Were they any other companies, they would have fallen by now. Great firms have fallen before. Pan American and TWA once ruled the skies, Montgomery Ward and Woolworth’s the malls. Those names have vanished, wiped from airline bags and the New York skyline. Were they from any other country, they would never fall. France and other European countries don’t let national industrial jewels disappear. The Big Three are the ultimate icons of American business and mobility — Ford is the universal example cited for the efficiency of the production line, Chrysler has survived so many troubles that a past chairman, Lee Iacocca, became the face of aggressive, deal-making capitalism for a generation; and, as for GM, so closely interwoven was it with the American ship of state that in a previous confrontation in 1953, its chairman, Charlie Wilson, was widely believed to have told the Senate that “what’s good for General Motors is good for the country.”

The outgoing and incoming administrations, together with the Democrats in the House and the Senate, might still manage to save these icons from the automobile graveyards; but the days of their indispensability are numbered.