The National Review writer who thinks that Rust Belt whites should just go die?
Well of course he wouldn't care if GM went out of business. It would only affect the serfs who work on those production lines.
In the first place, going Chapter 11 does not mean the company will never do business again. They make a lot of cars that people still want and THOSE will still be kept in production by whoever acquires their business.
It simply means that the markets get to sort out which of their products are good and which are bad and with that, they learn to be more competitive and build better cars that PEOPLE REALLY WANT ( instead of the money-losing Chevy Volt for instance ).
1. The UAW delivers the votes to their favored politicians.
2. The corporate management finances the political campaigns of those elected officials, and pays their UAW workers far more than the market would ever support without their political influence.
3. The politicians vote to appropriate taxpayer funds to support the company with direct subsidies and/or unnecessary purchases of the products the company makes.
This fascist scheme worked fine in the post-WW2 decades when the U.S. was the only major country to emerge from the war with its industrial capacity intact. It's been a disaster ever since the rest of the world caught up to us. That's why you're reading a story like this about GM even as Asian and German auto manufacturers are opening new plants all over the Sun Belt.