As someone who grew up in the Rust Belt, US and world politics have been very interesting this year. It seems like the issues that are most important to my hom

As someone who grew up in the Rust Belt, US and world politics have been very interesting this year. It seems like the issues that are most important to my hometown are finally making an impression on world politicians. Entire local economies were broken by the first wave of factory closings due to globalization in the 1980's, and still haven't really recovered. During the 2008 primaries, Obama recognized the problem: "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and, like, a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate, and they have not." He nailed it on the head. Too bad he went on to say, "They get bitter. They cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them." Translation: They're conservatives [1] and racists, so they deserve it. And now we know that the Bush administration isn't the last presidency to let these places fall through the cracks. This thread's top comment says "They may not know what the right answer is, but no one does." An important clue is that the crisis in these communities started when factories closed because it was cheaper to do it overseas. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the answer is reversing the globalization -- put some taxes on imports. Another comment from this thread: "Furthermore, people keep talking about the free trade zone as if they were children and the word "free" were a piece of candy. Free trade is not an absolute good and not a great thing when it stifles a country's growth. The US became an economic superpower not because of free trade but because of protectionism..." Donald Trump wants to put a 45% tariff on Chinese imports. A lot of people I know would overlook a lot of his shortcomings for that policy position alone. I'm starting to wonder if I might be one of them. [1] Many Rust Belt states have historically had a strong labor union presence, and to this day are classified as bellwethers and battleground states.