From a New York Times column by David Brooks headlined “The American Renaissance Is Already at Hand”:

Two megatrends have shaped American life since the 1980s: The rise of China and the hollowing out of American industry.

China’s economic boom prompted a thousand predictions — that it will soon surpass us as an economic power, that the 21st century is going to be a Chinese century, that America is an aging, decadent nation destined for second place.

The hollowing out of American industry fed the sense that capitalism is betraying the middle class. America has a parasitic financial sector, but we don’t make things anymore. Manufacturing jobs got outsourced to China and Mexico, and wages stagnated.