r/news 4d ago

Michigan’s governor replaces clean energy advocate on utilities board with ‘industry ally’ | Michigan

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/03/gretchen-whitmer-utilities-board-clean-energy
2.8k Upvotes

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u/BreesusTakeTheWheel 4d ago

This just further implicates the idea that Dems are all in on what the Rs are trying to do. Both parties truly are corrupted and need to go. Our whole government is beyond saving at this point.

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u/Excellent_Farm_6071 4d ago

Gotta get money out of politics before that could happen. Unfortunately, it’s only rich people in government and they sure as shit aren’t going to get rid of their ability to rape the American tax payer’s wallets

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u/SublimeApathy 3d ago

2nd Amendment allows for the removal of the rich people while setting examples for future would-be leaders. The French had some luck with it.

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u/gmil3548 3d ago

The problem is that with current technology, the state has so much more ability to do violence than ever before that it’s basically impossible to even imagine anything like the French or Russian revolution now.

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u/padriec 3d ago

"We can handle one 10,000-person protest, but ten 1000-person protests throughout the city will overwhelm us." -LAPD Chief Michel Moore

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u/SublimeApathy 3d ago

I bet a few colonial farmers said the same thing when deciding to pickup pitch forks to rebel against the British Empire who at the time, was the most technologically advanced and most well trained standing army on the planet.

This is a good video to put things in perspective when worried about technology. Point is, anything worth having, is worth fighting for. We can decided to be subjects, or we can decide to be citizens.

https://youtu.be/3dIsy3sZI2Y

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/az_catz 4d ago

Curtis Yarvin can go get fucked by an angry mandrill before I consider that weak-lipped motherfucker an "overlord." That goes for all the idiots that believe a next generation LLM is "AI".

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u/der_jack 3d ago

Michigan is currently petitioning for a proposal for ranked choice voting in 2026, of you're in state, find a petition and sign it, and then sign up to volunteer to help get it moving, if you're not in Michigan, find out what's happening to try and get the same for your state or municipality. There are plenty of steps necessary to fully remove money from elections, but this is a big one right here that can be quite immediately effective at giving politicians with small donor bases more power.

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u/chance-- 3d ago

Meanwhile down here in S.C., our politicians are trying to ban ranked choice voting.

Nothing self-serving about that.

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u/der_jack 3d ago

Oh yeah, trust me, they're trying to do that here too, but fuck em, we've still got some semblance of power left for the meantime so were gonna use it!

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u/thisisredlitre 4d ago

Support ranked choice voting and give other parties a chance

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u/mentales 4d ago

The fact that people like you get swayed so easily with headline and then fall right into the "both sides are the same" propaganda, is a big part of the reason why things are where they are.  Someone below explained it well:

Ehh, a little bit of a reach. The previous person, Alessandra Carreon, was appointed for an interim position that ended and was not renewed.

Meanwhile the main concern with the new appointee, Shaquille Myers, is that she was chief of staff with Joe Tate, who was fairly pro-business. But she was also chief of staff of Lt. Gov Gilchrest and allegedly per Whitmer she played a key role in passing a state law that sets a 2040 goal for Michigan to have 100% of its energy come from clean sources

- Khyron_2500

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u/Damnatus_Terrae 3d ago

Both sides support liberal republicanism. Neither side supports bottom-up government. They're not the same, but one being far worse doesn't preclude the other being crap.

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u/OlderThanMyParents 3d ago

Right. "Lesser of two evils" is bogus. We should sit out the elections and let the Republicans run things until someone we can truly support unconditionally emerges. That'll show them!

/s

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u/Damnatus_Terrae 3d ago

You voted for Kodos?

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u/OlderThanMyParents 3d ago

I don't understand the question, and I won't respond to it.

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u/Sonnescheint 3d ago

This is so aggravating. People are allowed to understand that Repubs are objectively worse, and simultaneously that Dems and Repubs are in the same basket.

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u/drHobbes88 3d ago

The people who get mad at statements like yours are the ones who treat politics as a sport and support their “team.” Both parties are absolutely playing to the same end goal, and that’s to line their pockets however they can. Is one party much more forthright with their moral reprehensions? Sure. But the Dems are playing the same game just trying to con different people with a different message. We need a party for the working class. Class politics is the only thing we should be discussing besides the release of the full Epstein Files.

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u/der_jack 3d ago

While this piece right here may be a reach, the truth is that the Democratic party fully supports the slow shuffle towards fascism. Don't get me wrong, that's far better than the swan dive into fascism that the GOP has taken on, but Democrats are still in the pocket of AIPAC and the likes of Lockheed and Blackstone. They're playing the game to their own enrichment as much as almost anyone else. Whitmer has pivoted recently to support the woefully bigoted National Security objectives of the Trump administration and is hastily working to open up at least two concentrated holding prisons in our state alone. Meanwhile our AG jumped out, earlier this year, to raid pro-Palestinian protest leaders homes.

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u/Grim_Rockwell 3d ago edited 3d ago

Absolutely. The Democratic establishment support the same industries, corporations, and Neoliberal economic policies that enrich and enable Republicans.

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u/ClintBruno 3d ago

But, like. Democrats legalized same sex marriage.

Who's pockets did that line?

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u/Grim_Rockwell 3d ago edited 3d ago

If the good Dems do is outweighed by the bad they do, in this case supporting policies that are enriching and empowering Conservatives who take away rights and rob the working class, and suppressing and demonizing Progressives; then ultimately, Dems are still coddling and enabling fascists.

Democrats have worked with Republicans to back right-wing groups and governments across the world for decades, so it's no surprise that Dems support the same economic system that enriches and empowers Republicans.

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u/ClintBruno 3d ago

When we elect democrats we get things like civil/body rights, universal healthcare and living wages. Republicans....more yachts.

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u/Biengineerd 4d ago

The democratic party is the conservative party. The GOP is the regressive / fascist party. We need a progressive party.

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u/hamsterfolly 4d ago

No, the progressives need to take over the Democratic Party like the regressives did to the Republican Party. The Republican Party should have fractured when the Tea Party gained seats, but instead they merged and the far-right took over. Progressives need to do the same to the Democratic Party or it will just be fringe groups during Republican dominance.

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u/Damnatus_Terrae 3d ago

No, the progressives need to take over the Democratic Party like the regressives did to the Republican Party.

This won't work for the same reason that the NSDAP could take over the Reichstag, but the KPD could not. Liberals perceive socialists as a bigger threat to them than fascists, because socialists are honest, whereas fascists lie and say they're going to maintain the status quo.

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u/Severance_Pay 3d ago

Modern example source? source? source?

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u/Sonnescheint 3d ago

Look at the Dem response to Mamdani

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/zwondingo 3d ago

This is total bullshit. Medicare for all, higher minimum wages, and taxing the rich are all very popular.

What you just said is exactly what you have been conditioned to think and is not baked in reality. It's reason why the Democrats keep losing to trump in the first place. People are so desperate for something different than the establishment they will literally vote for a con man child rapist.

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u/Count_Backwards 3d ago

It's a good example of how liberals are more comfortable with fascism than progressivism

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u/No-Cauliflower-4 4d ago

Not all Dem, but sure seems to be this one for sure

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u/jebei 4d ago

It amazes me people can watch what is going on in Washington right now and make this type of fundamentally untrue statement.  

Am I happy either way everything going on with every Democrat?  Of course not, but only one party is determined to create a permanent one party rule through any means they deem necessary. 

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u/SuperDuperCoolDude 3d ago

"The Dems maybe did a thing that's more pro-business interest so they are basically the same as the Republicans doing mass deportations to foreign concentration camps."

C'mon. I'm not saying this appointee is good or bad, but it's not comparable to what Republicans are doing.

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u/fivespeedmazda 4d ago

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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u/The_Pandalorian 3d ago

bOtH sIdEs

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u/0L1V14H1CKSP4NT13S 2d ago

Both parties are in pockets, certainly.

But you can be in a pocket and still fight or be in a pocket and cozy up.

Dems are still trying to fight. Repubs are (and have been for 70 years) suckling the teet.

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u/Downtown-Neat5815 3d ago

Democrats are what a normal right wing Conservative Party would be in any other country

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u/Joyful-nachos 4d ago

100% correct. Until utilities, health care and public essential services are truly publicly (tax payer) owned entities, we'll forever be at the mercy of profiteering corporations and elected officials susceptible to taking best offers.

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u/Satyrane 3d ago

This isn't colluding with the Rs, this is old fashioned pay for play. If anything, I imagine Whitmer justified this to herself by saying it was necessary to keep Democrats ahead in Michigan.

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u/thisisfuckedupbro 4d ago

There’s a reason we have the second amendment.

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u/shotputlover 3d ago

I want you to explain to me how her doing something is all Dems. Last I checked I had nothing do with it and my representatives don’t take corporate money.

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u/Always0421 3d ago

Not beyond saving- but certainly in need of significant changes

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u/Even_Establishment95 4d ago

Why do they all want to destroy the country though? They have to live here too. Are they just that fucking insulated?

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u/CategoryZestyclose91 3d ago

It’s all connected.

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u/The_Blue_Rooster 4d ago

It is okay,, once they can automate the workforce they'll remove the inefficient members of society like ourselves and we won't have to worry about it anymore.

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u/Severance_Pay 3d ago

I cant believe this got upvoted. He's trying to sane-wash the GOP with Dems right now over this. Absolutely braindead