Last night, the Senate Republicans drew their line in the sand with regard to the auto bailout. They refused to support helping the Big 3 survive without assurances that unions were crippled and environmental assurances were weakened. They didn't get any movement on that, so they took their ball and went home, American workers be damned.
They drew their line in the sand and now, it is the Democratic Party's turn to do the same. For the better part of four decades, the GOP has relied on residual animosity to the passage of the Civil Rights Act to continuously win the southern states easily. Yesterday's vote gives the Democratic Party the same opportunity with the Rust Belt. And unlike the Southern Strategy, the Rust Belt Strategy relies not on hate, but core American and Democratic Values.
The Rust Belt strategy entails playing off of the resentment of blue collar workers towards the GOP for bailing out the banks, but giving the big middle finger to the auto industry. And let's be clear, right or left, the people who truly hate unions the most are not the blue collar, working class people who inhabit these states. It's the CEOs, the pencil pushers and the politicians who want to crush unions forever.
It's time that we strengthen, not weaken, our nation's unions. It's also time we get Americans back to work rebuilding our nation's infrastucture and developing the technologies that will allow our country to compete will into this century. Beyond just infrastucture, we should actively encourage industry to open plants in the Rust Belt to develop this type of new technology. It's clear Obama has already begun thinking this way and I hope the Democrats in Congress follow suit.
As for the masses, we need to continuously remind the people in the Rust Belt who stood up for them and who told them to go fuck off. The GOP chose to burn that bridge and we must assure that they are never able to rebuild it.