Detroit Metropolitan Airport is a leftist utopia. Everything is pre-packaged, arbitrary rules are strictly enforced, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s voice even blares over the loudspeakers.
Let me explain. Airports are cities unto themselves. They are always regulated by county- or city-port authorities and almost always located within or adjacent deep blue urban hubs. They even have special police forces and federal TSA security apparatchiks enforcing terminal access.
Once a traveler is past the checkpoint, and has to hurriedly repack bags, replace shoes and belts, and find their gate, that’s when the real anxiety sets in.
But shouldn’t all this safety and caution make being at the airport comfortable? It definitely has the opposite effect.
When faced with overt government regulation, travelers are forced through a slightly humiliating screening process, as frequent flyers pay for quicker security sweeps.
Travelers at DTW, hustling to their gates, also hear the constant voice of Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson talking on a recorded loop, giving reminders, warnings, updates. Real ID something something. It’s barely intelligible on the outdated speaker system. She lectures us on how we don’t have the right kind of ID, calling to mind vaccine cards. Good God, make it stop.
The Real ID Act was signed into law 20 years ago as a means to set minimum safety standards within air travel. A security pre-approval, if you will, but what it really appears to be is a state (and federal) cash grab to force adults over the age of 18 to get brand new state ID cards that are somehow harder to falsify.
Also, given that she’s running for governor, aren’t these announcements political ads? Is DTW offering her in-kind donations? And given the well-studied subliminal nature of constantly running voiceovers pinging through DTW’s corridors, could these ads be seen as a cunning tactic to manipulate voters prior to an election?
There is also the materialism of the airport. The McNamara and Evans terminals look less like airports and more like suburban malls. The PGA Tour Shop, Johnston & Murphy, Estee Lauder, Brookstone, and iStore Express. These are global brands for a super-striver consumer. But it’s a command economy with a neoliberal flavor. Travelers are captured and repeatedly price gouged due to a lack of competition.
With all these factors, DTW is one hellish place.
Infrequent flyers are stressed out and cantankerous from the uncertainty of possibly having to check a second bag they’re attempting to sneak on board, which creates conditions that result in the viral videos of airport fights.
Giving a rude TSA agent a hard time, bitching to an airline attendant—refusing to go with the program does not play well in a heavily policed and fortified airport.
Hustling through DTW can feel like a dystopian nightmare. On a recent flight from Detroit to Washington D.C., I stood momentarily past the post-security threshold and took in the landscape. Masses of travelers walking past me, AirPods in, gazing down into their phones. Disconnected from each other and the world.
Surrounded by unbridled consumerism in the form of signs and ads, the voice of Benson chiding me with the desired plan of action. All of it felt ripped from the obscure but classic George Lucas film “THX 1138.”
DTW encompasses almost eight square miles, with terminals named after prominent former and current Democrat politicians, policed and secured by public-sector-union employees, administered and controlled by a board of political appointees by Gov. Whitmer, and with a daily soundtrack of Jocelyn Benson’s voice.
It’s a world Democrats exercise total control over.
Do you like being there? Even for a minute?
Jay Murray is a writer for Michigan Enjoyer and has been a Metro Detroit-based professional investigator for 22 years. Follow him on X @Stainless31.
