[malcolmxtucker]

The entire reason those manufacturing jobs were offshored is because the cost of cheap, unskilled (legal) labor in the US is relatively exorbitant, moreso in unionized industries.

The big failure of manufacturing-dependent states has been the lack of modern skills training for workers with outmoded skillsets. There's also an argument to be made that unlike assembly line work, not everyone has the intellectual capacity to do the specialized, highly-technical manufacturing work that the US specializes in now. Definitely not to the extent that entire communities can be propped up around manufacturing anymore.

What you're advocating is a regressive solution that doesn't really comport with modern realities.