Legacy of a Nerd

This article was first published on Up North Progressive on December 29, 2018

On Christmas Eve Rick Snyder closed the citizen’s input hotline early to ensure Michigan taxpayers could no longer object to the shame duck bills he signed just in time for Gretchen Whitmer to take over on January 1, 2019. It’s the final despicable act of a terrible human being who barely worked in the office he was elected to for the past eight years. What little he did lift his finger to do caused plenty of damage to the state.

The world knows Rick “one tough nerd” Snyder for dangerous levels of lead in the city of Flint’s water supply, and many will likely think that is his legacy as he finishes his final days as Michigan’s governor. Poisoning the people of Flint then lying he knew nothing about it ranks at the top of horrible things Snyder is known for. Let’s not forget forcing Detroit into bankruptcy so capitalists could grab assets, or forcing 'right to work' in the 2012 shame duck session so capitalists can undermine collective bargaining rights for workers. He lifted the cap on for-profit charter schools so capitalists could privatize education with public tax dollars, project “skunkworks”, the Education Achievement Authority, forcing Detroit to have two separate school districts, stripping Michigan’s public schools of funds, making it harder to petition government enshrined in Michigan’s state constitution, raising taxes on old people and poor people, cutting taxes for rich people and corporations, allowing the roads to fall apart, then raising taxes and fees to pay for fixing the roads – only to not fix the roads with the extra revenue so raid more school funds to (maybe) pay for roads instead. There are so many horrible things Rick Snyder inflicted on the people of this state, calling it ‘relentless positive action’ in that uncanny way Republicans always manage to label their agenda with words that mean the exact opposite.