> The only thing the Dems had to offer was social safety net, but most people would rather have better paying jobs.

I'm not from one of the "Brexit States", but my family is spread across much of the rural Midwest and that sentence expresses their feelings quite succinctly. One family member, during a conversation about tech, volunteered that he thinks self-driving trucks will destroy much of what's left of the patchwork of small towns remaining near where he lives. No more relatively predictable income from truckers at diners and gas stations when the battery powered robots never have to stop for food or gas.