Opinion by E.J. Dionne Jr.: Forget DeSantis. Whitmer and Shapiro are defining the future.
At the same time, Whitmer stayed true to the very practical agenda she ran on four years ago, highlighted by her sassy,: “Fix the damn roads.” She raised that battle cry again in her victory speech while renewing pledges to restore safe drinking water and to improve health care and education.
After much ink-spilling since Trump’s election over the loss of blue-collar industrial jobs, she joined Biden and Democrats elsewhere in describing a new manufacturing future involving making more electric cars, “semi-conductors and clean energy right here in Michigan.” Watch this theme: How to build a new economy is the big issue of the next decade.
In the same speech, she praised “movements for women’s rights and civil rights and LGBT rights” and organized labor, while also extolling the residents of her state for fighting for “family, friends and community.” Two litanies, progressive and traditional, defined the ground on which a broad Election Day alliance was built.It’s too early for Shapiro, just elected to his first term, to be thought of as a 2024 candidate.
One example: Shapiro took on right-wing talking points about cleansing school libraries of books that offend some parents and turned them into an un-American idea. “It’s not freedom,” he declared, “to tell our children what books they’re allowed to read.” And he included in his acclamations about “real freedom” a bow to one of the oldest Democratic traditions. “It’s not freedom,” he insisted, “to say you can work a 40-hour work week but you can’t be a member of a union.
So don’t get too obsessed with a Trump-DeSantis rumble rooted in a tired, old cultural politics. “Fix the damn problems” is the sound of the future speaking.
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