Macomb County Doesn’t Think Autos Are a ‘Dying Industry’
John James warned that the EV transition is bad for Michigan, while his opponent has been resigned to a Chinese takeover
Politics is the art of turning the enemy’s weapons against them.
Before a fundraising letter called her a groomer two years ago, State Sen. Mallory McMorrow was a little-known lawmaker. Last month, she spoke at the Democratic National Convention.
Before Donald Trump called her “That Woman from Michigan”, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was best known for a tight blue dress. Nothing she’s done since—no law, speech, or memoir that could’ve been an email—has validated her place on the national stage. Trump provided the match, Whitmer lit it.
Congressman John James just mastered this game in his fourth run for office, his first as an incumbent.
An August 2022 Detroit News column was supposed to hurt John James. Look no further than the headline: “James plays to economic fears in Macomb County by questioning EVs.”
A Detroit News columnist, Chad Livengood, tagged along when James spoke at a fundraiser. James told the crowd what’s common knowledge today: The EV transition is bad for Michigan.
“We’re building the Chinese middle class on the back of ours,” he warned.
When Livengood called James’s opponent Carl Marlinga for comment, Marlinga talked himself right into a John James commercial by calling the auto industry “a dying industry”.
Two years later, Marlinga’s words have come back to haunt him. James just released a new 30-second attack ad based entirely around the response.
“I’m glad that Mr. James gave this speech,” Marlinga told the columnist, “because it shows there’s a clear line between the old way of thinking, which is his way—let’s try to save all of the jobs that we have now, let’s hold tight and try to stick with a dying industry as long as we can.”
“Or we can do it my way, which is to embrace the new products of the future of the new green industrial revolution,” Marlinga added.
