State of Michigan drew national attention this week as diverse, unheard voices sought help with COVID-19 distress

Michiganders protest Governor Gretchen Whitmer COVID-19 Executive Order 2020-42 — “Operation Gridlock” protester traffic extended south of Lansing Michigan to the intersection of I-496 at I-96 starting with the 11 o’clock hour on Wednesday April 15. © 2020 d2 Saline, All Rights Reserved. USA

Long before “official” noon opening time for “Operation Gridlock” protests in Lansing yesterday, a lot had already been written about it. A lot said, too — including by its target, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. [1,2]

The event was largely cast by media as reaction to an “extension” of her “Stay Home, Stay Safe” directive. In the words of our governor, it was simply to be the latest “inappropriate” political attack against her, personally. In this case, she asserted, at behest of “a sitting member of the United States president’s Cabinet ….” [3-6]

However, getting to actual substance behind event organizers’ concerns, desired outcomes, and arguable public interests served will require a reminder of what federal and state governments themselves have said at the outset about the coronavirus pandemic. [7-9]

To wit: It’s all about “flattening the curve.” [10]

That phrase is so commonplace that it almost seems as if everyone should and does know precisely what it means. But as “press conferences” become more the rule than exception, and authentic experts give way to personalities, additional terms such as “social distancing,” “universal testing,” and “vaccination” have diluted clarity. [11-13]

Too many now feel that it is feasible, even desirable to perpetuate prohibitions against work, keep stay-at-home orders in place until a cure or prophylactic is developed. In fact, however, it is neither. [14-16]

First, as Dr Howard Markel MD, PhD with the University of Michigan explained on March 11, “flattening the curve” involves “individuals and communities [taking] “steps to slow the virus’ spread,” resulting in “the number of cases of COVID-19 [stretching out] across a longer period of time.” [17]

The goal is not a pancake-flat curve nor even an excessively flattened curve. Rather, it is one where “the number of cases at any given time doesn’t [exceed] the capacity of our nation’s health system to help everyone who’s very sick.

If you don’t have as many cases coming to the hospitals and clinics at once, it can actually lower the number of total deaths from the virus and from other causes.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly and consistently rejected calls by some for him to issue a nationwide stay-at-home directive from The White House. In addition to providing examples where such a one-size-fits-all would not only be inappropriate but actually cause harm in certain states, he has continued to challenge governors to attenuate exercise of their emergency powers. [18,19]

They are the authorities closest to the numbers regarding available resources in their states. They are the authorities best positioned to impose or relax impositions on civil liberties based on objective, shared data — in real time. They are, under our Constitution, responsible for running things on the ground.

The President of the United States has further argued that any impulse to persue a curve flattened to zero (and thus, extended indefinitely, or at least until the point of full deployment of proven cure or vaccine) must be countervailed against harm to health likely caused by social isolation and destruction of individuals’ livelihoods. [20-23]

This is where Operation Gridlock organizers felt that Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer left them no choice but to challenge what they see as a dangerous overreach. In fact, a series of increasing overreaches, indifferent to reasonable objections from other legitimate interests. [24]

In one example, they cited her request earlier this month to extend the coronavirus emergency declaration until the second week of June, an act that itself ignores the facts of dwindling COVID-19 fatalities and projection models increasingly under question. [25,26]

Inexplicable inconsistencies in Executive Order 2020-42 itself, which, contrary to many reports, did not “extend” 2020-21, but affirmatively rescinded it. Then: Timed to take effect just days before ideal weather during a Michigan residents would typically prepare there lawns for spring, access to making supply purchases were largely prohibited. Yet Lotto ticket sales continued to be allowed.

Organizers additionally cited an April 15 letter signed by four Michigan Sheriffs in “opposition to some of Governor Whitmer’s executive orders.” Those individuals went on to charge that she is “overstepping her executive authority. [27]

As a result, we will not have strict enforcement of those orders ….

Each of us took an oath to uphold and defend the Michigan Constitution, as well as the US Constitution, and to ensure that your God given rights are not violated. We believe that we are the last line of defense in protecting your civil liberties.

Michigan State Police is said to have estimated that some four thousand vehicles participated in the event, and The Bridge reported “at least” two hundred people were out and about on the Capitol grounds. That’s a serious constituency. And, notably, law enforcement made no arrests for violation of any Executive Order provision. [28]

Saline Journal was there, too. We arrived by station wagon during the last hour of The Glenn Beck Program on AM 1600 WAAM 1600, departed well over an hour past the end of The Rush Limbaugh Show on AM 760 WJR. [29-31]

Contrary to mainstream media reporting and persuasion-by-ridicule typical of too many online chat forums, this was not a put-up show underwritten by Betsy DeVos; Sparrow Hospital Emergency access was not obstructed; and attendees were not recklessly indifferent to the health risks posed to themselves or others due to coronavirus exposure here. [32]

Some have suggested that this will put steam behind talk of gubenatorial recall efforts. Doubtful. While her name was certainly favored among pajoratives on signs, these were not the typical sort of “professional protesters” common in snowflake outrage. Rather, these people were here to advance a positive direction, to be let loose to work; to be justly unbridled. [33]

It actually felt like another example in a growing list of instances where interests from both sides of the aisle came together in suffering the same plight, with concerns raised in ever louder voices (and honking horns) due to having too long fallen on deaf ears.

Interesting that it fell the day after our own Mr Smith Goes to Washington story, where State Representative Karen Whitsett had to make her way to The White House and a meeting with President Trump in order to advance COVID-19 interests on behalf of her Michigan constituents in Detroit. [34,35]

“I did not know that saying “thank you” had a political line,” she said to him in The Cabinet Room. “I didn’t know that. [36]

I thought just saying ‘thank you’ meant ‘thank you.’ And I do.

I sincerely appreciate that, because had you not brought this to the forefront of — the HQ — of being able to put this out here, I wouldn’t be here today to even have this conversation with you and to be able to talk about the needs of Detroit and talk about the people who really need this. [36]

And they need help.

Indeed. At the same time, this is a presidential election year, with Michigan very much a proven swing state. Little is likely certain against the face of that.

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