>>>>> They openly denigrate their own skills by spreading egalitarian myths like "everyone can be a programmer"... to further bolster the perception that programming is an easy, low-skill trade, perhaps a rung or two above mere clerical work.

I think this works both ways. When I was in high school, it actually seemed like everyone could be a programmer. My mom was teaching programming at a state university extension campus. Her students were getting jobs after one year of school. I was already programming at the same level. Neither my parents nor I could see any reason to spend four years in college learning a skill that anybody could do, and we expected the market to saturate.

So I majored in something else, and learned programming on my own.

You can try to elevate it by calling it engineering, but it's not. Most programming (truth be told, most product design, not just programming) is done by trial and error. Of course there may be a level of computer related activity above programming, that deserves to be called engineering, that is vital for critical tasks. This is not to denigrate the market value of content knowledge, such as knowing a complicated API inside and out, or the different processes for making things out of metal, that allow a good designer to come up with better designs.