Let Michigan be the antidote to any pessimism about democracy
Our victory is a victory for anyone who fights to protect our freedoms.
Two special elections this week returned majority control of Michigan’s state house to Democrats. With our “trifecta” restored, we’re back in the democracy business.
And one of the very first things Democrats want to do is the exact opposite of what Republicans do when they get power. They’re expanding the freedom to vote.
Some of the protections in the proposed legislation focus on prohibiting voter denial, dilution, and suppression in part by establishing a preclearance requirement that would force jurisdictions to prove that changes will not discriminate against voters of color, creating a public database of election and demographic data, lowering the threshold for languages eligible for ballot translation, and creating a system for curbside voting and allowing transportation assistance for voters with disabilities and voters over 65.
Michigan’s Voting Rights Act hopes to, in many ways, replicate the full power of the national Voting Rights Act, which was gutted by five Republicans on the Supreme Court in 2013. The loss of the full power of the VRA helped lead to the rise of Trump and, as historian Carol Anderson told me, the lack of a backlash to its gutting helped bring us the end of Roe.
That Democrats in my home state are seizing on this opportunity to protect ballot access and then, hopefully, join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which means our electoral votes will always go to the presidential candidate who gets the most votes, allows me to do something embarrassing and say that we are actually building ourselves a democracy.
I know the “save democracy” trope annoys a lot of people.
They rightfully note that we’ve never been a true democracy. So they argue that we’re just a bunch of earnest meme-swapping wine moms who aren't doing anything but pretending Orange Man Bad wants to be a dictator to distract from our own party’s past and current failings. And sure, there’s truth to that.
Genius messaging expert Anat Shenker-Osorio argues that ascribing “democracy” to our system normalizes its failures. Instead, we should be focusing on the effort to “protect our freedom.” Freedom to marry. Freedom to join a union. Freedom to have another presidential election after this one. It all can and should be framed as a fight for our freedoms.
But let me pause here and make a brief praise of democracy (and wine moms) and what we’ve done in Michigan to fight for it. Because it’s our victory. And as one of the key swing states – and this year possibly THE key swing state – this victory belongs to and matters to all Americans.
In the podcast embedded above, I spoke to Melissa Walker, the Head of Giving Circles at the States Project, about the her group’s role in this effort and what winning a trifecta has already meant for our state:
In 2022, we were able to help out in both chambers in Michigan as the largest donor in the effort to flip the state legislature. We're able to flip both of those chambers by fewer than 400 votes. Each Michigan now has one seat majorities in the state house and the state Senate. And of course, governor Gretchen Whitmer. So that means it is a Democratic trifecta state power in the governor's mansion and both state chambers. And that has enabled Michigan to do incredible things policy wise including codifying the right to abortion in the state expanding free breakfast and lunch for school children in the state, ending those so-called "right to work" laws to make unions strong again, and passing the strongest climate bill in the country.
I’ve been so inspired by what the States Project is doing that I’ve started a Giving Circle to help bring what we have achieved in Michigan to Arizona, another candidate for the key-est swing state of 2024.
But I’m in no way complacent about 2024 in my state or anywhere.
We have to preserve our House majority. And we have to make sure Donald Trump does not win this state again.
Polls suggest that this is an uphill battle at this point, despite the overwhelming popularity of Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the fact that Joe Biden is probably the best president Michigan and organized labor have ever had. And you probably know the reasons why.
Despite the very real risk that Trump could win this state, Democrats have shown a commitment to democracy and the freedom to vote that could result in our own candidate’s undoing. And as much as that scares the living excrement out of me, it inspires me.
I trust my neighbors to know which party and which candidate will protect the freedom to care for our own bodies, the freedom to have clean water to drink, the freedom to give our families a better life.
That’s the bet that democracy makes on humanity. As much as that bet terrifies me, it inspires me. And we have to make it, even when all of our freedoms are at stake.
Since we’ve renewed our democracy, Michigan has always stood against those whose only appeal is to fuel division and enrich a wealthy few. And that’s ultimately what we will have to decide again in November.