Sorry, to clarify: by "factory worker" I'm referring to the pre-offshoring state of your typical American factory job. A skilled employee who's closer to a plant operator and troubleshooter than an assembly-line drone is, of course, another case and can make very good wages.

Your parallel to ag is a good one: it's something we need to be here, and we wisely embraced automation to ensure 1. we could do it even in wartime, when our male population is needed elsewhere, and 2. that we could produce in a way that cost little for the average consumer and the export market. We need the same thing to happen here.

I mentioned the "factory jobs aren't coming back" point more because Trump is playing hard to a rust-belt base that wants those jobs back, doing this in some ways as a hand-out.