Boogeymen and Battlegrounds: Michigan’s Ongoing Struggle Over Democracy

Within the United States, democracy has always been more of a goal to be achieved than an actual state of being. A constant negotiation between those seeking to retain power for the few and those striving for full participation as citizens. As a swing-state, Michigan represents an open playing field for many of these negotiations. In many states across the nation there has been a targeted attack on democratic institutions, including on public education, public libraries, and the voting system. Michigan is no exception to this trend. With a national rise in mainstream extremism, Michigan’s strategic position has attracted far-right attempts to take control of the state. From the 2020 attempted abduction of Governor Gretchen Whitmer to the continued wave of Republican lead legislative and legal attacks, Michigan has faced an array of challenges in recent years. One of the most ridiculous and simultaneously insidious forms this attack takes is the so-called ‘war on wokeness’.

A common refrain among the far-right is that ‘wokeness’ is destroying the nation and must be countered in any way possible. Florida Governor and Presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis declared a “war on woke,” ramping up the imaginary threat from boogeyman to battleground. Far-right media pundits like Tucker Carlson (before he was ousted from FOX News) decried the so-called woke-agenda regularly, from how it supposedly impacted the masculinity of the U.S. military to its impact on the sexiness of M&M’s.  The campaign against ‘wokeness’ has fed into the ongoing far-right opposition to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in public and private sectors across the United States. Representative for Michigan’s 9th district, Congresswoman Lisa McClain has participated in this rhetoric since at least 2022, with particular animus for so-called wokeness in the military in respect to certain amendments to the 2022 and 2023 NDAA. A heady mix of paranoia and white grievance, the war on woke has become the basis for more established far-right campaigns including the strategic attacks on schools and educational curricula.

Public education is a vital component of any democracy and has therefore been an historically contentious institution for those opposed to it. In our current era the ‘parental rights movement’ have become leaders on the local and national stage, with prominent groups like the infamous Moms for Liberty leading the charge. The attacks on public education and even on the Department of Education are not new, nor are parental rights movements in the United States, which include organized opposition to desegregation in the 1950s-60s (see the incredible work on this era,  Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae) or the anti-LGBTQ movement of the 1970s-80s led by Anita Bryant.

Michigan hasn’t been inundated with parental rights laws like Florida and other states with a Moms for Liberty stranglehold, but they have had their fair share of conflict. As a leader in the attack on education, with a special focus on educational materials on LGBTQ+ inclusive and racial history, the parental rights movement has led the charge in a role-back of inclusive and progressive education. Wokeness, like the earlier far-right boogeyman “Critical Race Theory” (CRT) and the ongoing fight over DEI, has made its way into Michigan legislation. In 2021 Republicans introduced multiple bills to restrict the teaching of CRT in Michigan k-12 schools, even though the advanced legal theory is only taught in higher education and most certainly has no impact on early education as they’ve claimed. However, even those pushing these bills are aware of what they are actually calling for, a restriction on educational materials teaching the history of race, racism, and oppression, and the promotion of an ahistorical and white supremacist version of American history. Another tactic in the fascist grab-bag of the far-right is scaremongering around gender-ideology, with public education providing a national stage for this to play out.

In 2022 a group of Michigan Republican state representatives introduced the bill, HB 6454 that would threaten parents and medical professionals with life in prison if they provided gender-affirming care to a minor, a category of medical care that has been proven to be life-saving. Even with a narrow Republican majority in Michigan’s House, this bill didn’t stand a chance with Governor Whitmer holding veto rights. However, the ramping up of legislative and legal threats remains a distinct concern as we go into a new election year, especially as individual school systems remain under the control of like-minded school boards and superintendents. While bills like this are popping up across the country, this bill stands out for the extreme nature of the proposed punishment. It likewise showcases the intrinsic hypocrisy of the parental rights movement, which claims it wants limited intervention in their parenting, and yet they support punitive measures for personal choices between parents and their children.

In a 1995 speech given to Howard University, Toni Morrison argued that fascism, “changes parenting into panicking-so that we vote against the interests of our own children; against their health care, their education, their safety from weapons.” This was a prescient warning for today’s era and remains a vital insight into what the next few years will likely bring to states like Michigan. Fortunately, Michigan has been making strides to to democratic institutions and individual rights from these attacks. In March 2023 Governor Whitmer signed bipartisan legislation that expanded the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA) to reaffirm legal protections for sexual orientation and expand the coverage to include gender identity and expression. While this is a vital step, 2024 will likely bring a new far-right wave of antidemocratic attacks on Michigan’s legal and legislative systems, targeting public education and more in the hopes of undermining U.S. democracy as a whole.

Michigan, like the rest of the United States, is not a haven of democracy, nor does it treat its citizens equally. One has only to remember the devastation caused by the Flint water crisis in 2014 to underscore how the state regularly fails its communities. Michigan likewise has a long history of fascist leaders including one of its most famous industrialists, Henry Ford, who’s antisemitism was so well-known that even Adolf Hitler was quoted saying, “I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration.” This is all to say that Michigan, like the United States, is flawed, but it is also in danger of the rising extremism of the far-right. To push back on far-right extremism and fascism is not to ignore the flaws of the United States, but to recognize that the current threat we face is worth every effort. And that is certainly what it is going to take.