When they came for Michigan’s manufacturing jobs, the ones once held by Dad and Grandpa, you didn’t speak up. Because you were not a manufacturer and had no plans to be.

Seeing that the world was changing, you took all the STEM classes your high school had. 

Dad provided a good life working with his hands, but his factory had the jobs of the past. When he asked if you wanted in, it was hardly a formality to say no. 

You, being smart, were training to take the jobs of the future.

When they came for Michigan’s tech jobs, the ones you hoped to hold someday, you didn’t speak up, for fear of being called a racist. 

You were told that your STEM degree was the ticket to prosperity, that learning to code would save you from your father’s fate. Nobody told you that Raj and Jeet would be sent here to undercut you.

The last guy who spoke about the Replacement Theory in Michigan, state Rep. Josh Schriver, was censured, and the media presented him as the most racist man in Michigan.

Even Republicans who talk tough lined themselves up to express outrage that Schriver—that anyone—would dare notice that native Michiganders are being replaced by foreigners willing to work for less.

Whether our factory jobs are sent to Mexico or Indians are brought to America for tech jobs, replacement is replacement. It’s the same dynamic, and the same downward pressure on wages. And you don’t say anything about it because you’re scared.

Whether you work with your hands or your brain, you may wake up one day and find that Michigan doesn’t have any opportunities for you. That’s by design. It’s an engineered outcome. It doesn’t have to be this way.

In 2025, both the factory-working father and the STEM-trained son face the same dilemma. They’re too expensive. Foreigners offer 60% of the quality for 40% of the price. So companies like Ford and GM, and colleges like Michigan and Michigan State, do the easy short-term thing. They embrace foreign labor.

American workers suffer the job losses, while American consumers suffer low-quality work.

Now you see why Rep. Schriver was treated as public enemy No 1. There is blessedly little actual racism to contend with in the 2020s. When you hear that charge cast, its intent is to do what it did to Schriver and anyone else watching: to frogboil you. To force you into silence until it’s too late for your voice to matter.

Replacement isn’t a theory, and, unless something changes, it isn’t stopping any time soon. 

When they came for Dad’s jobs, we all accepted it. When they come for your job, you were frozen by fear. When they come for the jobs of your son and grandson, will you speak up? Finally?

Speak now, or forever lose your state.

James David Dickson is host of the Enjoyer Podcast. Join him in conversation on X @downi75.