The Michigan Rag

With floods ravaging the central area of Michigan's Lower Peninsula - centered around the Midland, the headquarters of Dow Chemical - Trump has tried to use federal funding to deal with the flood damage, caused mainly by failing dams, to get Governor Gretchen Whitmer to stop distributing applications for mail-in ballots.  He confused the applications with actual ballots, saying that what Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, below, was doing was illegal (it's not) and threatening to withhold funding to help with the Midland disaster if Benson persisted.

Benson fired back, explaining that what she did was perfectly legal and perfectly bipartisan.  "In November of 2018," she told MSNBC's Chris Hayes, "citizens voted overwhelmingly to give themselves this right to vote by mail. It was supported by citizens on both sides of the political spectrum, and it's something citizens on both sides of the political spectrum have done."  Indeed; other states, such was Republican-dominated West Virginia, have pursued voting by mail.  Trump himself votes by mail.  But he is trying to deny voters in Democratic states, and in swing states like Michigan, the opportunity to do so in a presidential election where Trump is behind in the polls but in which Democrats are reluctant to vote in person in the middle of an interminable pandemic.

Trump clearly has Michigan in his sights, as he visited the state this past week and toured a Ford factory making ventilators to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak.  He reportedly did not violate the policy requiring to wear a mask at first, but only wore it briefly.  Later - unmasked - Trump, who has long since bene unmasked for the rotten leader he is, praised the Ford Motor Company for its contributions to American economy and praised company founder Henry Ford for his good bloodlines.  Henry Ford was a vicious anti-Semite who believed there was a Jewish conspiracy aiming to take over America and the world.

So who won this round?  Apparently, Michigan's mostly female Democratic leadership.  This past Thursday, Trump approved Governor Whitmer's request for federal aid to deal with the flooding in Midland this past Thursday despite his threats to cut off aid.  The Federal Emergency Management Association is now authorized to direct all equipment and resources necessary to handle the flooding, with emergency protective measures to be provided at 75 percent federal funding.  And the ballot applications got sent out.

Meanwhile, as Ford continues to make ventilators in the Ypsilanti, Michigan plant that Trump visited, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused two Ford factories - one of which was making Ford F-150 pickup trucks - to temporarily shut down when workers tested positive for the disease.  Sort of appropriate karma for a car company that, while no longer promoting anti-Semitism, now promotes the purchase of gas-guzzling pickups and truck-based monster wagons.