A few comments. Yes, status loss is a major psychological driver. If you're so motivated, a good place to start is "The Psychology of Hitlerism" --written in the 30's by H.Laswell, a UChicago prof and can be found with a search.

"Years of illegal immigrants have moved whole job classes ..." How about huge companies can give investors a better return by making things outside the US? Also just as we're not all working on a farm like it's the early 19th century we don't want everyone working in a factory. Nor is that possible with automation!

Anyway, percentage of US workers in manufacturing is at the low end compared to other countries (check out worldbank.org) but not the lowest! The US did a bad job of getting workers retrained or provided education for them to do more service work. I think we know which party would be against providing this help, and leaving it up to the free market to settle the matter. So it's understandable that lower middle class is angry at getting a little above minimum wage in manufacturing/manual while a college grad who knows spreadsheets takes in $100K. It bothers me as well.

Sure, not everyone needs to be at a desk. And the US can do more to encourage and preserve crafts and trades. In my travels I saw how Europe has a far better crafts tradition and spends money to keep it going.

As far as the "Tea Party" ... well there's no Tea Party, there's no Trump Party, it's just Republicans constantly shape shifting and always stoking rage at "the other". It's fixable but since they make Ayn Rand their goddess, the pressure will keep building.