From the November-December 2022 issue of News & Letters

Kalamazoo, Mich.—The bourgeois political landscape in Michigan consists of Detroit, with its Black and Democrat voters, versus the rest of the white and mainly Republican state. Within the Detroit area, Oakland County was traditionally in the Republican camp, and Macomb County still is.

The epicenter once was probably in the Grand Rapids-Holland-Muskegon area, which used to be known as “Dutch Country,” although Kent County, where Grand Rapids is located, flipped to Biden in 2020.

During the protests against George Floyd’s murder, Grand Rapids had more violence than any other Michigan city. Recently, a police officer was found guilty of murder in the case of an African refugee, Patrick Lyoya, whom he shot in the back of the head after a traffic stop.

ROGUES’ GALLERY

There were ten Republican candidates for Governor originally, but five were disqualified by the Bureau of Elections over massive numbers of fraudulent signatures on nominating petitions! Remember, they are the ones who are crying fraud when they are the ones doing it.

All but one of the candidates remaining accepted Trump’s lie about the election, and backed a ban on abortion with no exceptions for rape and incest or to protect the life of the pregnant woman. That included the nominee, Tudor Dixon.

Dixon got the nod from lil’ donnie and she won. Surprise! She made national headlines when she said a 14-year-old girl, who had been raped by her uncle, should carry the pregnancy to term.

I would describe Dixon as the doppelganger candidate: I saw Tudor Dixon in a political ad on TV. It took my age-addled brain about 15 seconds to realize that I wasn’t looking at Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Hey, it’s probably a good strategy: fool Democrats into voting for the Republican because they can’t tell the difference, while basing your politics on Trump’s lie.

TRUMP SOUGHT REVENGE

Also, Rep. Peter Meijer, the grocery store scion who voted in the House of Representatives to impeach Trump, was defeated in the Republican primary by John Gibbs, a Trumpist. And so, dear readers, I am sorry to disappoint, but that is the state of bourgeois political economy here in the Great Lakes state of Michigan leading into the general election.

As Karl Marx put it when he referred to the bourgeoisie of his own time: “The heights of their intellect resemble a flat plain.” Some things never change.

—Curtis