Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer agreed earlier this week to back off on enforcing her mask mandates. The reversal came in a budget compromise reached with the state’s legislature which has been at odds with Whitmer ever since she violated the state’s rules regarding COVID mandates.
As Thomas Lifson, writing in American Thinker, noted acidly: “The reason for Whitmer’s reversal is not hard to figure out. Her polls stink.”
There is nothing more threatening to an elected tyrant than to risk losing her position as tyrant. As The New American reported last fall, Whitmer continued to exercise her unconstitutional authority even after the state’s supreme court ruled against her. The court wrote:
The sheer magnitude of the authority in dispute, as well as its concentration in a single individual [Whitmer], simply cannot be sustained within our constitutional system of separated powers.
Nevertheless, Whitmer defied the court and continued to extend her mask mandates and other rules. She added to her state’s citizens’ discontent as a “pandemic hypocrite” when her husband was caught violating one of her rules. This was followed up by she herself being caught violating her own rules.
When James Craig, who retired as Detroit’s chief of police in June, announced he was running as a Republican to replace her in next November’s election, his poll numbers immediately reflected Whitmer’s discontent among registered voters: they were neck-and-neck according to polls released right after his announcement.
On Tuesday those polls were confirmed by Trafalgar Group, which reported that when asked “If Gretchen Whitmer and James Craig were the candidates for Governor in the 2022 general election, for whom would you vote?”, registered voters showed the former police chief beating Whitmer by a gaping six full percentage points, 50 percent to 44 percent.
Craig’s leap was no doubt helped by efforts of a Marxist group called Detroit Will Breathe which interrupted Craig’s initial announcement, forcing him to move to another location. Meshawn Maddock, co-chair of Michigan’s Republican Party, thanked the group on her Twitter account. She posted a photo of a protestor holding a sign that said “defund DPD,” adding:
See the sign? These leftists want to defund your police. Republicans are the only sanity left in the country. Gov. Whitmer is finished. Thank you BLM for reminding us what your world looks like.
Whitmer indeed appears to be finished. The Trafalgar Group polled 1,097 likely voters, with Democrats making up 53 percent and Republicans just 35 percent. When your own party disowns you, your career – even that of Governor of a dark blue state – is over.
As The New American noted, the COVID tyranny in Michigan “will only end when the virus ends, or she is removed from office.”
Related article:
Michigan Supreme Court Slaps Down Governor’s Mandates; Whitmer Says They Will Continue Regardless
