Sitting next to each other are two members of the Montmorency County Board of Commissioners. Like all others on the board, they are Republican, which perhaps isn’t surprising in a county Donald Trump won by 44 points in the 2016 presidential election and by the same lopsided margin in 2020.

_{Disney Channel’s Zack and Cody stars Cole (left) and Dylan Sprouse enjoy a pop together…no, wait… that’s not right…
Photo by Ron French}

“He’s the only one in all my years who did what they said they’d do,” said Don Edwards, who listed strict border policies and forceful international relations as two of Trump’s strengths. “So why wouldn’t I vote for him again?”

With all due respect, Mr Edwards, what exactly did Mr Trump do? Did he “drain the swamp” — a slogan he himself derided — or “build the wall” while making Mexico foot the bill? Do you think his inviting Putin’s Russia to attack NATO allies is sound “international relations” or is “forceful” the only metric? How about the big nothing he’d done in North Korea?

Moving right along…

Nowhere in Michigan is as diehard Trump County as Up North. But Trump’s best shot this fall is not only keeping his overwhelming grip on those supporters, but cutting Biden’s base in suburban Detroit and Grand Rapids.

To give an idea of scale, in the 49 counties where Trump got at least 60% of the vote in 2020, he had a total margin of 344,000, an increase in margin of 42,000 votes from four years earlier. […] Oakland County alone had a bigger swing the other direction (54,000).

As illustrated in the last quoted paragraph, the population density is quite light in comparison to southeastern Michigan. Nevertheless, due to advances in broadband, Wi-Fi and satellite internet technologies, practically no one is no longer left in an information vacuum anymore. It’s just a question of doing a little fact-checking from reliable sources — admittedly, not necessarily an easy thing since the 1987 revocation of the Fairness Doctrine.

So why would the uppermost part of the Great State of Michigan support a habitual fabricator and conspiracist who has been convicted of sexual abuse, defamation of character and civil fraud and admitted Dictator-for-a-day?

Compartmentalization, a mental defense mechanism. A person of reasonably sound mind would never vote for someone with these criminal defects. A rational being would never allow a wolf to guard the flock. And yet, many of the fine folk of Elk Capitol of Michigan still hang their banners and wear their MAGA caps, proudly even.

_{Photo by Ron French}

Could it be that the voters of Northern Michigan just don’t see themselves in President Biden. And yet — here’s the part I just don’t understand — they see themselves in the thrice-married, privileged, irresponsible son (a millionaire by age eight) of a New York real estate baron who deferred the military draft four times although deemed fit for military service, who has obscured his academic, medical and tax records, who has lost more money than probably all his Northern Michigan supporters have ever seen, bankrupting hotels and casinos…this disgusting list goes on and on. Trump University, anybody?

Nobody’s perfect.