What Whitmer Could Have Said

[Ben Zonia]

This has been circulating this evening on various message boards:

While I don't agree with 100% of what she said, regarding less distancing in restaurants and churches, most of it is excellent.


What Whitmer Could/Should Have Said

She could have said:

Stay home longer and continue to be safe.

If you’ve quarantined for 3 weeks and are symptom free go visit your lake house. Buy groceries from the local small business grocery and liquor store. Fish from the dock. They have been waiting all season for your return but exercise social distancing.

But she didn’t.

She could have said:

Plant a garden! Michiganders get outside and work in your yard. Order supplies to be delivered from your local nursery and spend some money there. They are stocked and ready for you!

But she didn’t.

She could have said:

Take this time to work on a home project. Call your local hardware store and have them mix a gallon of paint. Pay over the phone, use social distance to pick it up.

But she didn’t.

She could have said:

Restaurant owners, reopen but at half capacity. You can only seat every other table and wait staff must wear masks. We want you to survive so let’s use common sense and appropriate social measures.

But she didn’t.

She could have said:

Landscapers who staved all winter for lack of snow - get to work! Book your jobs over the phone. Accept payment via cash apps. Work single crew jobs or small crews where you can keep your distance. Let’s work with local box box stores to have supplies delivered or waiting for you to pick up. We know you’re cash based and aid hasn’t come yet. Be safe but work!

But she didn’t.

She could have said:

Go back to your place of worship! Sit one family per pew, and use every other pew. Practice social distancing but go celebrate Passover and Easter.

But she didn’t.

Walmart gonna Walmart. Costco gonna Costco. Target gonna Target, but our small business owners are drowning and she tossed them a cement block instead of a lifeline.

When will people realize she doesn’t want to help us. She wants us so broke and so hungry and so desperate and so afraid that we turn in our own neighbors, we hide in fear, we stay glued to the fear mongering news, we deplete anything we have saved and when it’s all gone and we are desperate and broken and depressed we turn to the government to save us.

She could have said and done a lot, but she didn’t. Do not ignore the message that woman from Michigan delivered last night, because where she stands and what she’s about was loud and clear.

[km1125]

She could have explained why it's hard to get supplies at the stores because the stores are having supply problems and are cutting back their hours, so even if you do go out to that "essential activity" you can't get what you need and you get exposed anyway.

She could have explained why the state still requires gas stations to include ethanol in the gas they sell, when all that ethanol could be repurposed to be used in hand sanitizers or 70-90% alcohol bottles that folks could use for cleaning, since they can't find any of that stock on shelves anywhere.

She could explain why there are a bunch of farmers who are having to throw out crops and milk when folks can't find these stocks in the stores when they eventually get though the door.