Wolverine

How to explain Michigan being Ground Zero for the fourth surge? Well, it's kind of easy.

1) The NYT Hotspot map shows, by county, what Michigan is (not) doing. That map will change, more or less, by the time you go visit, but as I type, eastern Michigan sticks out like a sore thumb. A long time simile for the LP.

2) How about income level? We know, at least the Effete Eastern Intellectuals do, that poor, rural folks have drunk deeply of wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024's Flavour Aid and refuse to adhere to public health measures which reduce transmission. Boy howdy, this map shows that eastern Michigan is both poor and rural.

3) How about education level? Again, the poorly educated also have drunk deeply from the Flavour Aid, which this map demonstrates.

The report which follows below that map is well worth reading, if for no other reason that a later map, US education deserts, maps almost exactly with the counties that fueled the fall-winter surge. It is as if one were a tracing of the other. Eerie.

To the extent that poor, uneducated, rural folk are angry about their situation, and looking to blame the Effete Eastern Intellectuals, they really can only change the trajectory, if not for the middle aged and older but for the kiddies, if they admit they have been electing Right Wingnut politicos whose intent has been to keep them poor, uneducated, and unhealthy. As the ancient adage goes, 'insanity is continually doing the same thing and expecting a different result'.

Of course, those older adults complain that if kiddies get good education, they'll just up and leave the county for Detroit or Chicago or New York. Well, likely so. But, why begrudge them a better life?

Whitmer does her damnedest to keep Covid at bay, and Wolverines try to kill her? About what one would expect from such folks.