You're right, but all those well-paid workers were staunch Democratic voters.
People seem to forget that the 1994 "Republic Revolution" gave the Republican Party control of the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. Most of those states Buchanan lists that were large states as far back as the 1950s have been heavily Democratic since before most of us were born.
“You’re right, but all those well-paid workers were staunch Democratic voters.”
Yes, back in the 1950s and 60s when the Dems were still a halfway-decent political party. After 1968 (and especially 1972), Joe and Jane Lunchbucket grew disgusted with the flower-power takeover the democrat party, its anti-anti-communism (notice the 2 antis there!), its indulgence towards special interest groups, alternative “lifestyles” etc. Paraphrasing Ronaldus Magnus, those workers didn’t leave the democrat party, it left them.