Bye-bye Reagan Democrats

The General Motors and Chrysler meltdown are only the latest, and it appears final, chapter in a long and sad book. The government first bailed out Chrysler in 1979. And in the 1980s, GM was already proceeding with massive plant closures.

Given the past and future impact of GM’s and Chrysler’s unwinding on Great Lakes communities, conservatives should study this history and its impact on the electoral map.

The near total collapse of the American auto industry in the Upper Midwest means that conservatives can finally stop their search for those working-class Reagan Democrats. In part because of the free-market revolution that Reagan inspired and presided over, the Reagan Democrats are now either retired and living in Florida or on public assistance.

Whatever happens next with GM and Chrysler, we are looking at further deindustrialization and depopulation for the Great Lakes states. And absent thoughtful reform on the part of conservatives to alter the course of these communities, this phenomenon will only further harden Democrat sympathies in the region.

The last 30 years have not been kind to the Upper Midwest, and its voters are increasingly unkind to Republicans. In 1980 Ronald Reagan won the state of Michigan, along with Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Those states gave Reagan 123 electoral votes. In 2008, Barack Obama won all of those states, but they gave him only 100 electoral votes.

In spite of their decreasing electoral significance, Republicans cannot afford to ignore these communities. The Northeast and Pacific Coast are long gone. The Mountain West is trending leftward, and the last election showed that Republicans will have their hands full even in the once Solid South.

Reclaiming some ground around the Great Lakes is essential to a Republican revival, but the sympathies of these Great Lakes communities lie increasingly with the Democrats. Consider Michael Moore’s Flint, Michigan. Conceding that Moore is a congenitally dishonest person, his 1989 film Roger & Me did capture the impact of deindustrialization on this one local community. In 1960 the city’s population peaked at almost 200,000. Local GM employment hit a high of 80,000 in 1978. Today, the city’s population is roughly 110,000. And following the 2006 round of GM buyouts, only 8,000 GM workers remained in Flint.

Conservatives should not be afraid to acknowledge that for all of its successes, the Reagan Revolution left Flint and many other post-industrial communities behind.

Instead, however, conservative sentiment is too often a combination of satisfaction that the UAW finally got what was coming to it and belief that citizens in these towns are free to vote with their feet if they are not satisfied with their station.

But Pack up your family and move is not a winning policy proposal with the people in these communities. The college educated post-industrial workforce that Reagan left in his wake thinks nationally. It is socially and financially equipped to move the family from Northern Virginia to Boise, Idaho in search of a better life. But such a move is often easier said than done for a low-skilled worker, often a single parent, who has never ventured much beyond his or her hometown.

When GM and Chrysler are gone, these Great Lakes communities will remain. They will be smaller and demoralized, but their citizens will vote. And the sooner conservatives recognize that the Reagan Revolution has not been a boon for everyone, the sooner they can start working on policies to revive these communities and create a new generation of blue collar Republicans.