By Stephen Macaulay
“LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”
That was one of the tweets then-president Donald Trump put out on April 19, 2020. The so-called liberation was his response to the actions that had been taken by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
You remember, the thing that was just going to “disappear.” That’s what many people said. Many, many people. Not as many as the more than one-million people who died in the U.S. from COVID. But many. That’s what they say.
On April 30 armed protestors entered the state capitol in Michigan.
Which leads one to wonder: What did they plan to shoot? Even if there happened to be some deer wandering through the halls of the building, the firearm hunting season doesn’t start in Michigan until mid-November. And one would imagine that assault weapons aren’t the sort of thing that would be particularly good for the subsequent venison even if there was some poaching going on.
(Oddly enough, the carrying of firearms in the state capitol is legal.)
There had been nearly 4,000 deaths from COVID by that time in Michigan. So presumably the governor along with medical experts figured that this wasn’t a cold and flu season on steroids and something needed to be done to try to reduce the number of deaths.
And some Michiganders became angry.
And the president of the United States — let me repeat that: The president of the United States — put out a tweet that declared that the state needed to be liberated from the person he referred to as “that woman from Michigan.”
He was downplaying COVID. He made it seem, while speaking in public (Bob Woodward was to let us know what Trump thought in private), that COVID was not a problem. For governors like Whitmer who were taking action (think about this: there were 1,083 traffic fatalities in Michigan in 2020 — for the whole year — and there were nearly 4,000 deaths by the end of April), that wasn’t a good thing.
So a group of people who banded together under the title the “Wolverine Watchmen” put together a plan in June that included kidnapping Whitmer from her vacation home in northern Michigan. And they trained to do it.
Oh, and the plan included things like execution and blowing things and people up.
As my colleague Ken Zino over on the left side of this page explains, members of the Watchmen have been arrested, tried and convicted. One of the men got 16 years. The prosecutors wanted life. The judge said of that penalty, “It’s too much. Something less than life gets the job done in this case.”
According to the Michigan Dept. of Corrections, the recidivism rate in the state is 23.6%.
Militia groups in Michigan and other states are not a new phenomenon. They are not something that was created by Trump. But they certainly did get support from the man, something that should be absolutely unthinkable, but he did it in public, for all to read or hear (“Stand back and stand by”).
It is all too easy to blame Trump for this sort of behavior. But perhaps even more culpable are Republican leaders who neither then nor now have made a full-throated support of law and order, something that the party once thought was important.
More than 140 law enforcement personnel were injured — some very seriously — on January 6. Officer Brian Sicknick died on January 7. Four officers committed suicide subsequent to the attack from the people Trump described as “very special.”
Where is the outrage from Republicans?
That is the question that needs to be considered.
Children learn the difference between right and wrong. Did Republican leaders forget
that lesson or is it simply inconvenient for them?
Conservatives Ready to Take Back the GOP?
Are traditional conservatives ready to take back the GOP?
Do the stiff prison sentences of two men convicted of federal charges for the attempted kidnapping of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) indicate that both parties are about to come together and fight domestic terrorism? [Read contributing pundit Ken Zino’s left-column on the news story.]
The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol has released additional transcripts of witness testimony. While some House Republicans, including would-be Speaker Kevin McCarthy, have threatened to investigate the investigators of the 1/6 committee as the GOP takes its thin majority in the 118th Congress, it would be convenient for the party to move on and let the Justice Department do its thing.
Speaking of the would-be speaker, how badly does he need to seat the veracity-challenged incoming Rep. George Santos (R-NY) in order to clinch the 218 votes necessary to become Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) replacement?
All these questions and more are open for your comments, whether you lean right (please check the comment box this column) or left (please go to the left column to add comments). Alternatively, you may email your comments to editors@thehustings.newsand please indicate your political leaning in the subject box.