in the 1960s and 1970s when American manufacturing was king, and working-class men and women led families to ever better lives. Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, the Europeans and the Japanese shifted from rebuilding their economies to compete with American manufacturing.

In the 1990s and after 2000, the Chinese and underdeveloped Asian economies with the advantages of lower cost workers began competing for American jobs. Sadly, our government, liberals and businessmen (competitively driven to get lower costs) were widely unresponsive to the loss of working-class jobs.

Donald Trump’s fairy tale is too good a story for displaced working-class workers to cast aside no matter how much its reality is challenged. Nevertheless, ignoring the realities of the globalized world will only prolong the agony of working-class men and women.

Hillary Clinton’s policies to improve the education and skills of the American working class will be far better for finding good jobs in the globalized economy than wishful thinking that anyone can take us back to America’s glory years.

CHARLES FINCH

Huntington Beach, Calif.