Biden did exactly what you are asking for in “massive investment and employment in industries with positive externalities” and your average voter didn’t give a shit.
Maybe I'm too optimistic and we're just doomed, but I think the average voter would have cared more if a handful of things had gone differently.
For starters of course, Biden's rapid cognitive decline and the poor handling of it from the DNC made a mess of everything and prevented a unified platform message to tout the successes of those programs.
Also, the timelines were tough to make work for short-term political gain. There's necessarily going to be a span of time between a law being passed to eg, create tax incentives or loan programs to support building a factory and when those factories are actually built, operational and impacting the economy.
Finally, most of the programs from the Biden administration were hamstrung by trying to jam every left wing and liberal ideal into every program. Instead of saying "Go build a battery factory" they said "Go build a battery factory that's owned by racial minorities and run by women and employs union workers paid at a minimum of 110% of the prevailing wage and provides childcare onsite and doesn't negatively impact local housing affordability and ..." until the whole thing became impossible to implement.
Basically, I think an Ezra Klein type of Democrat could succeed. To be determined if that's the direction the party goes though.
