Detroit: A Kaleidoscope of Life in America, Circa 2013.

By Peter M. De Lorenzo

Detroit. MSNBC has announced with great fanfare that it will be broadcasting its “Morning Joe” program on Thursday morning from the Ford Flat Rock Assembly Plant just south of the city. I say with great fanfare because MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” likes to venture forth once in a while away from its own friendly confines to see what lies west of the Hudson River - as do most of the New York-centric media outlets in this country – in order to assess how the rest of us get by in our hopelessly mundane little slogs. These news shows wade in, make their knee-jerk pronouncements, impart their “wisdom” and then retreat back to the real world as they see it, smugly satisfied that in some little way they’ve helped the backwater du jour by their mere presence.

Not that I don’t appreciate “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough and co-host, Mika Brzezinski, but it’s clear that we’re in for a three-hour bout of instant auto expert punditry and political grandstanding on Thursday morning, all in the name of shedding light on the domestic automobile industry and the problems of Detroit.

A sure sign of the approach the “Morning Joe” producers will be taking on Thursday? Lauren Skowronski of NBCUniversal said the following to David Shepardson of The Detroit News, “In many ways, Detroit’s economic problems are a microcosm for the whole country,” said Lauren Skowronski of NBCUniversal. “If we can find Motown’s path back, we can fix America.”

Really? This is the best these people can bring to the discussion, almost five years after the domestic auto industry imploded and the journey into bankruptcy for two of the U.S.-based auto companies began?

That the domestic automobile industry was the canary in the coalmine setting off alarms signaling the erosion of America’s economic base has been well documented in this column and in other places, since the fall of 2008, in fact.

Though the process leading up to the bankruptcy - which saw our esteemed (cough, hack) albeit woefully clueless members of Congress grandstanding for all to see in those infamous bailout hearings - was painful, it had a surprisingly positive side effect. Because while Congress went out of its way to humiliate the auto industry CEOs, blaming the domestic auto companies for all of this country’s problems both real and imagined and turning it into a witch hunt of epic proportions, the automobile industry’s inexorable role in the health and stability of the economy of this country was finally exposed and vetted for all to see.

Even the New York-centric media mavens on the East Coast actually began to understand it after a while.

So here we are, five years later, and now “Morning Joe” will grace us with their presence to talk about the current state of the U.S. car companies, plus the added dimension of talking about the burgeoning problems of the city of Detroit.

The designated expert for “Morning Joe” on all things Detroit is former self-designated auto “czar” Steve Rattner, the tedious, self-aggrandizing blowhard who has relentlessly dined off his involvement in the Obama Administration’s bailout of GM and Chrysler every day since. If the word “Detroit” is uttered on the show, Rattner is the program’s windup doll who regularly regurgitates his spin on things in a rote cadence. So if you’re interested in watching the show at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday, take that into consideration, so you don’t hurl in your cornflakes.

The other dimension of Thursday morning’s show – the bankruptcy of the city of Detroit – will obviously be prominent on the agenda too. I’m sure we’ll see the usual shots of the crumbling Detroit, the rotting carcass of a city laid bare in the sun for all to tsk, tsk, tsk about. That’s not hard, because those images are everywhere you look around here. But of course to the “Morning Joe” producers it will all be new, a cornucopia of visual squalor tailor-made for morning television.

And then they will, of course, juxtapose those images of urban devastation with the Shiny Happy prognosticators of the “new” Detroit, the politicians, civic cheerleaders and others who steadfastly insist that the “miracle” of Detroit is just around the corner, even though “around the corner” may take a good 25 years.

Please understand that when you watch this show that “Detroit” is a little bit of everything they say it is, and unlike anything what you think it is.

That it’s somewhere in-between.

Is Detroit the most embarrassing big city in America? A city so overwhelmed by serial corruption over the last 45 years to the point that it’s permanently ingrained into the governing fabric of the city, and that the only hope left was for the Governor to appoint an Emergency Manager to stop it once and for all? Yes, that’s true.

Is Detroit a proud, invigorated city, with a wonderfully presented art museum and thriving arts and creative community, and a music scene that’s historically second to none when it comes to defining classic American music, one that’s still a driving force today? Yes, that’s true too.

Are things so desperate in this city that every positive three steps taken in terms of investment and improvement to the quality of life is usually counteracted by five steps back made up of a harrowing cocktail of ruthless crime, heartless cruelty and relentless, cringe-inducing stories and personal affronts that never seem to stop? Yes, sadly, that’s very true.

Is Detroit the exuberant Motor City, home to the U.S. auto industry, the main driving force behind America’s industrial fabric and the living, breathing embodiment of the Arsenal of Democracy? Yes, I’m happy to say, that’s very true too.

The reality is, Detroit is all of these things. It’s passion, exuberance, vision, creativity and enthusiasm punctuated by a seething cauldron of negativity, hopelessness and bleakness everywhere you turn.

Detroit is every city’s problems and nightmares and every city’s joys and potential exposed and dissected for all to see.

In short it’s a kaleidoscope of life in America, circa 2013.

And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.