When Woody Allen was first learning how to write scripts, a more experienced writer told him that it’s not enough to envision a story topic–you always have to ask yourself, “And then what happens” to get the most out of any idea. Megan McCardle explains “and then what happens” to Detroit:
So now we’re hearing that Obama doesn’t think bankruptcy can be avoided by the auto firms, and no wonder–March brought yet another round of abysmal numbers on auto sales, both here and in Japan. A car purchase is simply too easy to delay, especially with credit constrained for the bottom 30% or so of the market.
If Obama follows through, and actually puts the companies into bankruptcy, I’ll be awfully impressed–it’s hard for any president to give up Michigan, but especially for a Democrat who wants labor support. So then the question is, what next? Which marques go? Buick, for sure, and Pontiac. Which plants close? And what is the government going to do to help autoworkers? They’re not just out of a job–they’re stuck in a state that will be absolutely devastated by these closures. Their houses will be worth almost nothing. What do you do with a 50-year-old auto worker who has lived in a factory town all his life?
I’m not at all convinced that whatever Obama does will cause him to lose Michigan. The state went blue in 2000, despite Al Gore’s doomsday quasi-religious environmental rhetoric and the havoc it would have likely wreaked on the domestic auto industry. Unless the GOP works Michigan extremely hard in 2012 and has a candidate who’s something of a known commodity there (cough–Romney–cough), and a fair amount of luck, Obama will likely hang on to the state no matter how savagely he and his Congress continue to pummel the auto industry.
Update: Jennifer Rubin adds, “make no mistake about what is driving the decision-making here: It’s not the survival of GM; it’s the survival of the UAW.”
I do not believe that the GOP will be successful in Michigan in 2012. The majority of its citizens have been seduced into embracing the phenomenon of soft despotism. They expect the government to take care of them. I used to live in Detroit—and I speak from first hand experience. The Republicans must focus on purple states—and essentially forget about the blue ones. We are going to have to engage in triage politics.
I should also add that I perceive the majority of Michigan citizens as similar to the skid row derelict sleeping in the gutter after finishing his bottle of Midnight Express. This individual is simply not a mature adult. We cannot afford take him seriously. And no, I am not speaking facetiously. I am dead serious. The hell with states like Michigan, New York, California, and Massachusetts. The rest of us have got troubles of our own.
Notice the observations of this remark.
They are stuck in Michigan:
Is this the anti-business Michigan under Democratic rule and “fair” taxes that have driven out employers and jobs? Few companies are competing to move to Michigan and negotiate with state legislators and unions for survival. If Michigan is stuck, it is the state government which has glued it.
What to do with a 50 year old auto worker:
Isn’t this an insult to auto workers? Are their brains and muscles decayed at such a young age? Have they become the least sophisticated parts of the machines that they served? I don’t think so. Give them a free-market economy released from state control, and they would show anyone how to learn, adapt, and produce, as well as anyone in the country. Will they wake up to that fact?
People still aren’t getting that this is deliberate.
Obama doesn’t care about individuals, and he isn’t worried about losing the socialist/union vote.
He knows if he makes people jobless, with no HOPE for the future because the jobs and industries are gone, that puts them on unemployment, followed by welfare, followed by forced servitude under him.
And Soros.