As Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump pile on the loss of manufacturing jobs, it's interesting that manufacturing seems to have rebounded significantly since, adding maybe 800K jobs by now, according to 2014 analysis & one from ESA out last year. It's important for Democrats to be aware of current trends, & not just parrot the doom & gloom of the opponents, who of course would chew off their left nut before accepting that anything that happened under Obama was positive.

[Pat Buchanan conveniently blames this on NAFTA, rather than the disastrous economic meltdown & job losses only through the Bush years, culminating (free falling) in 2008 - see graphic below. Once in denial, always in convenient denial, i.e. figures don't lie but liars figure]

Note: I'm not a manufacturing purist - I think there are other focuses & paths to success for economies as well, but I'm happy to see a new round of manufacturing innovation, especially since this one looks lean & mean with small profitable production that hopefully will provide a good base for continued expansion.

As a caveat, the expansion is spotty - " 87 percent of the job gains in manufacturing have been in three durable goods industries: transportation equipment, fabricated metal products, and machinery. Job gains in manufacturing have been widespread throughout the country. More than half of the jobs added were in five states: Michigan, Texas, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin."  Read this largely as John Deer & Caterpillar & Boeing and a few other big ones, then a host of mom & pops? In any case, pay in these sectors is also above average, so not just bargain basement production.

Full ESA report (PDF) here.