Auchtoon!

Mike Lee: “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way,” in reaction to the fatal shooting of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband.

Joni Ernst: “Well, we are all going to die,” in reaction to likely deaths that will come from Medicaid cuts.

Mitch McConnell: “They’ll get over it,” also in reaction to death and suffering from proposed Medicaid cuts.

It’s not that I’m surprised by the astonishing callousness of these Republican US Senators. In fact, it helps explain the cruelty of the budget bill they are crafting.

But — good news! — some of the billions in the proposed bill for capturing and deporting people will be spent on private, for-profit prisons. This will create jobs in rural communities such as Baldwin, Michigan, which will compensate a bit for the closed medical facilities, reduced food assistance, and increasingly limited education opportunities.

So, on the whole, not actually good news.

It’s easy to say you want transparency in government when you aren’t in government. It’s even easier to say it when you want to get elected. But apparently it’s very difficult to make it happen once you’re elected.

At least, that’s what I gather from observing Michigan state government. Exhibit A: Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Exhibit B: House Speaker Matt Hall. (And seemingly, there is an entire alphabet of additional exhibits.) Perhaps one day, hopefully soon, we will run out of exhibits.

I have the person being bullied in the cartoon as representing NPR. But I could have just as well labeled her CPB, PBS, CDC, FDA, NIH, FEMA, NOAA, University boards, Kennedy Center, or many other public entities, and the cartoon would still make sense.

It’s the same pattern: the Trump administration berates, belittles, and threatens a public agency (while remaining steadfastly incurious about its actual operations or purpose), and then laments that its staff or board aren’t properly populated with their people. Well, duh. If you actively dislike an organization and don’t believe in its worth, why would you expect them to want people like you to be on their team?

This week former University of Michigan President Santa Ono was rejected from taking the position of president at the University of Florida. Ono had quit U of M and proclaimed to “believe in Florida’s vision for higher education” in being their sole finalist for the position. But then the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state’s universities, voted 10-6 against Ono.

So… a bit of disaster. And yet, also utterly predictable.

What was Ono thinking? It’s Florida. Florida! Did he really think it was going to be a seamless transition from Ann Arbor to (checks notes) the Jim Crow Wannabe Era? I mean, sure, January and February are very nice there. But at what cost?

Look, let’s be honest, there are plenty of things not to like about U of M. There is the air of superiority, the often cloying nostalgia, the tendency to take things a step too far. It can be annoying, to be sure. But the school and Ann Arbor are (and very likely will always be) their authentic selves. Ono was a leader of that for two and half years. Sure, he did bend the knee and promise to align on cultural issues. But still, how was it ever going to be possible for a state ruled by MAGA imperialists to accept him?

Well, they didn’t.