Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski
Perhaps nationally, but not on a local level, do you think? michigan's governor was a "business republican." We were a mess from our prior liberal governor (not saying all lib govs are bad, but Grandholm was horrible). Kids graduating left. There were no jobs here. Now people are moving to the state, which is crazy- and he is stepping down- and i worry about the apparently hair brained gov coming in.
I think a more universal statement might be that Rs don't look at the relative impact of decisions on minorities, as an example.
The prior govenor did something no Dem could have done- we had several big cities in serious financial trouble. They were majority black cities, yet the white govenor stepped in and appointed a person to take over control of the cities. From one standpoint he was trying to fix cities that were truly broken- example the residents of Detroit had little or no basic services. Snow wasn't cleared, garbage often wasn't etc. Wouldn't fixing the cities "help" the minority residents?
But on the other hand think about the negative impact on the people in a city that they need outside control?
In one instance it worked rmarkably well- Detroit is becoming vibrant- and local control has returned- services are returning- and the prior residents are benefitting- of course now we are seeing gentrification- which is somewhat amazing, but problematic.
In one instance is blew up- the "outside control" led to the Flint water crisis. and even if you can look at the city and agree that the outside control did need to step in, that outside control has to come with substantial care for the reaities of those w/o representation people. Once the water problem surfaced it should have been a four alarm fire of needing to get fixed- the steps leading to creating the problem are almost forgivable, but the early response was grossly negligent if not flat out showing a flavor of bigotry against the poor.
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We have a so-called "liberal" Republican in Mass. His first instinct on any issue involving race, whether immigration or transportation or housing, is usually pretty awful. Then there are the beginnings of a small uproar, or an aide gets to him as he speaks, and he remembers what state he is in, and he swtiches courses and backs off. But you can see all his instincts are tinged with racism. He's just a bigot trying to hide it, or, if you give him the benefit of the doubt, trying to repress and overcome it (don't give him the benefit of the doubt).
His appointees run the gamut. He had to stop putting his appointee to head the Mass. Tech. Collaborative in front of industry groups because the tech industry has lots of Asian immigrants in it and his guy is basically a white supremacist and says lots of embarrassing things (also gets his facts wrong, and its a bad industry in which to screw up your stats). On the other hand, the guy's boss is great, so he now covers those meetings.
