Donald Trump ran three presidential campaigns under the banner Make America Great Again (MAGA). He also promised to put “America First,” a reference to the 20^th century interwar movement that opposed further involvement in foreign wars. Instead, its adherents then and a large portion of Trump’s supporters now believe the wars America has fought have not served the interests of Americans and that the federal government should address those instead of “going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.”

But therein lies the rub. Whether or not MAGA and America First are compatible largely depends upon how one defines “great.” And based upon the president’s actions thus far during his second term, his definition does not jibe with that of his America First supporters nor their 20^th century predecessors.

Trump’s supporters are sometimes criticized for romanticizing the 1950s, a period of relative peace and domestic prosperity. From the early 50s through the mid-1960s, life most approached what they consider the American ideal. Jobs were plentiful, including high paying manufacturing jobs, and most American households could live comfortably on one income.

They believe economic “globalization” ruined this idyllic lifestyle. Specifically, “free” trade agreements like NAFTA and allowing China to enter the WTO resulted in U.S. manufacturing being outsourced to cheaper labor markets abroad. This, they contend, has resulted in a dearth of high-paying jobs and the necessity for at least two people in the average household to work just to scrape by.

Thus, Trump’s first inaugural promised to reverse this “American carnage,” bring high paying manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., and restore the idyllic lifestyle Americans once enjoyed as their birthright.

It’s a compelling story and has certainly created a vast political movement. It’s also demonstrably false on every point.

First, American manufacturing has not been “hollowed out.” Manufacturing output is currently at an all-time high and any honest analysis of its virtually uninterrupted ascent over the past 100 years would conclude that the only interruptions to this success story have been the two financial crises – and accompanying monetary inflation – in 2008 and 2020. More on that later.

It is true that manufacturing jobs have declined precipitously, but that just means that the U.S. manufacturing sector is becoming more efficient, able to produce more output with fewer workers. The same thing has happened in farming over the past 100 years. In any case, the trend has nothing to do with NAFTA or China entering the WTO, as this chart clearly demonstrates:

If one were to take away the years at the bottom of that chart, no one claiming NAFTA or China entering the WTO were the driving factors in the decline of manufacturing jobs would be able to find those trade agreements on the chart. In fact, if one were to pull the timeframe out to include pre-WWII periods, it would show that WWII and the years immediately afterward were the highwater mark in terms of manufacturing jobs as a percentage of all jobs.

In other words, for most of American history, including most of the 1950s, 70% or more of American workers had non-manufacturing jobs. And somehow they were able to live middle class lifestyles.

It isn’t even true that increasing the number of manufacturing jobs would make the average American wealthier today. The median annual wage or salary for all full-time jobs in the U.S. economy is about $62,400. The median for full-time manufacturing jobs is about $45,960. Americans leaving the average job for a manufacturing job would not live a higher lifestyle. Quite the contrary.

Nevertheless, there does seem to be an “affordability” problem for average Americans. And the U.S. has been running large net trade deficits for decades, with no foreseeable end in sight. If Trump’s story doesn’t explain these problems, what does?

That brings us back to the definition of “greatness.”