Things went badly for Detroit’s automakers in Washington this week. What was to be a decisive lobbying blitz planned months in advance proved reminiscent of GM’s efforts to market the Chevy Nova in Latin America. Both were all show, no va!
The arguments against a bailout under any circumstances are well-established. A lot has been said and written lately, including this new piece, about the improprieties of so-called bailouts, generally, and in this case, specifically. Basically, we need a shakeout, not a bailout. What we’re witnessing is a shakedown.
Rather than emphasize those arguments here, there is a lot of subtext to this auto bailout frenzy. The subtext hasn’t received much attention, but is fascinating enough (to me at least) to write about.
Even before CorporateJetGate forced Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to bid the CEOs an abrupt and scathing adieu, support for Detroit’s case to raid the Treasury was melting away. But there wasn’t that much of a partisan divide over the issue. In fact, early October’s limited government, fiscal conservative darling, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R‑MI), who gave one of the most compelling, moving, forceful, principled floor-speeches I’ve ever seen on the House floor in opposition to the financial bailout, is this month’s political hack. Apparently, his principled opposition to bailing out the “very people who caused this problem” doesn’t extend across state lines into Michigan. What a bitter disappointment he turns out to be.
The failure to garner enough support for a bailout bill was mostly the result of intra-party squabbling between factions within the Democratic Party — the Greens and the Laborites. The Greens view Detroit as carbon-belching heathens who must be brought to their knees before the almighty Sierra, Goddess of Flora and Fauna. The Laborites view the Greens as the Palinistas view those big shots who go to college to learn and stuff.
A Wall Street Journal editorial today picks up on this theme, which colors the battle between Henry Waxman (of the ascendant Greens) and John Dingell (of the declining Laborites) for Dingell’s long-held seat as top Democratic on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Much of the same cultural and class animus that popularly defined the Red State-Blue State divide is very much evident within the Democratic Party itself and could mean that we have some form of divided government after all.