Auchtoon!

If I were Dan Gilbert and Rocket Mortgage, I’d be more than a little upset. Here they have invested a lot of time, money, and effort into being a good corporate citizen, particularly in Detroit. As the lead sponsor of the Rocket Mortgage Classic, an annual Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) tour event at the Detroit Golf Club, Rocket Mortgage has brought considerable esteem and economic benefit to an often maligned community. But it seems no good deed goes unpunished.

Because in a stunning move, the PGA — after furiously battling new rival LIV Golf and its Saudi Arabia Sovereign Wealth Fund money fountain — suddenly and unilaterally declared a merger with its self same evil enemy. Didn’t ask its players, didn’t ask its sponsors. Just did it.

It’s clear that the Saudi government is using its enormous reserves of oil money to buy into a popular sport like golf in an effort to improve its public image, a practice known as “sportswashing.” It’s nothing new — buying the rights to host the Olympics and World Cups have been very popular among authoritarian regimes for years. It’s just a little unsettling to see how quickly (and with no regard for others) that the PGA caved.

Side note for those in my demographic (middle-aged guys): Yes, I know I missed a golden opportunity to make a Caddyshack reference: “Pick up that blood!” But as hard as it is to believe, not everybody has an encyclopedic knowledge of that movie. (So you’ll get nothing and like it!)

Back in 2019 when Michigan’s auto insurance reform was signed into law, I didn’t have much confidence in the deal’s chances of success, in spite of all the self-congratulations going on. In fact, the analogy I used in my cartoon was that of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain circa 1938 returning from Munich — I had Governor Whitmer holding a signed agreement and declaring “I believe it is lower auto insurance rates for our time!”

I recall getting less than positive feedback from readers — it’s overwrought, it misses the mark, it’s stupid. Well, I don’t ever try to change people’s minds about what they consider stupid, but I can say now that I don’t think I was embellishing and it does in fact hit the mark.

Michiganders are not experiencing significant savings. But much worse, those who have been critically injured in auto accidents have seen their care system implode and have been left in a limbo of wondering whether they even qualify now for minimal care. Thousands are in a spiral of financial ruin and diminished lifespans.

Also, I stand by my earlier assessment that the Nazi villain in this case is not insurance companies or medical providers or trial lawyers or even politicians (directly, anyway), but our health care system. Proper health care should not depend on auto insurance or the options you happen to chose. It should be universally and affordably available, full stop.

Lots of talk in the past week about Michigan’s stagnate population. The focus has typically been on the hollowing out of certain industrial cities — Detroit, Flint, Muskegon, etc. But rural areas have suffered, too. Maybe even more. Because when the population leaves smaller towns and villages, there is a real danger of them ceasing to exist.

It’s a shame that our county’s fear-driven immigration policies continue to actively prevent what could be a key part of a solution — people motivated to come here and grow communities. Just as past waves of immigrants have done.

One of the topics at the Mackinac Island Policy Conference this week was on the shortage of affordable housing here in Michigan. And there was a Stateside segment specifically about that problem Up North. It’s certainly not a new issue — more of a chronic situation — and with a lack of easy answers.

All age groups suffer with this, but it creates particular difficulties for younger people. Home ownership has traditionally been an accessible way to build wealth in this country. But you can’t build that real estate wealth if you are never able to get started.

Sure, each generation has their challenges. But also each generation has their responsibilities. Like making the world a better place. And the generations currently in charge seem to be falling short of that, which is not so helpful to the next generations.

Side Note: Didn’t realize it till I finished drawing the cartoon, but I lifted the whole setup (especially two characters talking behind a brick wall) directly from Peanuts. Let’s just agree I was honoring Charles Schultz and a previous generation.

Although the cartoon this week is not specifically about Michigan, I would argue that anything about Florida directly relates to Michigan. We’re connected. Michiganders visit there, vacation there, many of us even eventually move there. I mean, lots of sun and no state income tax, what’s not to like, right? Well, as it turns out…

You guys read the news — you don’t need me to list it out. Suffice to say, Florida has clearly been the epicenter of our nation’s culture wars recently, and that doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon.

But beyond the current political and social conditions in Florida, I have to admit that I do have a personal axe to grind with the state, and it has to do with their professional sports teams. For the past dozen years or so, Tampa Bay and Miami teams have been astonishingly successful while Detroit teams have been astonishingly terrible. As I write this, the Florida Panthers (yes, that’s a real team) are in the Stanley Cup finals, and the Miami Heat are a game away from the NBA Finals. The Red Wings and Pistons didn’t come close to getting in the playoffs.

But thing is, their fans don’t seem to care. We Michiganders live and die with our teams; we cling to and celebrate championships from decades past and relive every bitter defeat as if they were yesterday. Florida fans might stay for the entire game when they win and then be completely “oh well” indifferent when they lose.

So I may be a little bitter. Okay, a lot bitter.

A recent article by Bridge Michigan brings up an often sited but long unresolved issue — the ongoing stagnation of Michigan’s population. Michigan ranks 49th among states in population growth since 1990, ahead of only West Virginia.

If you’ve lived here for awhile, you are sure to be aware of the reasons and circumstances for this. Notice I didn’t write “excuses” because that would imply that nothing has been done or can be done to fix this. I think our state has plenty going for it and the capability to retain and attract people. A good plan and a consistent governance would help. But I think we’ll get there.

Still, I have to admit to being a bit defensive about this. On the macro level, it’s difficult to see growth-leading states add populations both to places without enough water and places with too much water. Sure, Michigan has an occasional dry spell or summer home slide into a Great Lake, but on the whole it’s an incredibly safe and sustainable place to live. You’d think that would be enough to move us up a few places on the growth list!

It’s not as if America didn’t have lots of guns 60-plus years ago. We most certainly did. But then, there was a much higher percentage of people who used them for hunting and sport. The weapons themselves were typically much less lethal — single-shot rifles, revolvers, and the like. And critically, there wasn’t a political party completely beholden to gun manufacturers and their lobbyists.

Reliable statistical data for and about guns are notoriously difficult to find. This is mostly by design (again, the aforementioned gun manufacturers and lobbyists). But it is pretty obvious that the total amount of guns manufactured and sold in recent years is significant — 16.6 million firearms purchased in 2022.

That’s down from a record 21.8 million in 2020, but even if last year’s sales were zero, we’d still have a problem. Firearms aren’t like Chevy Chevettes or modern day dishwashers — they are highly durable and likely to last more than a few years. The old ones don’t go away, and we just keep accumulating more.

The total number of firearms in America is mind bending. Sure, we have 331 million people, but per capita, America still easily dominates the developed world.

We are awash in guns, so it’s no surprise that we are awash in gun violence, or that a loaded weapon might find its way into the hands of an eight-year-old to take to school.

So, three seemingly unrelated recent events:

• Ron DeSantis and his ongoing feuds with Disney
• Elon Musk and his ongoing meltdown with Twitter
• Gretchen Whitmer and her ongoing quest to follow through on 2022 campaign promises

And, honestly, the cartoon isn’t about any of that. It’s about how male leaders are often applauded for aggressive, forceful behavior, and women leaders are often, um, not.

It’s now been nine years since the start of the Flint Water Crisis. Nine years since the water source was switched and the troubles began. Looking back, it’s not difficult to imagine how it could have happened. Humans and human institutions are inherently flawed. Choosing an option to save money without taking the proper time to understand the potential consequences is, well, human. Decisions like that happen all of the time and in many places.

However, the especially cruel twist in what happened in Flint is that it took so long — 18 months! — for at least some of the issues to be acknowledged and to begin the process of correcting them by switching the water source back. Clearly, that is not a timeline that a community with more money and different demographics would have experienced. Everybody knows that. But for people dependent on Flint water, they not only know that, they continually have to live with it. Assuming they’re still living.

There was a news conference this week where several Michigan lawmakers expressed their concern and general opposition to two proposed battery plants for electric vehicles near Big Rapids, Michigan. A summary from a Michigan Radio report:

Michigan lawmakers remain split over whether a U.S.-based subsidiary of a Chinese-owned electric vehicle battery company should receive state incentive funding.

Back in October 2022, the Michigan Strategic Fund Board approved $175 million total in incentives to support the development of a Gotion Inc. battery component plant in Big Rapids.

Despite passing a multi-million dollar spending deal to free up the funding and the fanfare of the moment, some Republican lawmakers have since soured on the idea.

I’m fine with the GOP leaders changing their minds. (When new information becomes available, changing your mind can be the right thing to do.) I definitely get why it’s important to ensure the good stewardship of public money. And given the increasingly authoritarian nature of the regime that controls China, vetting a corporation with ties to China is the right thing to do.

What’s bizarre to me, however, is that leaders so keen to rally Michiganders to organize and stand up for their rights are the very same ones who vehemently oppose citizens doing the same through labor unions. Not exactly the first inconsistency in a political party that I’ve detected, but sometimes certain ones stand out.