The youth were responsible for the lack of a red wave last night, despite the gloom and doom of pundits and even from some Democrats! I wanted to write this diary to give the community a perspective of a millenial living in Michigan, how we approached this election, and how the party needs to evolve moving forward.
First, everything is local now. I learned one thing from the Obama era: Everything is not national. You cannot get your priorities through if Republicans control the governor’s office, the legislature, and the judiciary. Obama-era politics made the focus too national, and the lesson my generation learned is that in order to have lasting power, you need to have a Democrat in every position from dog catcher on up. During the Trump era, I learned to just focus on my own region, work hard to get that in order, and just trust that Dems in other states were doing their part.
In this vein, I am SO happy with last night I don’t know what to do. The 3 “witches” are back in power, so I am assured that my vote won’t get thrown out because a Republican doesn’t like Democrats. I like Gretchen Whitmer a lot and generally speaking she is extremely polished. Her voice, her appearance, her walk, all scream Michigan. Michigan has a very developed business community. We have lots of businesses of various sizes and it’s common for people to try their hand at coming up with an idea to make it big. Whitmer has the “smart business woman” look and feel to her. She’s feminine, but comes off as assertive and knowledgeable. She has this “tough mom” energy which I respond to. I would trust her with kids and I would trust her to negotiate a business opening operations in the state.
Tudor Dixon on the other hand felt alien. She dressed a lot of times like she was a Stepford wife, and she gave off this feel like she was trying to bring her religion to the natives. The last few Republican governors we had didn’t feel alien. Snyder, while I’m not a fan of him, was clearly one of those nerdy businessmen who wouldn’t know what to do in a bar. But he was still Michigan. Tudor Dixon was like a mix of Rush Limbaugh, Mega Church Pastor, and Stepford wife, which I don’t think a lot of people in Michigan could connect with. She also came off as arrogant.
It also didn’t help that Republican messaging insulted people’s intelligence. Prop 3, the amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, was neither confusing or extreme. But that was the best slogan they could come up with. They even had a ridiculous ad where they had someone voice over the attorney general saying she wanted a drag queen in every school. It was a high pitched squeaky voice. It was cartoonish. Never mind the fact that the AG doesn’t make policy for schools, and that no one was even putting drag queens in school as a proposal. The ads they did about “The Democrat will get you killed! Crime wave!” were half hearted. It sounded like the Reagan nonsense from the 80s. I live in an area with basically no crime, and a lot of suburban areas in Michigan are some of the safest in the country. Sure, there’s Detroit and other areas that have crime issues, but that’s been that way for a long time. No way that a recently elected official did any of that.
For the first time in 40 years, the legislature will be majority Democratic. I knew this was going to happen because the state has been shifting Democratic in a lot of Republican areas, especially Oakland county! In Michigan we like our competency. We’re a weird state. At our core, we’re centrist libertarians with a very small government. We also have a history of agitation for civil rights, unionism, hard hat populism, and a love of nature and environmentalism. The core of all those things is freedom. That’s why Prop 3, the amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution, won easily. No one liked the idea of the government getting between a doctor and their patient. Honestly that thought is offensive to a lot of people here, and THAT’s the way we looked at.
Final thought: The problem with pundits is they never look in the mirror. They thought that money was the only thing I cared about. That I would let democracy die, that I would not care about abortion rights, that as long as prices were high, I would trade all that in for a chance to lower them. Wrong. Absolutely, flat out, wrong. Michigan has had ups and downs. The economy rises and falls. It’s never, EVER that way forever. I went from being an elementary school teacher to living in one of the richest areas in Michigan in the span of a few years, so in my head, the economy is a living, breathing entity. My rights, however, are not. Those are sacrosanct.