Will the EPA cause Michigan to flip?
By Dr. Harold A. Black
blackh@knoxfocus.com
haroldblackphd.com
Some of us are old enough to remember when West Virginia was solidly Democrat. Republicans were rarely elected to statewide office. Bill Clinton won the state by 13 points. Robert (KKK) Byrd and Jay Rockefeller were the senators and Gaston Caperton was governor. Yet 25 years later, Donald Trump carried the state by 40 points and Joe Manchin was the only statewide elected Democrat. All three of the state’s representatives were Republicans. What happened? Mainly it was coal. West Virginia is coal country and Democrats starting with Barack Obama declared war on coal. Hillary Clinton declared that she was going to shut down the coal industry in pursuit of climate change. Sure enough, the EPA has caused coal production in the state to decline by more than 30% and unemployment sharply increased. Thus, West Virginians voted in their economic interest and not with their traditional identity. Now Manchin is leaving office and his successor will be a Republican.
Today’s “progressives” show disdain for rural poor whites with no college degree and that demographic is the majority in West Virginia. Nationally, the Democrats have done the math. Most voters live in urban areas and the Democrats have courted urban, college-educated, higher-income voters. This group is more liberal and has adopted diversity, equity and inclusion so long as they don’t have to live it. Consider that Hillary Clinton won almost 3 million more votes than Trump but only won 500 of the country’s 3,100 counties. That statistic is why Democrats want to end the Electoral College and have a popular vote. If that occurs, it will be almost impossible for a Republican to be elected president.
One wonders that if coal lost the Democrats West Virginia if Biden’s war on the internal combustion engine will lose him Michigan. That state has a Democrat governor whose reelection spoke volumes to the disarray in that state’s Republican party. Both senators are Democrats. But 6 of the state’s 13 representatives are Republicans. Michigan’s union leadership is 100% Democratic but its members may not be. Again it is not in the members’ economic interest to support a party that is intent on destroying diesel and gas vehicles and displacing thousands of workers. That the union membership doesn’t vote out its so-called leaders is puzzling. It will be interesting to see if Michigan does not join West Virginia in the solidly Republican column despite the black majority in Detroit which will likely stay Democrat. Hispanics are now leaving the Democrat party out of their economic interests rather than clinging to their traditional ethnic identity. This is not true with most blacks. But growing numbers of black men are supporting Trump.
There is an ongoing realignment of the two major political parties. No longer are poor whites Democrats. No longer are educated, upper-income whites all Republicans. A recent poll of educated high-earning whites showed that 82% supported Joe Biden! So despite all the envy politics where Biden says that this group is not paying their “fair share” and advocates the raising of their taxes, they overwhelmingly support him. Who said that these folks were smart?
Twenty-two states are following the EPA’s lead and are endorsing the EPA emissions rules. Of course, the leader is California but one is Michigan. It is amazing that their voters do not vote out their leaders. If they don’t, they deserve the higher vehicle prices, the shorter tire life, the thousands of dollars to replace the batteries, higher energy prices, higher repair costs, higher insurance premia, longer waits to fill up, the reduction of range in the winter and the lithium battery fires. More significantly, they deserve the increase in unemployment and decreased standard of living.
