How a blue state malaise could spell disaster in the 2024 election

In 2022, Michigan became one of the first states to pass a measure guaranteeing the right to an abortion in the state constitution following the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

It was a resounding victory, as Proposal 3 ran stronger than any Democrat on the ballot, earning 57% of the vote, and undoubtedly helped pro-choice Democrats seize control of the Legislature for the first time in almost 40 years.

Michigan’s measure has now become the blueprint for amendments in other states. And Democrats are expecting to see a turnout boost in November in states like Arizona and Florida that have abortion rights ballot questions.

But ironically, Michigan’s status as a reproductive rights trailblazer could end up wounding Democrats’ chances in the swing state this year. New polling from KFF shows that Democratic women in the Mitten State are less motivated to vote than their counterparts in states where abortion rights aren’t protected.

That’s even after Trump has repeatedly bragged about wiping out the federal right to abortion by appointing three far-right Supreme Court justices. “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone,” Trump posted last year.

Call it the blue state malaise.

Now that the Dobbs decision has become the new normal, with every state making its own laws, there’s the beguiling belief that we’re safe if we live in places where abortion remains legal (of course, 1 in 3 women in the U.S. is out of luck).

In these fractured times, there’s even a bit smugness that’s creeped in among some blue state dwellers that we’ve figured out how to craft a civilized society without banning books or health care for women and LGBTQ+ people. (Looking down on those who hold book burnings is always acceptable, however).

And let’s not forget that was the road Republicans were trying to take Michigan down just two years ago. GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon’s entire campaign was devoted to bringing a “Don’t Say Gay” law to Michigan classrooms, kicking transgender athletes off teams and banning porn (i.e. LGBTQ+ books).

“How about we Florida our Michigan?” she awkwardly declared at a Lansing campaign rally.

Sure, the election didn’t turn out to be close (Gov. Gretchen Whitmer trounced Dixon by 11 points), but Republicans went all-in on their opposition to Proposal 3 and LGBTQ+ people’s existence. And if gas had spiked above $5 a gallon in October 2022, we could all be calling Dixon “governor” right now.

After all, Michigan is still a purple state — and it’s no secret that Democrats are worried about President Biden being able to carry it again in November.

There’s a reason why Whitmer, one of the leading national voices on reproductive rights, has been spending so much time campaigning on the issue with a very specific message: A vote for Trump is a vote for a national abortion ban.

In other words, it can still happen here.

“If we hand Donald Trump a second term, all of our progress in Michigan, all of the work that you’re doing here in Arizona, is at risk,” she said at a Biden campaign event in Arizona in April. “A national abortion ban will wipe out all of those strides.”

Whitmer has also made the case that Republicans won’t stop at abortion and will move to clamp down on other health care decisions, like birth control, IVF and surrogacy. This isn’t just campaign bluster, by the way. It’s all outlined in great detail in Project 25, a handy how-to guide for authoritarianism assembled by the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation.

One of the most chilling plans is ramping up an “abortion surveillance” system, with former Trump administration official Roger Severino proposing to turn the via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into “a kind of snitch network that would collect data about who had abortions and where — and punish any states that refuse to share that information,” according to Rolling Stone. There also is a proposal to use the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act to “investigate” hospitals and doctors who provide abortions.

If that all sounds too terrible to be true, it isn’t.

But I believe that one rarely discussed advantage Trump has this election is that a not-insignificant number of voters simply refuse to believe warnings about what his second term would mean (especially if they come from annoying wine mom liberals, who are apparently the worst).

At first, this seems completely irrational. After all, we all lived through Trump’s presidency — the Muslim ban, withdrawing from the Paris climate accords, anti-trans executive orders, deficit-busting tax cuts for the rich and of course, his constant stream of invective toward marginalized people.

That was all before COVID hit, when Trump seemingly did everything in his power to mismanage the crisis and prolong suffering, like dismissing the effectiveness of masking and extolling the virtues of quack remedies like bleach and hydroxychloroquine. Trump also egged on gun-toting protests against pandemic health orders (Remember “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!“) and exploited his power to reward his friends in red states and punish his enemies in blue states. It’s no wonder a report on his administration’s policies said 40% of U.S. COVID deaths were avoidable.

And of course, his term ended with endless lies that he didn’t lose the 2020 election (he did) and attempting to foment a violent coup on Jan. 6, 2021.

But in the years that have passed, Americans collectively have done almost all we can do to forget these cataclysmic events. It feels, at times, like we’re all still living through a low-grade depression that we’ve all sworn never to talk about.

There’s no national day of remembrance for the more than 1 million people who died in the pandemic — and I’m increasingly convinced there never will be. The third anniversary of Jan. 6 brought migraine-inducing, both-sides headlines like this one from the Associated Press: “One attack, two interpretations: Biden and Trump both make the Jan. 6 riot a political rallying cry.”

And so since too many of us have whitewashed our memories of the Trump era, it’s easy to assume that things won’t be so bad the second time around. It’s so tempting to believe that we’ll be shielded from any destruction if we live in blue states or cities.

Our old friend, normalcy bias, has come roaring back — but of course, denying the danger that lies ahead won’t save us. It’s just a temporary cope, and an exceedingly dangerous one at that.

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan J. Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and X.