All posts tagged "michigan"

Fox News host mocked to his face in fiery on-air exchange with candidate

Fox News host Will Cain was confronted in a fiery exchange with Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed during a live interview on Tuesday.

Cain had asked if progressive influencer Hasan Piker, who has campaigned and promoted El-Sayed ahead of the August 4 primary, reflects his vision.

El-Sayed then pushed back.

"My vision is one where every American can afford their basic dignities and a good life," El-Sayed said. "My vision is one where you can get healthcare when you need it, my vision is one where our government is not wasting your taxpayer dollars dropping bombs on other people's kids and instead it's investing with you and your own. So far as I share that with anybody, I share that with Hasan, I share that with you, if that's what you do believe in."

The Democrat then asked Cain a question of his own, flipping the script.

"But I do think it's kind of crazy when you have the likes of — I don't know — Donald Trump on this show," El-Sayed said. "Donald Trump who says he wants to grab people by certain body parts. Donald Trump who wants to weaponize a paramilitary force against the Constitution itself. Do you agree with everything Trump has said?"

Cain appeared surprised and angry with El-Sayed's question.

"OK, we'll move this conversation in a productive manner," Cain said, pushing back on El-Sayed's comments about Trump.

"So you asked, now let me ask you. Would you invite President Donald Trump on the stage with you?" Cain said.

"I would love to be on the stage with Donald Trump. I would debate him tooth and nail," El-Sayed said, pushing back on Cain's comments.

"You're playing a slick word game!" Cain said, appearing frustrated by El-Sayed's response.

WILL CAIN: Does Hasan Piker reflect your vision?

EL-SAYED: My vision is one where every American can afford basic dignity and a good life, where you can get healthcare when you need it, where our govt isn't wasting your taxpayer dollars dropping bombs on other people's kids. Do… pic.twitter.com/NMS9y6I8Hr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 26, 2026

'Unconscionable': Fed-up lawmaker blasts Mike Johnson for yanking vote to rein in Trump

WASHINGTON — Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) told reporters on Thursday that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pulled a scheduled war powers resolution vote, saying that it was clear that Democrats had enough votes to compel President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Iran war.

"They just pulled it, unconscionably. It is beyond time that we address this issue," Scholten said. "Gas prices are $5. I'm getting $5 a gallon in Michigan. People on the West Coast are hearing that and they're planning a road trip to Michigan to put it in Tupperware and take it back home with them. I'm getting calls in my office about people cancelling their Memorial Day plans because they literally cannot afford to drive to their cottages in Michigan and celebrate this weekend how they normally would."

She described how the economy and skyrocketing gas prices has caused frustration among Americans.

"It's obviously about a failed plan, not the whims of a president who decides he's bored one day and wants to continue this war," Scholten said. "The power and the decision, whether we go forward with this, belongs in the hands of the people and that's why Congress needs the power to decide."

Scholten said that she has questions about what's happening among leadership behind-the-scenes.

"We do hope that Mike Johnson will answer it and not deflect as he often does, saying 'I don't know anything about that.' It's his decision. We had the votes for it today and I'm not one to speculate, but I do believe that's why he probably pulled it because I think we could have got it done today. And that's unfortunate. It's a disservice to the American people."

Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) tells reporters Thursday that House Speaker Mike Johnson pulled a scheduled War Powers resolution vote.

“They just pulled it, unconscionably. It is beyond time that we address this issue.”

🎥 @MattLaslo pic.twitter.com/uTWTV9Vzdv
— Nicole Charky-Chami (@NicoleCharky) May 22, 2026

Trump sued after ordering coal plant to stay open — that's now releasing mercury into air

The Trump administration forced a Michigan coal plant to stay open, citing an “energy emergency," which has now led to hazardous emissions, according to The New York Times on Friday.

Michigan and environmental groups have decided to take the Energy Department to court, claiming Secretary Chris Wright's emergency order keeping a decades-old coal plant operating is illegal, The Times reported. The J.H. Campbell power station in West Olive, Michigan, was supposed to shut down in May 2025, but Wright pulled a last-minute move — claiming a Midwest power crisis demanded immediate action.

The battle now rages at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Wright's controversial order has been renewed multiple times and extended to four other coal plants nationwide, sparking fury from clean energy advocates.

The Department of Justice has argued that the Energy Department was responding to "a surge in demand from data centers and the specter of power cuts" and acting "within its rights under federal law," The Times added.

Robert N. Stander, deputy assistant attorney general, told The Times that the law the Trump administration invoked is used during emergencies.

"The secretary of energy is not required to wait for a blackout to happen," Stander said.

Keeping coal plants operating in the United States is costly — reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, according to The Times.

"Michigan’s petition said households and businesses would face higher electricity bills because of the order there, as well as increased air pollution," The Times reported.

The move to close the Campbell plant was "part of a long-term and multipart strategy to preserve coal and other fossil fuel generation under the guise of grid-reliability concerns," according to the state's attorney general petition.

"Burning coal creates hazardous emissions, including fine particles that when inhaled raise the risk of heart attacks, asthma, cancer and other conditions," according to The Times. "Coal also emits about twice as much planet-warming carbon dioxide as natural gas when burned for energy, and coal plants are the single largest source nationwide of emissions of mercury, a particularly potent neurotoxin."

WSJ scoffs at Trump's Indiana win as 'grim' signs of broader GOP losses mount

The Wall Street Journal editorial board isn't all that impressed with Trump's successful effort to boot Republican state lawmakers who opposed his redistricting efforts in Indiana.

"The media scorekeepers have declared that President Trump remains the king of the Republican Party, after he helped to oust at least five GOP Indiana Senators, out of seven targeted Tuesday," the WSJ board wrote in a column on Wednesday. "The important question is whether his kingdom will shrink after November."

With the November midterms coming up, Trump's victory in Indiana doesn't change the fact that the House districts there are split 7-2, compared to the 9-0 map Trump wanted in place to give the GOP two seats.

On top of that, "Trump carried only 59 percent of the state's vote in 2024," and Trump's current approval ratings are sinking.

"Trump's approval rating is grim," the WSJ board wrote. "But hey, he can still rule in Indiana primaries."

The WSJ board noted that on Tuesday, Michigan also had an election to fill a vacant seat, and the GOP had nothing to boast there.

"Michigan Republicans lost a chance to break Democratic control of their 19-18 state Senate," the board wrote. "Democrats are widening their margin in the national generic ballot."

JD Vance was in Iowa earlier in the week too, which led the WSJ to point out that the GOP faces serious losses there as well as "tariff damage to the farm economy could cost the GOP two House seats and maybe the governorship."

New details emerge in synagogue attack in Michigan

The suspect who rammed his vehicle into a Detroit-area synagogue was killed by a security guard, and his vehicle apparently caught fire from reported explosives inside.

The armed suspect had a rifle and reportedly drove his car through the doors at the location into a hallway, said Sheriff Michael Bouchard of Oakland County, Michigan. His name was not immediately released.

Multiple security guards were at the location during the incident, Bouchard said. One of the security guards was hospitalized with injuries after he was hit by the vehicle. He was expected to recover. No other injuries were reported.

"Something ignited in the vehicle," Bouchard said.

The sheriff added that bomb squad investigators were wearing gas masks, looking for other explosive devices or improvised explosive devices, and sent dogs to check the area. Smoke was rising from the location as law enforcement was responding to the area and clearing the fire.

"I’m told by law enforcement source that the suspected shooter at the Michigan synagogue was armed with a rifle, rammed a vehicle into the building and was killed in shootout w/ armed security. I’m told vehicle caught on fire and the suspect’s body is burned. No ID yet," Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin wrote on X.

Law enforcement was uniting families with their children and clearing the area.

These states avoided ICE as Trump eyes a bigger prize

Last month it was Greenland. This month it’s Nevada’s election. Donald Trump’s always trying to grab something he has no right to grab.

One way Trump could help assure Republicans retain their grasp of both the House and Senate would be to do something about the cost of living.

But affordability obviously bores him.

So instead of focusing on that, Trump has been bloviating about how he wants to “nationalize the voting” and take charge of elections in multiple states.

“We should take over the voting in at least 15 places,” he said.

He hasn’t named all of them. But you know Nevada’s on his list.

It always is.

Trump began trying — by lying — to undermine democracy in Nevada and discredit the state’s election procedures (and workers) during the 2020 campaign, when it dawned on him that Joe Biden would beat him in Nevada, just as Hillary Clinton beat him in Nevada in 2016.

Trump’s been attacking Nevada voters and their elections ever since, most infamously by organizing an attempted smash and grab on Jan. 6, 2021. The criminal assault on the Capitol was an attack on democracy and the rights of voters in the entire nation. But the voters most directly violated by Trump’s insurrection were voters in Nevada and the six other states where Trump ordered fake electors to send fake certificates to Congress. It was the votes from those states that Trump tried to nullify.

Currently Nevada is one of the states Trump’s weaponized and paradoxically named Department of Justice is suing and badgering to obtain confidential data about voters. It’s part of Trump’s effort to intimidate officials into disenfranchising voters who might be deemed not reliably MAGA by Trump minions.

In the hands of the Trump administration, the data of course would also be bitterly twisted through lies and deceit into false allegations built around one of Trump’s favorite fictional characters, the mythical non-citizen voter.

In addition to whipping up fear and loathing among one part of America for the other, DOJ harassment of Nevada also is a malicious effort to throw more shade on an election system Trump has spent years trying — and lying —so hard to destroy.

In his bellowing this week about wanting to “nationalize” the elections, Trump is echoing a performance he gave for a few news cycles in August. Announcing he was going to get rid of mail ballots — a declaration he said was inspired by one of his flirty chats with Vladimir Putin, no less — Trump said on Truth Social:

“…the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”

Trump’s proclamation, rendered in his customary off-with-their-heads Queen-of-Hearts dramatics, prompted state election officials, including Nevada’s, to point out that the Constitution of the United States explicitly empowers states to administer elections.

You might expect a governor to be protective of rights authorized to states in the Constitution — as a former Nevada Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, was this week.

“Nevada has the capability and experience to conduct elections in every county, and I trust our state is best equipped to collect ballots, count votes and certify our elections,” Sandoval said, in his capacity as co-chair of Democracy Defense Project in Nevada.

Current Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, by contrast, said nothing.

To be fair, for Lombardo, when it comes to protecting his state from Trump, saying nothing might be an improvement.

During Trump’s holy war against mail ballots last summer, in which Trump was declaring states “must do” whatever he says, Lombardo gushed “I would — of course — support President Trump’s efforts to end universal mail-in voting.”

“Ooh, but Lombardo must be Trump-whispering and that’s the only reason ICE isn’t going bonkers in Nevada like it has been in Minnesota,” is a thing people seem to think.

Maybe so, maybe no.

It’s worth noting there has also been no Minnesota-style ICE “surge” in Arizona, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or North Carolina. All are battleground states like Nevada, some with substantial immigrant populations, none with a Republican governor.

Also worth noting: though the first year of Trump’s second term seems to have been very, very long, he’s got three more.

And yet another thing worth noting is a statement Tuesday by Steve Bannon, a member of Trump’s shadow cabinet of right-wing media personalities who seem to have as much sway with the president as his official cabinet of, well, right-wing media personalities:

“You’re damn right we’re gonna have ICE surround the polls come November.”

Trump’s role models are not just autocratic kleptocrats (or kleptocratic autocrats) but mob bosses, so he threatened to take Greenland “the easy way” or “the hard way.”

Greenland, Denmark, and the other NATO nations stood up to him, and he declared a phony victory and backed off.

Standing up to Trump can work, as Europe, China, Brazil, the Wall Street Journal, Jerome Powell, Harvard, and Minnesota, to name a few, have demonstrated.

Sucking up to Trump is pointless, because he can’t be trusted.

Not only is there no guarantee that sucking up to Trump works. It’s also unforgivable public policy.

Whatever consideration Trump gives to international relations, tariffs, interest rates, snooty universities, or whatever other shiny object momentarily attracts his diminishing faculties, the central issue that has always been dearest in his heart — a priority both overriding and underlying the actions and edicts of His Malevolence — is democracy’s destruction.

If he’s allowed to accomplish that, then destroying other things — Congress, the courts, the Constitution, the press, your freedom, your rights, your savings, your safety — and attaining supreme authority over the U.S. (or what’s left of it) comes easy.

Hugh Jackson is editor of the Nevada Current, part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

Swing-state Republicans just clearly signaled Trump's next ICE target

Before Michigan ever sees federal officers flood our streets, before another video shocks the conscience, the warning signs are already here — and they are coming from inside our own state government.

As Michigan Advance reported last week, a group of Michigan House Republicans has now openly threatened the funding of state courts if the Michigan Supreme Court adopts a rule that would have the effect of limiting most immigration arrests in courthouses.

In other words, lawmakers are signaling that judicial independence itself is conditional and that courts will be punished for attempting to protect basic access to justice.

This is not a side issue. It is the canary in the coal mine.

Courts are where people go to comply with the law. Threatening to turn those spaces into traps, or to defund them for refusing to do so, is not about public safety or “law and order.” It is about coercion. And it tells us exactly how unprepared Michigan Republicans are to meet a moment when federal power is increasingly exercised without restraint.

That context matters, because the apparent murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis should end any lingering illusion that what is happening elsewhere cannot happen here. Video evidence shows Pretti stepping in to help two women who were being maced by federal immigration officers. For that act, he was set upon by officers, beaten and disarmed of a weapon he was legally licensed to carry. All evidence indicates he never brandished that gun, but at least one federal agent shot him to death.

Whatever euphemisms are offered in the days ahead, what the public saw was not restraint. It was escalation. And it should force a reckoning well beyond Minneapolis.

Michigan must be ready to respond to a similar surge by the Trump administration here.

Ready does not mean issuing statements after the fact. Ready means our leaders deciding now where they will stand, and what they will do, when federal power arrives without restraint and demands compliance.

The hardest question for our leaders is also the most personal: Are we prepared, like Alex Pretti, to place their bodies between what has clearly become an unrestrained mob and our fellow citizens?

That question isn’t rhetorical. It’s a measure of civic courage, and it does not apply only to people in the street. It applies to those in office, those with badges, and those with microphones.

This is where the threat to court funding becomes impossible to ignore. When Michigan Republicans threaten to kneecap the judiciary for resisting ICE arrests in courthouses, they are not merely posturing. They are laying the groundwork for complacency. They are signaling that when federal abuses come, they will not defend the institutions meant to check them — they will discipline those institutions instead.

This from the same crowd that incessantly intones that immigrants must “follow the law” and “come here the right way.” Arresting people in courtrooms, a place they have come specifically to follow the law, exposes the lie at the heart of the so-called law and order movement.

If compliance becomes the danger, then law and order has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with intimidation.

But this moment does not give Democrats an automatic pass. Opposition cannot be selective or symbolic. Sen. Elissa Slotkin has said she will not vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security when the issue comes up later this week. That is good to hear. It shows awareness of the stakes. But it must be the starting point, not the entirety of the response.

Michigan faces a choice. We can tell ourselves the killing of Alex Pretti was an aberration, or we can acknowledge the reality in front of us: federal power escalating without restraint, and political leaders here seemingly preparing to excuse it.

Threatening to defund the courts is not a warning sign — it is the decision itself.

Michigan’s leaders will either defend the rule of law before it is broken here, or they will help normalize its collapse.

Silence will not be mistaken for neutrality. It will be remembered as consent.

Jon King is the Michigan Advance’s editor-in-chief, having previously served as the outlet's senior reporter, covering education, elections and LGBTQ+ issues. King has been a journalist for more than 35 years and is the Past President of the Michigan Associated Press Media Editors Association who has been recognized for excellence numerous times, most recently in 2022 with the Best Investigative Story by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Cleary University. Jon and his family live in Howell. Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

Media, take note: this is how you hold Trump to account over Epstein

For three seconds on the floor of a Ford Motor Co. plant in Dearborn, a solitary autoworker did what the political establishment has largely failed to do for three months: remind the country exactly who its president is.

As Michigan Advance reported, when Donald Trump walked through the facility Tuesday, a worker in a now-viral video shouted that Trump was a “pedophile protector,” a reference to the president’s long-running ties to Jeffrey Epstein and the still-unresolved question of why the full Epstein files have not been released.

Trump’s response wasn’t denial, reflection or restraint. He flipped off that Ford employee, since identified as 40-year-old TJ Sabula, a line worker and member of UAW Local 600.

That moment — crude, unpresidential and unmistakable — cut through weeks of both-sides noise and strategic silence. In one exchange, the country saw the same man it has seen for nearly a decade: thin-skinned, angry at accountability, and hostile to anyone who challenges him, especially working people.

And then Sabula was suspended.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), whose district includes many Ford workers, confirmed what Ford itself would not say publicly: Sabula was suspended immediately after the incident.

Tlaib didn’t mince words about what that decision said.

She expressed shock that Ford would punish a worker for stating something “factually true,” while saying nothing about a president who responded by flipping off one of their own employees.

“He’s the president of the United States and he did that,” Tlaib told me in a phone interview Tuesday night. “But they say nothing, and they punish him for speaking up … for survivors.”

That’s the part that should linger. This wasn’t just a heckle. Sabula’s comment went to the heart of a question that refuses to go away: why Trump’s Department of Justice has failed to follow the law and fully release the Epstein files, and why so many powerful people seem determined to let the issue fade.

Tlaib made that connection explicit, noting that the Epstein matter has slipped from headlines even as survivors and advocates continue asking when they’ll get justice.

There certainly has been a lot to be distracted by, whether it’s the killing of an unarmed mother of three in Minneapolis, a military incursion into Venezuela to depose its leader or threats to invade a staunch NATO ally’s territory.

But Sabula wasn’t distracted.

That’s what makes this moment so damning. For months, Republicans have tiptoed around Epstein, issuing vague statements about “process” and “transparency,” while refusing to say plainly what millions of Americans already believe: that Trump’s DOJ is obstructing accountability, and that the failure to release the files protects powerful men, not survivors.

Instead, it took an autoworker, with no press staff, pollsters or protective bubble, to say it out loud, at personal cost.

In doing so, Sabula exposed more than Trump’s ingrained cruelty. He exposed Ford’s priorities.

As Tlaib pointed out, Ford planned the visit, brought Trump onto the factory floor and failed to give workers a heads-up. They placed employees in a volatile situation with a deeply divisive president and then acted shocked when someone exercised their First Amendment rights.

Ford could have hosted Trump at headquarters. They could have limited his access. They could have coordinated with the UAW, which Tlaib noted has historically been involved in presidential visits but notably was not part of this one.

Instead, they made a choice, and then punished the worker who bore the consequences.

That choice sends a message. As Tlaib put it, it tells workers that standing up for sexual assault survivors is a firable offense, while accommodating power is corporate policy. It suggests a company more concerned with pleasing a president than protecting the people who build its cars.

It also reveals how normalized Trump’s behavior has become. A president flipping off a factory worker should be a national scandal. Instead, the fallout landed almost entirely on the person without power.

This is why those three seconds mattered.

They cut through the noise and reminded us that Trump, as well as his administration, still treats accountability as a personal insult. But it also means that institutions — from the DOJ to Fortune 500 companies — still bend to protect him.

Tlaib hopes the public will protect Sabula, noting the real risks he now faces for speaking out. She’s right.

We shouldn’t let a factory worker carry alone what should be a collective demand: release the Epstein files, follow the law, and stop punishing truth-tellers to appease an angry president.

For three seconds, America was reminded who Donald Trump is.

And it took a union member and working stiff to do it.

Jon King is the Michigan Advance’s editor-in-chief, having previously served as the outlet's senior reporter, covering education, elections and LGBTQ+ issues. King has been a journalist for more than 35 years and is the Past President of the Michigan Associated Press Media Editors Association who has been recognized for excellence numerous times, most recently in 2022 with the Best Investigative Story by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Cleary University. Jon and his family live in Howell.
Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

Trump warned factory floor meltdown will haunt GOP: 'That'll definitely appear in Dem ads'

A group of political experts warned Wednesday that President Donald Trump's reaction to an auto worker at a factory this week could have repercussions ahead of the midterms.

Trump was visiting a Ford factory in Dearborn, Michigan when worker TJ Sabula reportedly yelled "pedophile protector" at the president who was walking in the warehouse above a group of workers. Sabula has since been suspended from his job at the factory.

In a video capturing the moment, Trump mouthed back — twice — "F--- you!" He pointed his finger at Sabula below him, then he switched to giving his middle finger directed at him.

During a live broadcast Wednesday with CNN anchor Kasie Hunt, former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned Trump that his expletive response, and finger, could have a backlash on Republicans already weary ahead of the upcoming midterms this November.

"Let's talk politics. Don't flip off an auto worker in Michigan with the midterms coming," de Blasio said.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, former Press Secretary of the Department of Defense, also had a similar sentiment, adding "that will definitely appear in Democratic ads."

Sinister GOP blueprint laid bare by these shameless red-staters

Let’s be blunt: Michigan Republicans, like their counterparts nationally, are no longer merely questioning elections. They are actively seeking to undermine them.

Their latest maneuvers, calling for federal intervention by baselessly smearing Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s ability to fairly oversee elections to cheering President Donald Trump’s pardons of the state’s alleged false electors, reveal a party more invested in manufacturing distrust than in protecting democracy.

Put together, these moves are not isolated issues. They form a strategy: cast doubt, sow suspicion, and demand federal oversight, all the while shifting focus from governance to grievance.

'Conflict of interest' gambit

On Thursday, GOP leaders in the Michigan Legislature demanded that the U.S. Department of Justice step in and monitor the state’s 2026 elections because Benson might have a personal political stake — she’s running for governor — and therefore cannot be trusted to run elections impartially.

But those who know how our elections work also know Michigan has a deeply decentralized system administered across 1,600+ local jurisdictions and that electoral oversight is routinely conducted with bipartisan monitors and observers.

What’s happening here is not about transparency, it’s about casting suspicion.

Rather than offering credible evidence of wrongdoing, these Republicans are demanding a federal takeover of state elections under the guise of “protecting fairness.”

That is opposite the principle of local control and further erodes public confidence.

The optics of a state handing over election control to Washington, D.C., are antithetical to stated conservative principles valuing states’ rights over those not explicitly delineated to the federal government.

Pardons of false electors

Furthering this attempt to undermine elections were the October pardons by Trump of 16 Michigan Republicans who allegedly signed on as a false slate of electors in 2020 in an effort to overturn the certified election results in the state.

The pardons, which were wholly unnecessary after the charges were dismissed, undercuts faith in the very system Republicans insist they are defending.

It is breathtakingly hypocritical.

Keep in mind that the Republicans charged in the false elector case were not exonerated. After having sat through hours of testimony in the case, it was clear to me that the evidence showed an attempt to try and overturn Joe Biden’s Electoral College win.

But a poorly handled investigation and an overreaching prosecution ultimately left the judge little choice but to reject the charges.

When you pardon those who seemingly tried to subvert the system and were already cleared of any consequences, how do you then credibly say you’re working to protect the system?

Why this matters

The integrity of elections is built by process, by transparency, and by predictable rules. In that regard, Michigan is among the best, having been ranked second in the nation for election administration in 2024 by the Elections Performance Index.

Released by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, the report scored Michigan at 88 percent on the index, second only to New Mexico, which also scored 88 percent.

The report noted Michigan had shorter wait times for voters, far fewer registration and absentee ballot issues than the national average and a much lower rate of unreturned mail ballots. Michigan was also higher than the national average in both voter turnout (59.3 percent compared to 47.5 percent nationally) and voter registration (91 percent compared to 84 percent nationally).

Yet now, Republicans lawmakers seem fixated not on improving how we vote but on how they can discredit how we vote.

When political actors sow doubt in elections without credible evidence, they are not engaging in oversight — they are delegitimizing democracy.

When they then demand federal intervention in a state process because they don’t like the referee, they are undermining the system of state-run elections that the U.S. Constitution guarantees.

State Republicans’ relentless refusal to accept the basic legitimacy of our voting system aren’t signs of vigilance: they’re warnings.

If we continue down a path where power matters more than truth and sabotage masquerades as oversight, then the greatest threat to Michigan’s elections won’t come from foreign actors or technical glitches — it will come from those who claim to defend democracy while dismantling it from within.

Jon King is the Michigan Advance’s editor-in-chief, having previously served as the outlet's senior reporter, covering education, elections and LGBTQ+ issues. King has been a journalist for more than 35 years and is the Past President of the Michigan Associated Press Media Editors Association who has been recognized for excellence numerous times, most recently in 2022 with the Best Investigative Story by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Cleary University. Jon and his family live in Howell. Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.