This is best understood as push-back - against the recommendations in the Tri-Lateral Commission's 1973 report "The Crisis of Democracy". The report found that the American population was becoming difficult to 'manage', because of increasing affluence and easy access to Higher Education.
The answers proposed - both appear to have been adopted - shrink the affluence of Americans (see: Free Trade) - and dramatically increase the costs of Higher Education. As a result of the successes of these programs - college in largely inaccessible to most Americans, without massive financial assistance (which MBNA's pocket Senators, like Biden, made impossible to discharge through bankruptcies), or military service and benefits.
While Biden is desperately trying to latch onto popular ideas, this is a complicated situation - larger than him and his administration.
Making America Great Again - without affordable access to higher education - is a farce. Resistance to US involvement in Vietnam was righteous and well-informed - not a problem to be solved by reducing living standards, and raising tuitions.
