Transcript: How Trump Is Screwing Michigan—and What Democrats Can Do
Bacon: Let me ask about two different groups. You mentioned the diversity of the state. So what are you hearing from people in Detroit, who I assume mostly voted for Kamala Harris? And then what are you hearing when you go to rural areas? Any regret from the people’s vote? Any rethinking about voting for Trump? ’Cause I assume in most rural areas, Trump did win.
Gilchrist: Yeah. In the city of Detroit, people want results—and frankly, that’s true across the board. If we go back to 2024, what I saw is a group of people, called the voters, who were really frustrated with the status quo and wanted Democrats to be as pissed off as they were about the status quo, or the lack of progress, or the lack of pace of progress. That remains true. I think what people are seeing, now that this Trump regime is beginning to calcify, is that this guy’s not getting us to progress. He’s putting money in his own pocket, whether it’s through a crypto scam—and I’m not necessarily anti-crypto, but he’s putting money in his pocket and putting the money in his family members’ pocket—whether it is him saying, You know what? I want to give tax cuts to people who are as rich as I am but actually take money out of the pockets of working people, and I want to give tax cuts to gun silencers rather than making communities safer. That’s what they’re seeing. And so I think people across the board—in urban and rural communities—are saying that. In Detroit specifically, look, people want better outcomes. People want better education outcomes. And they see that cutting the Department of Education ain’t going to get you better outcomes. It’s the wrong answer to the right question, as I think columnist David Brooks said, which I think is right.
In the rural communities, people have urgent needs for housing and health care. When I’m talking to people, they say, You know what? We need more affordable housing because without it, our community’s not going to survive. I went and toured a high school in Northern Michigan. I’m walking through with the principal, and he was telling me about how they’ve been looking for a chemistry teacher for three years at this school—three years with no chemistry teacher. They had two people who would accept the job offers to become the chemistry teacher. But when they came to the community, they brought their families, and they looked around, they said, OK, let me see if I can find a home that can house me and my husband and my two children that I can afford on this salary. They couldn’t find it. And they gave them back the job offer. So what does that mean? That means another family did not move to the community. That means that another school year went by where kids didn’t have a certified chemistry teacher to be able to graduate.
