It's not hard to see at least some of the angles it probably comes from. It's popular for politicians to bank on things like "everyone should learn to code" for publicity; outsourcing makes development look like a cheap commodity and a second thought; bottom of the barrel "website in a night" generators are crap, but they're cheap and easy, and most people can't tell the difference; websites like codeacademy present the image of a skillset you can pick up effectively in your downtime.
So much of the public perception of programming has gone from "ooh, you do what? I have no idea how that works!" to "oh, you do that? Anyone can do that."