Happy Presidents’ Day. Let’s talk about 2028 presidential hopeful Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. To the many top Democrats hoping this pink-suited, plain-spoken Midwesterner can pull a victorious phoenix from the ashes of the Democratic party, a note of caution: “Big Gretch” is three days away from tossing a bucket of ice cold water on your barely smoldering embers.
This Thursday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will make a choice. One that will either keep a promise or break it. One that will either give working people in Michigan economic certainty and put thousands of dollars in their pockets, or one that will drill a final nail into the coffin of what remains of the Democratic party.
Ever since Bill Clinton – the best Republican president since Ronald Reagan – signed NAFTA, Wall Street deregulation, and welfare reform, Democrats have been selling out working people and getting pissed at voters for noticing. VP Harris’ decision to cave to billionaires’ demands on tax reform is not the only thing that doomed her campaign, but it certainly didn’t help. And let’s not forget eight Democrats (one with a curtsy) voting against a $15 minimum wage during a global pandemic that killed thousands of “essential” workers they claimed to champion, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s multiple $250K speeches to Wall Street, and Obama’s support of tax cuts for millionaires that led directly to the creation of the group I currently run.
Enough.
If Democrats stand a chance in 2028, they should do everything they can this week to stop Gov. Whitmer from making the biggest mistake of her political career, a mistake that will likely cost Democrats a Senate seat in 2026, and set them up for an even more resounding defeat in 2028 than they suffered in November when every single demographic of working people in the country gave the electoral finger to the Democratic Party.
Given the chaotic destruction of the Trump administration, Democrats may actually have a chance to claw themselves out of the giant sinkhole they’ve been digging with working people for the last 30 years. But first they have to STOP DIGGING.
And it starts this Thursday with Gov. Whitmer.
THE SITUATION
Last week, a minority of Democrats in Michigan’s state senate decided that their existing wage floor shouldn’t apply to all workers. They joined with Republicans to dismantle the current law, stop the raises set to go into effect this week, and reinsert the tip credit loophole, reducing service workers’ wage guarantee from 100% five years from now to 50%.
Pulling out the old “I voted for it before I voted against it” card, an impressively dichotomous Democratic lawmaker, Sen. Majority Leader Winnie Brinks spearheaded the effort to dismantle the law she vehemently pledged to defend in 2018. Her new campaign slogan should be Everybody Loses With Winnie Brinks. But I digress…
So on Thursday, Gov. Whitmer has to make a choice.
- She can choose to sign a bill that dismantles one of the strongest wage floors in the country, or
- She can choose not to sign the bill and the guaranteed wage in Michigan will go up that day by $2 per hour as scheduled, and it will continue to go up until it reaches $14.97 per hour and One Fair Wage in 2030.
If Whitmer upholds the current law and rejects the efforts of Republicans and a minority of her own caucus to depress wages for working people, she will have taken the first step forward in healing the rift with working voters. If Gov. Whitmer signs the bill on Thursday dismantling the wage floor, she will prove that voters were right in November in that you can’t trust Democrats.
Tell Gretchen Whitmer to uphold the current wage law and prove that at least some Democrats are capable of standing up for working people.
Stop Digging.