What Macomb County can teach us about American politics

B

ack when blue and red were 
just Crayola colors to me, I 
remember sitting around the 

reading carpet at my elementary 
school in Macomb County, Michigan, 
as everyone went around and talked 
about what their parents did for a 
living. Almost everyone seemed to 
have at least one parent who worked 
for a car company. With my dad 
working at Chrysler for nearly three 
decades, I was proud to be a part of 
something.

Although I moved away from 

Macomb County years ago, I lived 
at the Oakland-Macomb border and 
had strong ties with friends and 
family in my former area that gave 
me reasons to be there frequently. 
Up until high school, Macomb was 
not much more than a place I called 
home — full of memories in places 
that I knew almost innately, like 
recognizing my own reflection 
in the mirror. But as I grew past 
elementary and middle school, I 
started to follow political trends. 

Around the same time, I started 
talking to my dad more about his 
time working at Chrysler.

I stayed up late last year following 

the 2020 elections, hearing national 
news networks talk about Macomb 
as a representation of the country’s 
blue-collar workers in the 2016 
election — typical blue voters who 
turned red for the last election. 
I heard phrases like “growing 
disgruntled” and “feeling neglected” 
by both parties. 

Having grown up in Macomb, I 

was surprised to hear this. I felt 
that I had grown up in a relatively 
diverse area, at least from all 
perspectives that I was aware of as 
a second-grader. Although I knew 
my dad had his stresses about work, 
it didn’t seem to be any more than 
any other work stresses I had seen 
in TV shows and movies. Nor did 
my neighbors seem as if they were 
disgruntled; but then again, 8-year-
old me wasn’t talking about politics 
with my playmates’ parents. I was 

curious how far the generalized 
disillusionment spread.

But this sentiment dates back to 

before 2020, even before 2016. Stanley 
Greenberg’s 1995 book “Middle Class 
Dreams” called Macomb “the site 
of real drama in our political life” 
because of its battleground status. 
Between what the media was telling 
me and what I knew from my family’s 
personal experiences, I wanted to 
dig deeper and see what was really 
happening in Macomb.

Has the media exaggerated the 

claims of political shifts in Macomb 
County, or has the dominant ideology 
really shifted significantly over 
the years? Has the area become a 
political microcosm of working-class 
America?

* * *

My 
mom 
recently 
sent 
me 

an article: “White angst keeps 
Trumpism alive in Macomb County”. 
This echoed the sentiments of the 
national media headlines I had seen 
before, but I wondered how recently 

this “angst” started. The way I had 
perceived Macomb County from 
general media, I was expecting a 
large shift for the Republicans in 2016 
and 2020 compared to a history of 
Democratic voting before that.

When I looked at election results, 

I was surprised to find smaller 
margins than I expected.

Trump had won with 53.6% of 

the Macomb vote in 2016, whereas 
Clinton had 42.1% of the vote. 
However, there were still more 
Democratic straight-party voters 
— voters who chose all candidates 
of one party on their ballot — than 
Republican that year. The gap 
slightly closed in 2020, with 53.4% 
of the vote going to Trump and 
45.3% going to Biden, but more 
Republicans than Democrats voted 
straight party this time.

I also looked back at voting data 

and was surprised to see Republican 
nominee Bush holding the majority 
as recent as 2004, with his father 
holding it in 1992. From media 

portrayal, I had expected Macomb to 
elect the Democrat candidate every 
time except Reagan and Trump. 
With this in the back of my mind, and 
knowing the importance of the auto 
industry to Macomb’s economy, I set 
out to talk to Macomb auto workers 
about what politics look like on the 
plant floor. 

* * *

Kevin McWilliams is a team leader 

at the Chrysler plant in Macomb, 
where he has worked since 2010. 
Prior to that, he had worked at 
Chrysler plants outside of Michigan 
since 1995.

As a member of the United 

Auto Workers (UAW) — one of the 
largest unions in North America, 
representing workers in a variety of 
economic sectors — McWilliams felt 
his and his coworkers’ voting was 
occasionally influenced by who the 
UAW endorses.

Thursday, May 20, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com STATEMENT

BY IULIA DOBRIN, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT

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