Koch brothers want to kill Grand Bargain, deepen East-West divide
It was hip-hop icon and “Poetic Justice” actor Tupac Shakur who recorded “Me Against the World,” to underscore the difficulties of his childhood, which to a large extent mirrors the challenges most African-American youth experience in declining neighborhoods and other places that offer no hope. Sometimes the only activity going on in those environments is the sound of bullets as we’ve seen in Detroit in the last three years, where some young people were maimed and babies found burned in abandoned homes.
In a greater sense, Shakur’s lyrics carry some symbolic meaning from a street poet because he talks about being extremely worried about the dangers in his neighborhood. Feeling stressed, he doesn’t want to make excuses, yet his vision is blurred, forcing him to ask the fundamental question, “Will I live? “Because no one in the world loves me.”
In a contextual sense, Shakur’s “Me Against the World” speaks of Detroit proper, a city that has gone through many trials and tribulations in the past few decades. A city that in the eyes of some was once a paradise and in the view of others, is now a hell.
A city that has been beaten down for years in the glare of the national media, dating back to when Coleman Alexander Young became its first African-American mayor and still it has not given in to the naysayers and those who refuse to acknowledge the potential and abilities housed within this misunderstood major urban center.
It is one of the most poverty-stricken places in the nation, starkly reminding us of the need for a re-commitment of the “Great Society” programs born out of President Lyndon Johnson’s domestic agenda outlined in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan 50 years ago to address the economic and social malaise in disadvantaged cities due to unequal opportunity, geography and the position of cities like Detroit in the marketplace.
The population recently has dwindled from almost a million to roughly 750,000, causing skeptics to conclude that it’s time to exit Detroit, while sweeping efforts are under way to get people to migrate back to the city as evidenced by the 95 percent occupancy rate in the downtown area.
Though downtown is rapidly becoming a Taj Mahal, while the rest of the neighborhoods are still challenged growth-wise, a new mayor in these historic times, Mike Duggan, vows to revitalize the neighborhoods, the places that give the city its identity, history, culture and communality.
So as Detroit approaches another epic moment seeking to free itself from the shackles of bankruptcy by seeking state intervention in the form of $195 million to help settle the bankruptcy deal with retirees, we are seeing a resistance from lawmakers who are demonstrating that they couldn’t care less about what happens next for Detroit.
The “Grand Bargain,” as this deal in Lansing is called, has become a convenient punching bag because in the eyes of some out of state legislators, anything goes with Detroit. Which is why the Speaker of the House Jase Bolger strongly feels he could suggest anything unreasonable for this deal and it still goes because it’s Detroit.
Who cares?
First, Bolger came out swinging, asking the unions to come up with raw cash toward the bankruptcy deal. Though his request was met with little or no traction from Gov. Snyder, the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council would later announced it would contribute $5 million towards the deal.
After that, Bolger, indicated that in the “Grand Bargain,” Detroit will commit to having the state oversee its finances for 20 years in exchange for receiving the $195 million.
In a perfect world, such a 20-year oversight rule, the biggest string that comes attached with this “Grand Bargain,” would be met with a big “no!” and a defiant statement, but when you are in the situation that Detroit is in, there is not much choice because as emergency manager Kevyn Orr indicated, the city needs the money or the bankruptcy deal will collapse.
Detroit’s hands are tied and it’s almost like the city is against the world, and Lansing in particular where an anti-Detroit rhetoric has reigned for years and has become the political rallying call for out-of-state legislators to stoke the fire of their base on the hot button issues.
One Lansing insider told me lawmakers out of the Southeast Michigan region want to know what is in it for them with this state aide for Detroit before they support it.
It’s almost a dumb question, because this is Michigan’s largest city, and its survival is tied to the health of the entire state. We can’t have a state that wants to do well but its largest city is not doing well or receiving the support it deserves. It’s that simple.
So those legislators should look beyond their nose and put the East-West divide past them and support Detroit. In supporting the city they are making a statement that there is “One Michigan,” and that the rest of the state shouldn’t divide on the basis of region when it comes to helping municipalities that are themselves a creature of the state.
“I get a lot more people talking now about how Detroit is important to the rest of the state than three years ago,” Gov. Snyder told me recently in my office.
“I think I was one of the catalysts that helped change the dialogue.”
Snyder cited an instance in 2009 that he said shows how Detroit is viewed in the west side of the state.
The then gubernatorial candidate was holding a campaign fundraiser when one of the attendees in the audience suggested that Detroit should secede from Michigan. And Snyder said there were some in the audience who applauded at the call for Detroit to no longer be a part of the state.
That sounds familiar because the cries of secession were heard loudly in the wake of the beginning of the Obama era when some members of the Tea Party were forming their own movements to force states like Texas to secede from the union because they claimed President Obama’s policies were not working for them.
So I asked the governor whether this particular individual on the west side of the state was a Tea Party activist.
“This was not a Tea Party thing. This is just certain part of West Michigan. I told him I respectfully disagree with them. I said we are all in this together and we need Detroit to be a strong place,” Snyder said.
The governor said he wanted to follow up with the man who called for Detroit to be removed from the state and find out why he said such a thing.
“What I found out is that it was largely a habit. He didn’t have any real idea of what was going on in Detroit but it was one of those jokes that people sort of make that are really harmful,” Snyder explained.
But those jokes are coming from decades of incorrect orientations, wrong perceptions and false beliefs and equivalence and downright prejudice about Detroit that feed into the tired and long narrative that all things Detroit are bad.
And because political leaders have failed to address the East-West divide since there is little incentive there for them, because it is not instant gratification, perceptions about Detroit continue to linger heavily in the state, and rears its ugly head when occasions that give rise to the “Grand Bargain” take place.
Lawmakers from the other side of the state don’t see Detroit as part of their larger existence. The city, in fact, has been the joke at some of their dinner tables and prejudice the menu at lunch meetings.
That is why the Michigan chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by the billionaire Koch brothers and known as a mixed bag of Tea Party activists, folks who believe Obama came from another planet, and everything in between, is now threatening to derail the “Grand Bargain” deal for Detroit retirees.
The group announced that it is contacting 90,000 conservatives in the state to encourage them to vote against the $195 million deal.
Their plan is to give a serious primary challenge to any Republican in Lansing who supports the effort to settle Detroit’s bankruptcy.
Clearly, this is a blow to Snyder and the irony is that this group claims to stand for economic freedom, a dubious distinction similar to Ward Connerly’s Michigan Civil Rights Initiative that ended affirmative action in the state.
It also shows the rift between the right wing of the party and the so-called moderates.
So if there is one thing that the Mackinac Policy Conference can achieve it is to try to not only bridge the gap but seriously re-educate those with wrong notions about Michigan’s largest city, that it is not the Detroit they’ve long been ill-informed about.
If the Mackinac Policy Conference stands to make a significant difference it should seize the “Grand Bargain” as an opportunity to bridge the divide and explain why a healthy Detroit is essential for a healthy Michigan.
It’s almost borderline insanity to think that a state can successfully thrive and brag about its success without the growth and development in its largest municipality.
We know the reason Detroit is still striving to define itself and not feel like it is against the world, as Shakur cried in “Me Against the World.” It is because it is also a segregated place, and race still remains the underlying subtext in much of the resistance that sometimes manifest itself either in opposition to the “Grand Bargain” or to anything that appears to be good for the city.
That is why the Mackinac conference next week can be a place to re-dialogue about what can bring people together, working for a one Michigan with diversity of thought and unity in purpose.
Bankole Thompson is the editor of the Michigan Chronicle and author of a forthcoming book on Detroit. His most recent book, “Obama and Christian Loyalty,” deals with the politics of the religious right, Black theology and the president’s faith posture across a myriad of issues with an epilogue written by former White House spokesman Robert S. Weiner. He is a senior political analyst at WDET-101.9FM (Detroit Public Radio) and a member of the weekly “Obama Watch” Sunday roundtable on WLIB-1190AM New York. Email bthompson@michronicle.com or visit https://www.bankolethompson.com.
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