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"If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people." -- Virginia Woolf
A governor's speechwriter could almost write half the script of the annual State of the State address without any brainstorming sessions, data analysis, or consultation with political advisers, especially when the governor's party also controls the Legislature and occupies the White House.
That's because, even with a tornado bearing down on the Capitol building, the governor would look out the window and tell you it's all sunshine and roses -- thanks, of course, to his or her party's policies.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's Wednesday night speech veered little from that expected formula as she spent a fair chunk of the night touting the work of herself and her fellow Democrats in passing laws and implementing programs she said improved the wellbeing and the future of Michiganders.
Gov. Rick Snyder did the same when he and the Republicans ruled the Capitol.
We shouldn't expect anything else. It's part of a governor's job to cheerlead for his or her party and to cheerlead for the state. It would send the wrong campaign message and put listeners into a desperate funk if governors went out there and told constituents the glass is half empty or nearly bone dry.
Check out the video of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's 2024 State of the State speech below. Viewing on mobile? Turn your device horizontally for the best viewing experience. Story continues below video.
But just once I'd like to see a politician deliver a true, sober analysis of where we stand and admit they don't have all the answers, because none of us do.
If Michigan's governor gave that kind of speech, it might start something like this:
"Ladies and gentlemen, the state of the state is weak."
The U.S. Economic Development Administration says the following:
∫ On household income, Michigan ranks 38th among the 50 states, and we rank 31st in income growth.
∫ We rank 41st in job creation.
∫ We rank 17th in growing our GDP.
∫ We rank 19th in the share of our population with an associate degree and 38th in the share of our population with a bachelor's degree.
All of that might explain why we're in the bottom 10 in population growth.
To be fair to Whitmer and the Democrats in charge in Lansing, while Whitmer's now occupied the governor's mansion for five years, she's had Democratic control of the Legislature for only one, and many of the policies passed last year won't take effect until later this year. Plus, there's a lag to most of the data out there, with many of the numbers from 2022 or earlier, so we can't really say yet whether an entirely blue Capital City has changed things for the better.
Whitmer could make the case -- fairly or not -- that Republicans who previously controlled the Legislature and blocked many of her first-term priorities are to blame for what Democrats inherited last year.
The truth is that, even if Democrats' policies are the salve for our ailments, they couldn't have done much at this point, and probably couldn't start making any real difference in the stats until years in the future. It takes time to move multibillion-dollar economies, for policies to bring in net gains in jobs or grow household income (if they do at all), and even more time for those gains to attract the attention of out-of-staters who want to move here to be in a place where things are happening.
It could take just long enough for the policies to work -- again, if they work -- for a future governor to take credit for the success and tell you in his or her State of the State address that the things he or she did made an immediate difference.
Reality is always so much more nuanced than politicians want you to believe. What happens in Michigan results from a mix of policies at the local, state, federal, and global levels and countless decisions made by individuals struggling or succeeding along in their very own microeconomy.
Whitmer told the whole truth at least once in her speech, when talking about the problems high prices have caused for Michigan families.
"If you meet someone who says they have a secret plan to fix inflation -- run," she said.
I'd extend that warning to just about every solution a politician says he or she will bring you.
Not that our elected officials don't need to try to solve our problems. That's what we send them to Lansing and Washington and our local city halls to do.
But they should be honest with us that theirs is just one piece of a much larger puzzle, that their policies and programs won't magically turn us around, that things take real time and they might not be in office when things really start to move.
And they need to tell us how bad things really are when we start.
Justin A. Hinkley can be reached at 989-354-3112 or jhinkley@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley.