Electricians sort of transitioned from design/implementation roles into maintenance/installation roles. This does not really map well with programming because many times doing maintenance on an established project can be as or more difficult than the initial implementation. Having a large number of basically trained programmers maintaining systems that better programmers have built won't really work.

Programming has not gotten easier really, I don't think it will ever be blue collar. Even though development will get easier as technology and tools improve, the bar for what good is is set by our peers. Knowing some html/css/Js was a totally acceptable skillset in 2000, but now you need to have some backend and networking or design/ui/ux skills to be relevant.