Michigan went all red in 2010.
We only had a 42% voter turnout. Despite having progressive, populist firebrand Virg Bernero running against Bill Snyder, only 42% of Michiganders turned out to vote and Dems stayed home. The notion that if we only had the right people running with a more populist message folks would turn out to vote is demonstrably false. Given that choice...Dem's STILL didn't vote.
Here's what Benero said on Fox News prior to running:
I was a little offended by your question "have the unions given up enough...has the working man given up enough?" You know, MY question is has Wall Street given up enough for the billions they have taken?
That's what we wanted to hear, right?
The guy has demonstrable leadership ability. He's got the right street cred. He's loud and proud in favor of working folks. And yet........Dems stayed home. Here's Virg battling against a Fox News anchor:
Democrats stayed home on election day and the Tea Party literally took over the State of Michigan.
Since then:
-- Emergency financial managers have sold off entire school systems to for-profit businesses (who later abandoned their obligations and left the system up shit creek).
-- The prison food system was privatized to an incompetent company with poorly trained staff who let contraban in and feed prisoners maggot infested meat.
-- Michigan created some of the most sweeping anti-choice legislation in the US.
-- Unions were shredded as Michigan became a Right To Work for less state.
-- Thousands of people lost food assistance.
-- Thousands of people lost housing assistance.
-- The child tax credit and housing tax credits were eradicated costing struggling Michigan families more in taxes to the state.
-- Seniors and retired folks saw their pensions and fixed incomes taxes.
-- The roads have gone to pot-holes and shit.
-- My friend the school teacher saw FOUR pay CUTS in a row.
-- A second bridge from Canada to Michigan, the largest international crossing in the US has been held up to benefit a billionaire wealthy bridge owner.
-- Fracking has become rampant.
-- Public schools have been gutted and are being replaced by charter schools.
-- Programs to diversify Michigan's economy have been eradicated making us once again vulnerable to collapsing with the next recession.
-- We've dragged our feet on renewable energy policy giving us one of the lowest renewable energy standards in America and THE HIGHEST energy prices in the Midwest.
Many of these changes impacted my life directly. Many of these changes impacted Michigan families directly...and much of it could have been stopped if Democrats bothered to make a few marks on a piece of paper.
It didn't MATTER that we had a progressive populist candidate running in 2010. It didn't MATTER. It didn't MATTER that he was vocally and proudly PRO union, pro-working class, speaking a proud populist message.
It didn't matter.
What mattered is the folks who stayed home and didn't vote because of whatever excuse they felt they had made things several orders of magnitude worse for everybody else.
There is no excuse for not voting. For most of us, there's no excuse.
We can't sit around tossing head pillows to people who don't vote. We can't excuse people who smoke next to our kids in elevators, we can't excuse people for not washing their hands after taking a shit, we can't excuse people for leaving their infants alone in a hot car...and we can't throw pillows to people who aren't voting, for their poor heads. Not-voting isn't a genetic trait. It's not something you're born into. It's not a medial ailment. It's a willful shirking of your responsibility to your friends, neighbors, family and yourself.