In the 1990s the North American Free Trade Agreement was passed. It was a boon for big business, but it sent blue collar jobs to Mexico almost immediately. According to Investopedia, “NAFTA’s implementation has coincided with a 30% drop in manufacturing employment, from 17.7 million jobs at the end of 1993 to 12.3 million at the end of 2016.” Most of those jobs went to Mexico and have remained there. With the implementation of NAFTA, there was a middle aged Democrat Congressman, named Jim Traficant, that spoke angrily on the House floor about NAFTA and how it was destroying his Youngstown, Ohio district. He sounded just like Donald Trump does now. Speech after speech, Traficant spoke about how horrible the government was for not keeping businesses here. Although he was a Democrat, this was the first sign the blue collar union workers were starting to blame government for their problems and not big business, which had kept them voting for Democrats in the past. Passing NAFTA was a major factor in that. Many of these voters eventually became Republicans.

Within 1 to 2 years after NAFTA, technology began to flourish on a large scale. Everyone got desktop computers, then came laptops, iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Competitors to Apple developed their own products and the tech boom flourished. During this new age in tech, the blue collar workers, especially in manufacturing, saw the jobs left from NAFTA begin to disappear to automation. Robots are now prevalent in car plants, where, according to a BBC report, one robot replaces 1.6 jobs. That same report says 30 million manufacturing jobs will be lost by 2030. Residents in the manufacturing sector, where towns were built around steel mills and auto plants, have seen their jobs disappear and are living in decaying towns across America. 20 years of rage since NAFTA have been brewing just below the surface.

Donald Trump, who studied ratings religiously for his show, “Apprentice,” read the electorate based on polling and other evidence. He spoke to their anger and rage at the politically correct, “woke” class, and their despair, and heartbreak at the loss of jobs, opioid addictions, and attention that they received before their communities were decimated by trade deals and automation.

Driverless Trucks are moving into the truck driving market

The divide is about to get way worse with how fast AI technology is moving mainstream. There is a company in California, named Embark, that has created driverless trucks. The CEO is only 24-years-old. His name is Alex Rodrigues and he has received millions in venture capital funding. His trucks are delivering freight in southwestern states. He hopes to be all over America in the next 10-years, which will disrupt truckers and cause mass unemployment. That rage will dominate American politics, and it is up to the political class in how they deal with it, but it leaves room for more Donald Trump like politicians in the future.

How Generation X can save America

As I walk with my 8-year-old son, I am quizzing him, much to his chagrin, on technology. I say, over and over, “What does AI mean?” “What types of software are there?” “Name the types of coding languages?” And so on. I do not do it to upset him, which my constant questions do, but to prepare him for a future that did not exist when I was a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s. Our kids will come be adults in the age of Artificial Intelligence. AI is technology that codes itself. In the past someone had to enter code to tell the computer what to do. Without code it can do nothing but sit there and look pretty. Coders in the 70s and 80s revolutionized computing power by using code to convert binary, which are 1s and 0s that computers use to perform a task into the alphabet that makes it easier to tell a computer what to do. With AI computers, they can now do their own code that tells them what to do. Install cameras and computers can now see, which is where driverless vehicles are coming from. Technology is changing our economic outlook.

It is up to the Generation X generation to prepare our youth for the future ahead. We are the last generation that lived before technology on a mass scale existed, but have used technology long enough that we are comfortable using it, unlike Boomers. I see parents who will not allow their kids to use any technology because they want to teach them how to live without it. That sounds great, but that could be detrimental to their future. We need to encourage tech use, just have some limits. Tell them the importance of artificial intelligence, and how it will be important in their lives. Us Generation Xers are the last best hope for this group of youngsters who will see the world change in ways that was unfathomable to us when we were kids.