James David Dickson

There’s obvious alarm in elite liberals circles about @MikeRogersForMI campaigning directly for Democrat votes – and in Detroit no less. But there’s also a stunned “deer in headlights” lack of response to it by the “HR Department”. Republicans in Michigan have lacked innovation my entire life; quietly retreating from urban (and now suburban) political power structures, and in recent years, falling into reactionary purity spirals. The temerity of a white male conservative walking into a Detroit suburb and simply asking for Democrat votes is a tactic they couldn’t possibly conceive of, but the real lesson in this brilliant move by Rogers is for the Right. It’s taken Republicans far too long to try this and there’s several reasons: It requires uncommon effort to bridge divides and seek new coalitions not already naturally inclined towards a movement, and conservatives have lazily chased populist vibes rather than expanding their movement. Hyper-partisan grassroots activists are repulsed by the required compromises it takes to attract non-ideological or liberal voters, and are seemingly unaware of the negative polarity that invites. And lastly, most importantly, the most frustrating to watch as a bystander. Conservative Republicans in Michigan are too strongly enthralled in loser psychology, which is to say, they’d rather die on a hill to preserve an ideological moral ground than actually win. It took the inherent danger of European style socialism with a 3rd world flavor, and the creeping politics of resentment on behalf of downwardly mobile college educated whites filled eyebrow raising antipathy for the American founding for only one guy to figure this out? I literally know pragmatic Democrats in Livonia looking (begging) for an alternative and embarrassed by their own cohort. Demographic shifts are a foot, and voters are up for grabs – and another big shift is event horizon starting in about five to ten years.