When I read your post, I decided to immediately reply without reading any of the comments, just to say this:
I predict that the protests you will get from various people who will vehemently argue almost every one of your "truths" will give you the answer to your question.
Sitting back to watch.
Exactly.
Here's some more, coming from a slightly left of center perspective that my much more liberal friends frequently dismiss.
Middle class taxes must go up if we want to continue to fund the social programs that we have (SS, Medicare, Medicaid) in their current form. Yes, we can raise taxes on the wealthy, but there are not enough wealthy to cover this cost, which is huge. So that means
you must pay more in taxes as well.
If you want to also have free education (which I don't support) or single payer health care (which I do support), your taxes will need to rise substantially.
Re: Manufacturing: these jobs might come back eventually as global labor costs rise, but they will mostly be automated anyway.
Re: More education is the key to getting people better jobs. Well, KINDA. Except there will always be a segment of the population that is not suited, by intellect or personality, for higher education. And if you try to put the poorly suited into those classrooms, all you do is hinder efficient education of the more suited. In addition, the more people we put through college or similar, the less the value of the education in the marketplace and the more downward pressure on wages in higher skill industries. With a bachelor's or technical degree being the new HS diploma to get a foot on the employment ladder, the Dems are just pushing a solution of spending a minimum of 2-4 more years in school, with added potential debt, to start at the same low wages that used to be available out of HS.
This is a really tough problem to address, which is why Democratic politicians mostly ignore it or talk around it. In fact, just typing it made me depressed. It's also why we are seeing ideas like minimum basic income starting to float around from policy analysts. It will be interesting if Dems ever start trying to sell those types of comments.