Election 2012: The Rust Belt
A side effect of economic decline is a “brain drain” of talented younger people leaving when they can’t find work. For example: Columbus, Ohio, has an economic base of state government, insurance, and banking; Chris Mahler, a successful small businessman in the health care field, joked that “Columbus is now also the capital of Youngstown and Pittsburgh.”
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan have all lost electoral votes to the Sun Belt since the 1980 Census: Pennsylvania and Ohio each lost seven and Michigan lost five.
Detroit, Cleveland, Dayton, Flint, and Youngstown have struggled the most with de-industrialization. Both Detroit and Flint were placed under financial “receivership” by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. Toledo is surviving because the Jeep plant is producing a popular vehicle, and the city is also a major shipping port for Midwestern agricultural products. Akron has had modest success in transitioning to medical services.
“Our city, like many cities, is going through tough times, no doubt about it,” said a county clerk in Flint, Michigan. A receptionist in the Akron Board of Elections who still lives in the working class Goodyear Heights neighborhood says that she “misses the smell of rubber and soot in the air” from the tire factories that have closed since the 1970s.
People are definitely unhappy with the state of the nation, especially the economy, but most Democrats are not (yet) blaming President Obama.
These Rust Belt cities are highly Democratic areas. They voted for Walter Mondale in 1984 even as he was losing 49 states to President Reagan. If Obama is in trouble here, he would be in danger of losing 50 states. Very few white Democrats and virtually no minority Democrats that I have interviewed are currently defecting from the president — the key question will be their level of enthusiasm and turnout. Obama inspired a record-breaking vote in 2008, when black turnout equaled white turnout for the first time, narrowly carrying Ohio and comfortably winning Pennsylvania and Michigan. But Democrats were demoralized and stayed home in 2010, while Republican voters came out enthusiastically. As a result, the GOP swept all three states.
It’s a curious article. No doubt its conclusions are correct but I have to ask myself: Am I missing something here? I know that in good times and bad, people vote their pocket books, or their parents party (political) or some other perceived connection. What puzzles me today though is why anyone black or white, rich or poor, high school dropout or college graduate would consider voting for a man who has brought them nothing but economic and social misery.
All the while, people that would prefer jobs are offered the dole, business owners are told that THEY didn’t create their companies, college graduates are told that it isn’t their fault that Women’s Studies is not a degree in demand and blue collar workers are simply ignored.
Have we as a country simply lost our native compass that always led us in the right direction for 200 years? Are we wrong now? or have we been completely bamboozled since our founding? What the hell happened? I feel like that old joke about a few people making things happen, a larger group knowing what’s happened and the vast majority wondering WTF happened.
I was born in 1950. I grew up here in the states through the ’50s and the ’60s. It was always assumed (apparently incorrectly) that the trajectory of this country was always forward and upward. This continued through the mid ’70s until we began to stumble in the late ’70s (oil shocks, Iranian Embassy crisis). Since then except under the leadership of Reagan (yes, him) it seems that this country has suffered blow after blow to its economic well being and political leadership. You could say that the last president who received kudos from the world and the American people was Bush senior for the first Iraq war. Then he was promptly removed from office.
Since then, it’s been a steady stream of revelations, degradations and vile attacks against the leadership. Did we really pass up an opportunity to capture Bin Ladin? Did Clinton really hustle BJs in the Oval Office? Was Bush’s office really accused of either PLANNING the attack on 9/11 or knowing in advance? What the hell is going on?
Is there a common denominator here? Is it really just the left? Or is it a combination of the left and a dishonest press?
Or have we just lost our senses? I mean, even Richard Nixon is beginning to look pretty good and I KNOW he was crazy?
“According to union leaders I spoke with, over half of auto workers and nearly 75% of steelworkers have lost their jobs since the 1973 peak. Detroit once had over a dozen large auto factories, including the largest plant in the world — Ford’s River Rouge employed roughly 40,000 people. River Rouge closed in 1983, and the Motor City now has only one major auto plant within the city limits. Youngstown had six large steel mills until the 1970s; they now have none operating.”
And a lot of the blame for this can be laid right at the feet of the unions. For decades they have been bankrupting the auto and steel industries and now, instead of jobs, these same unions can offer their members nothing but welfare checks, unemployment checks, and poverty. This is where organized labor eventually takes its members, right into the poor house.
Why is it that there are many other auto manufacturers that can make a go of it in other states in this country? Because in those states the unions do NOT have a stranglehold on its workers. The only way for states like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to work again is to become more competitive with the rest of the world. Now we will never have our workers work as cheaply as those in China, but we CAN produce cars in Alabama that are cheaper than the cars made in Michigan, and we have been doing that for years now. If these states really want to help themselves, they need to send the unions on their way, just like the voters and the governor did in Wisconsin. And they need to do that before the unions drive these states into bankruptcy.
I was recently in Niagara Falls, NY, the eastern fringe of the rust belt. Like the rest of the region, the industry is largely gone. The working class neighborhoods I grew up in still have a semblance of normalcy with mowed lawns and painted trim on the houses, but how long can that last without middle class jobs?
The downtown area north of the Falls is increasingly desperate looking. On Pine Avenue, once the heart of the Italian community, people wander around looking displaced. Two blocks from the falls, a wrong turn will take a tourist into major urban blight.
It’s depressing to think my old home town peaked when I was ten years old and now slips into decrepitude. We had a saying growing up, “it’s a nice place to be from, far from”.
This is really all about the failure of what Walter Russell Mead calls the “Blue State Model.” It IS failing, and spectacularly, but that process hasn’t fully played out yet. At some point relatively soon even the most diehard union/big-government/enviro-supporting Democrats and lefties will come face to face with the massive failure that is today hollowing out places like Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit. Will the reckoning/recognition come soon enough for Romney? Hard to say. But the lights are beginning to go on over the heads of some of my friends who always vote left.
So, Mr. Reddy, I’m interested in knowing whether or not you asked the “bitter clingers” of the Democrat Party if they were okay with the unemployment rate, the coming tax bomb of Obamacare, Obamacare itself, the ever-increasing debt, and the move toward bigger and bigger government and socialism ala Europe and their problems? Any reasonable answers, or just the same ol’ party line: Democrats “care” about people?
Toledo is barely surviving. My house’s reassessment is 25% lower, houses in my neighborhood have been for sale for 2-3 years. There are some attempts at revitalization, but it’s half-hearted at best. I bet Democratic turnout is going to be low, Ohio is most likely going red this year.
A correction: Rover Rouge is not closed, at least not in it’s entirety. The F-150 assembly area is open to the public, and I toured it 2 years ago. It is very modern, clean and remarkably quiet. I’ll admit it is a far cry from the glory days of the Rouge, when raw materials went in one end, and finished cars came out the other.
River Rouge /F-150 plant is in Dearborn, not Motown. There are Two Plants up and assembling cars within Greater Detroit’s boundries:
1) Cadillac Assembly {AKA : ‘PoleTown’ in Hamtramck,surrounded by Detroit. They also make Volts, and the new 2013 Malibus.
2) Fiat/Chrysler Jefferson Assembly, Makers of Jeep Grand Cherokees and
soon to start, 2013 Vipers.
There’s few others in The Tri-County area.and the Mustang plant in Flat Rock, Monroe County.
…and a lot of closed plants, just a-sittin’ there.
I meant plants in inner-city Detroit…..
Its not so shocking that Cleveland and Detroit are Democratic – these are mostly/almost completely black cities – middle and lower class whites were chased out a generation ago. Since inner city blacks do not have a culture that appreciates entrepreneurs and the skill level in this community is low (while taxes are high for a variety of reasons including the fact that the cities are supporting a large population of retirees) there is no reason why these areas should not be as poor economically as they are.
The GM bailout sent our auto jobs to China
What about the 11 new Cheveolett factory that he funded in China? Make you wonder why he is patyting his back so. Also how does the United Auto Worker Unions feel about it they could have used the jobs here in America??? http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Lvl5Gan69Wo
Name a current G M car or truck made in the PRC and exported here. This’ll be a howler,’cause you cannot do it. It does not happen.
G M would have to split any profit 50-50 with whatever partner-combination that makes that particular car, and the PRC will never let that happen.
Chevy and GMC pick-ups in full-4-door trim are assembled in Mexico.
Extend-a cabs are made in Texas, as are regular cabs.
Chevy Spark not yet here,& is not from the PRC. All Chevy’s are made in Canada or America. Buicks and Cadillacs, likewise. Excepting Buick Regals , made by Opel in Germany.{Soon to change}
GMC Terrains and it’s Chevy twin, are made in Canada.
{If they’re ‘our jobs’, where do you sit when the G M board of directors meets?}
BTW, I loathe Barry with the intensity of 1,000 suns, and want his young ‘donkey’ right back wherever he came from, but I am also aware of my surroundings, living in S/E Michigan for my entire lifetime.
My husband grew up in Ohio, in a city with unionized steel mills. He worked in one of the steel mills one summer (during college). The steel mill expected a strike in the fall and was trying to get production up during the summer, ergo it hired a lot of extra summer workers.
My husband was given a job of “carrying parts from point A to point B”. He did this in two hours and then asked the supervisor what he wanted him to do next. The union steward came running over and said no, no, go sit in that chair until I tell you what the contract permits you to do. My husband sat for the next six hours until it was time to punch out. He did this every day that summer.
Any industry forced to pay a worker for 8 hours when the contract permits them to only work 2 is headed for bankruptcy and that is what happened.
Democrap politics coupled with unions are a deadly combination. But neither will reform themselves and they will ride their ideologies right to the bottom. They’ll never change; so we will have to defeat them. What’s changed are the number of people who are willing to get food stamps (SNAP), public housing, free school lunches, and disability. Their is no stigma attached and no compunction about stealing money from your fellow citizens. And when we run short of grifters and slackers, the politicans import them from other countries. O’Dismal gave illegal aliens food stamps in his stimulus bill and I’ll bet that they’re still getting them.
John Stossel – When People Don’t Matter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuvtEXMG_Wk
Well, Democrats refuse to learn is the only rational conclusion one can come to! If they want more of this intentional destruction, they deserve what they’ll get.
“Ford’s Rouge employed roughly 40,000 people. River Rouge closed in 1983″ Patrick Reddy your research is flawed that assembly plant still is functioning and the Russians operate the steel mill.Granted the number of people that work there is reduced.Michigan will vote for Obama.Look at the results from 2008 and Obama will win the same amount by county results. God please in your mercy, Bless this the USA.
You’re right, the plant still makes trucks in the suburbs, but the Detroit part of the plant that used to make cars is long-gone.
On July 1, Canada Day, Canadians awoke to a startling, if pleasant, piece of news: For the first time in recent history, the average Canadian is richer than the average American.
According to data from Environics Analytics WealthScapes published in the Globe and Mail, the net worth of the average Canadian household in 2011 was $363,202, while the average American household’s net worth was $319,970.
A few days later, Canada and the U.S. both released the latest job figures. Canada’s unemployment rate fell, again, to 7.2 percent, and America’s was a stagnant 8.2 percent. Canada continues to thrive while the U.S. struggles to find its way out of an intractable economic crisis and a political sine curve of hope and despair.