I'll agree that it's a nostalgic spinj driven by politicians more than academics, but they do use a (false) economic argument to support it, which is that factory jobs are better paying.  This argument works with the MAGAotts because when the switchover was made, the factory jobs that disappeared WERE better paying that the service jobs that replaced them.  Auto workers who had $30/hr (1970s dollars) production line jobs with medical bennies and retirement packages were laid off, and the jobs they had to take to replace them were as fast food workers at $5/hr with no bennies.

The thing is today IF the jobs did come back, they would be paid on the same scale they are paid in China or Mexico in order for the factory to be competitive on the global market.  I doubt any American would be very happy working in a Foxconn Factory making I phones.  Hell, the Chinese who are currently doing hate it so much they commit suicide.

The whole REASON factories left was to access populations they could pay at a lower pay scale.  They're not going to come back here to pay at a higher scale.  This is CFS and should be obvious to people, but nostalgia for "the good old days" combined with the idea that factories actually produce something tangible and therefore are a more "valid" form of work sells the narrative to the kind of dimwits who vote for Trump.

This also makes obvious why the Tariffs won't work, because all it does it raise the prices of the products.  Which means for the Konsumers to be able to afford to buy them, the prices have to go up, which means wages then have to go up.  AKA, an inflationary spiral.

As you point out though, reality doesn't play as well as the fantasy, which now has been repeated so many times people simply accept it as truth.

RE