Oh Yeah, Democracy Is Over

Michigan is one of those states where Republicans really want to oust the governor and Democrats are readying for a fight on increasingly favorable ground. @HenryJGomez > https://t.co/6AemeZWWBE

— Daniel Strauss (@DanielStrauss4) June 20, 2021

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s poll numbers aren’t what they used to be, and she’s provided fodder for critics who see her failing to meet her own coronavirus rules.

But a year after then-President Donald Trump urged followers to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” and the FBI scuttled an alleged militia plot to kidnap Whitmer, the GOP has struggled to find a familiar or field-clearing candidate to challenge her in 2022. Many Republican leaders and voters targeting her for defeat are fixated on conspiracy theories and the false conviction that ballot audits such as the partisan one happening in Arizona will prove Trump didn’t lose in 2020.

“Do we even know who’s running?” Toni Shuff, 66, and her friends asked one another on the lawn of the Michigan Capitol last week at a rally for Convention of States, a conservative group that seeks to limit the power of the federal government by amending the Constitution without Congress.

This is the problem with a political party as idol worship:  if it's all about Trump, it doesn't leave room for it to be about much else.  And I'm not sure a campaign platform of "TRUMP WAS ROBBED!" is the best possible bumper sticker for an election being held in 2022, for a state governor.

But, you know, democracy is dead, it's all over but the shoutin', blah blah blah....