Metro Detroit is a big place, the state of Michigan even bigger. Even as business considerations have driven the state's two largest newspapers under one roof, as one business entity, using one clunky web design (that takes for-damn-EVER to load), they strive to maintain separate identities. Personalities, you might call it. The centerpiece of the difference are two distinct editorial pages — the News' is conservative, the Freep's liberal.
Freedom!
You can see that on display today, with battling takes on the Lansing demonstration against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's executive orders,
In the News, Nolan Finley cackled that it was "wonderful to see" lines of pickup trucks, flags a-wavin', full of patriots protesting the loss of their freedoms, which includes the right to buy mulch without being pulled over:
Whitmer had the support of the people of Michigan when her orders were perceived as rational and necessary to prevent the rapid spread of COVID-19. Michigan is one of the hardest hit states, and most of us are willing to accept very painful measures to defeat the virus.
But when the lockdown became arbitrary and capricious, when the edicts began to feel punitive and vindictive, when they took on the aura of a police state, the people dug in. If they're going to give up their paychecks and stay locked in their homes, they want the restrictions to make sense.
They understand the difference between reasonable precautions and control for control's sake.
Why Whitmer, who lord knows has enough on her plate for 10 governors, would want to exercise "control for control's sake" over garden centers -- this is a question Finley does not try to answer, deferring instead to a vague charge of "totalitarianism."
So let's swing by the Freep, where Shawn Windsor, who usually writes about sports, turned his eyes to Lansing, too. (What else is there for a sports columnist to consider, in a time with no sports?) He did not find the sights there wonderful:
The protesters had every right to be there and, apparently, the right to stand shoulder-to-shoulder — except for those carrying semi-automatics, who stood gun-to-gun. For the most part, protesters stayed in their vehicles, content to jam the streets and honk.
Yet watching a couple hundred gather on the Capitol grounds — largely unmasked, including state police — should remind us why Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order got stricter last week:
We. Don’t. Listen.
This is not a secret. This has never been a secret. (If people listened, there wouldn't have been so many misspelled signs at that demonstration yesterday.)
But we digress. Our point: You, lucky readers, were privileged to read both of these pieces in your somewhat-conjoined-but-also-separate newspapers today, and for this you should be grateful, because if there's one thing the internet is short on, it's opinions.
Have a nice day.
