We can still worship freely.

Baseball.

Apple pie.

(Insert favorite car brand if NOT Chevrolet.)

The damage that Gretchen Whitmer can do is pretty much limited to Michigan.

That of course sucks for my fellow Michiganians, but those are the breaks when you live in a blue wasteland of a state and have been lied to for years by the Michigan GOP about it being red. (Michigan Is a BLUE State and Lying About It Won’t Change That Fact)

After the 2022 elections and the red wave that turned into a red piddle which proved the national GOP had not learned any lessons from the 2020 elections, any hope of fighting back against Bidenomics was shaken. Here in the state of Michigan, any hope we had of trying to keep our heads above water was absolutely crushed when the Democrats took over both the House and Senate and won all top elected offices in the state.

Whitmer cruised to a resounding victory by 10 points and immediately started being talked about as a fresh face on the national political scene as an up-and-comer to be dealt with. Of course, that the Michigan GOP pretty much imploded before the election and has since looked like a smoldering manure pile has helped the Michigan Democrats look a bit stronger than they actually are. (Michigan GOP Leader Admits They Are Half Million in Debt and That Is the Good News)

Here is what I mean by smoldering manure…

“The party is in debt. $460,000,” (state GOP Chair) Kristina Karamo said during the Muskegon County event.

“So that is something we’re working through,” she added. “But we do have funding to get started and get our initial operations going. Hopefully, the former chair will be gracious enough to pay that off.”

The former chairman, Ron Weiser, a wealthy real estate businessman from Ann Arbor, decided not to seek another term this year.

The party’s overall debt can be hard to nail down because it has multiple accounts, some that have to be reported publicly and others that don’t.

Asked about the $460,000 in alleged debt, Weiser didn’t refute the number in a Friday statement. But he also gave no indication he would step in to resolve it.

Weiser said he had given more than $5 million to help Republicans win elections for the 2022 cycle. Like other party organizations, there was “a relatively small amount of debt left over that represents less than 4% of total revenues,” Weiser said.

“Given the small percentage involved, I am confident the new administration will be able to utilize the fundraising plan she campaigned on to raise the funds to pay down the line of credit and make Michigan Republicans competitive in 2024,” he added.

Personally, I can’t wait for the 2nd quarter fundraising numbers to come out for the Republicans here, but that is a post for another time.

So with the Michigan GOP damn near dead and the Democrats in control of the governorship and the legislature for the first time in over 30 years, the progressives in the state correctly assumed now was the time to cram some crap down the citizens’ throats.

We only have 24 months before the next election.

When you believe that you have an electoral mandate, you will pull out some of the craziest ideas that the fringe element in your caucus come up with. Henceforth passing a law to make it a crime to not use someone’s pronouns correctly.

Some of my colleagues here at RedState covered this late last month, Jim Thompson and Mike Miller.

Jim had this to say in his piece…

Under this law, could pastors, or for that matter, a student who refuses to use “preferred” pronouns, be charged with a crime if, for instance, a boy who claims he’s a girl has his feelings bruised? Yes.

The proposed law allows for prison time or a “diversion” program for the offender. In other words, the offender can avoid a jail cell if they agree to community service.

The community service would “enhance the offender’s understanding of the impact of the offense upon the victim and wider community.” If that sounds like it is out of an Orwell novel or a Mao playbook, you would be right.

In short, re-education camp for wrong speech.

If this passes the Senate and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signs it, as expected, the law, in my opinion, will not stand constitutional review. What is most bothersome is that Democrats don’t seem to care that they are criminalizing speech they don’t like.

Mike opined here with this…

So, simply perceiving someone as “having a gender-related self-identity or expression whether or not associated with an individual’s assigned sex at birth.”

And can we please knock off the ridiculous “assigned at birth” silliness? I don’t want to come across as a conservative troglodyte, but I’m pretty sure that certain body parts were “assigned” well before birth.

Both of my colleagues are spot on and their analysis of what an absolute piece of garbage legislation this is.

There is currently a lot of horse trading going on in Michigan’s capital Lansing because the Democrats know that they do not have an unlimited amount of time to pass both abhorrent and idiotic laws before the 2024 election. They can read the polls showing Joe Biden trending downward on the national level, and even though Michigan is a solid Blue State and the GOP is on fire, they only hold a one-seat lead in both the House and Senate, and that could flip. This is one of the reasons why the Senate hasn’t jumped up and down immediately to get this on the Governor’s desk.

Now as for the Governor of the state of Michigan, who most likely would sign this in a heartbeat, this would be the final nail in her coffin of running for anything on a national level. Oh sure, she could become the Energy Secretary or some other post in a second Biden Administration, just like her predecessor Jennifer Granholm has done.

Yet, with her support for anything Dr. Fauci did and her draconian covid lockdowns mirroring the disaster policies of the former governor of the state of New York, Andrew Cuomo, signing a law like this where free speech is penalized would poison her chances of even replacing a disaster like Kamala Harris.

The people that I have talked to that are in around Lansing have always indicated that she has no aspirations for national office. However, we all know that when you’re constantly told you’re pretty and wonderful, sometimes you actually start to believe it, and crazy thoughts enter your head.

The reason why this matters, as my colleague Scott Hounsell and I have talked about on the Red State VIP show Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. here at RedState, is that I think the wheels are in motion that Joe Biden will not be the nominee in 2024.

So if Kamala Harris becomes president in the lead-up to the 2024 election because of the resignation of the current ice cream eater in the Oval Office, would Whitmer be a consideration for a VP pick?

Not if this anti-free speech law passes the Michigan Senate, ends up on her desk, and she signs it.

I actually do hope that they pass it because not only will it be challenged in the courts, but it will motivate people who are not happy with the Republican party here in the state to go to the polls and vote against anybody who did vote for this. Plus, with Michigan’s new ballot initiative law, where you can put something on the statewide ballot for people to vote for to become law by adding it to the Michigan Constitution, I’ve heard rumors that that might happen if this legislation is passed. That action could happen sooner than any court case could be heard, as those things tend to drag on for years.

So as much as I would love to see Gretch move on to DC, I don’t think it’s going to happen, and as this legislation hits her desk, it definitely won’t.

If you have thoughts on this, I want to hear them. Scroll down to check out my bio and contact me in the various ways listed.