The people of Michigan had their chance yesterday to remove Rick Snyder and his administration from office. And, much to my surprise, they chose to given him four more years instead.
I would have thought, given our state’s history relative to organized labor, and the conversations I’ve had with folks over the past several years, that the outcome of yesterday’s election would have been dramatically different. I would have thought, given the chance, the people of Michigan would have risen up, hand in hand, and booted Snyder from office. I know that, in recent history, Democrats have done a piss poor job of voting in the midterms, but I really thought that people would be motivated to get Snyder out of office, given what he’s allowed to happen.
I thought that the parents among us would have voted against him, seeing as how he slashed our K-12 education budget, and began aggressively dismantling public education and pushing our kids into unaccountable for-profit charter schools.
I thought that our working men and women would have voted against him for slashing unemployment benefits and signing anti-union “right to work” legislation into law after promising repeatedly that doing so wasn’t on his agenda.
I thought that our seniors would have voted against him, seeing as how he began his tenure in office by taxing their pensions in order to pay for unprecedented corporate tax cuts.
I would have thought that women would have voted against him, seeing as how he signed into law our nation’s most restrictive anti-abortion legislation, and then looked the other way as zealots within his party began shutting down reproductive health clinics and forcing health care providers to withhold treatment from victims of rape and incest.
I would have thought that those of us living in cities would have voted against him for defunding our communities to the point of collapse and then sending in an army of so-called Emergency Managers to sell off our assets, break union contracts and privatize everything that could be privatized.
I would have thought that the good and decent people of Michigan, regardless of their race or sexual orientation, would have voted against him for the aggressive attacks against gay families that have taken place on his watch, and the disenfranchisement of black Michiganders under the Emergency Manager regime, which we collectively voted out of existence, only to have it return thanks to the machinations of the Snyder administration.
But I was wrong. The people of this state are not the people that I thought that they were. At best they’re lazy and stupid. At worst, they’re close-minded racist homophobes who value neither public education, nor a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions… If it’s any consolation, I suspect it’s more that they’re lazy than evil, but I don’t know that it really matters, as the result is the same.
And I realize that I’m being harsh when I say that my fellow Michiganders are stupid and lazy, but that’s how I feel. In time, I’m sure, I’ll find myself making excuses for them. I’ll start to blame the Koch brothers for their control of the corporate media, and John Engler for setting in motion the systematic destruction of our public education system, which has given us a generation of young citizens that don’t understand that it’s their civic responsibility to stay engaged and participate actively in government. And maybe I’ll even be willing to direct a little blame toward our Democratic candidates, who, for whatever reason, weren’t able to break through and connect with voters. But, for now, even though I know it’s not constructive, I want to vent. I want to express my anger with those people who, even though they know how bad Snyder is for our state, still chose to stay home.
According to the Department of Sate just over 3 million of us voted in Michigan. That’s 3 million out of a population of nearly 10 million, in which 7,437,088 are registered to vote. And it’s that lack of turnout, I’m convinced, that killed us, not the fact that a majority of Michiganders actually want rape insurance, charter schools, and anti-union right-to-work legislation.
But the non-Republicans just didn’t come out. Democrats could have won this thing if they’d showed up, but they didn’t… And, before someone calls me out on it, yes, I suspect that I share as much blame as the next guy. Even though I thought that I was doing my share, by writing here, and interviewing candidates, and using social media to educate my fiends and push them toward the polls, the truth is, I could have done more. I could have taken the day off from work and knocked on doors. I could have physically dragged people to their polling places, like I did during the first Obama campaign. But I didn’t. And I have to live with that. But I’m not the only one that has culpability. Why is it that not one person knocked on my door to talk about Mark Schauer this campaign season? Why is is that no one called me, a registered Democrat, on election day, asking if I’d already voted? Where was the campaign infrastructure? Where was Lon Johnson? We brought him onboard to run the Michigan Dems because we were tired of losing, and he got his ass handed to him worse that Brewer ever did. I’d say that he’s got some expelling to do.
But it wasn’t just here in Michigan. Dems stayed home everywhere… Here, for those of you who are interested in such things, is some national trend data from Talking Points Memo.
…Comparing yesterday’s exit polls to those of 2012, the first thing that jumps out at you is a big shift in age demographics: under-30 voters dropped from 19 percent of the electorate in 2012 to 13 percent in 2014, while over-65 voters climbed from 16 percent in 2012 to 22 percent in 2014. That’s quite close to the age demographics of 2010.
In terms of race and ethnicity, the white share of the electorate increased modestly from 72 percent in 2012 to 75 percent this year, not quite back up to the 77 percent whites represented in 2010. And interestingly enough, Republican performance among white voters didn’t change at all from the 59/39 margin achieved by Mitt Romney. What did change is that Republicans boosted their percentage among African-Americans from 6 percent won by Romney to 10 percent yesterday; from 27 percent to 35 percent among Latinos; and from 26 percent to 49 percent among Asians. It’s likely the age demographics had some impact on Republican minority performance, particularly among Latinos, given the relatively strong attachment of young Latinos to the Democratic Party. And in general, it’s probable more conservative minority voters were more likely to vote…
Like I said, I’m sure, in a few days, I’ll begin to calm down a bit, and I’ll start thinking more strategically. I’ll realize that, among other things, you can’t win races by calling people stupid and lazy. And, instead of trying to place blame, I’ll begin to think about what I might be able to do differently, both on this site and in my real life, in order to get my fellow Michiganders to recognize what’s going on, and realize that they have agency to do something about it. For now, though, I just want to complain about the stupidity of people who can’t see what’s happening and understand the ramifications. We’re digging a hole that it will take us generations to get back out of, and that makes me terribly sangry*… the thought that all of the civil rights and organized labor battles of the past will have to be fought all over again, and that more people will die. But that’s what’s going to happen. It may be true that people aren’t voting, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a breaking point. And I fear it’s fast approaching.
[*Sangry, not to be confused with synergy, is the state of being equally sad and angry.]
