At a Republican National Committee donors event in Nashville on April 15, 2023, Donald Trump told his audience — once again — that the old GOP is dead and not coming back. According to the Human Events headline covering the speech, Trump told the gathered Republican Party supporters that the party “must become the new America First party of the working class.”

Nowhere is that direction more evident than in Michigan. At the recent mid-February Michigan GOP (MIGOP) convention, the “old GOP” was ousted by over 2000 delegates, who voted in Kristina Karamo, a 37-year-old black woman, as the new leader of the party. The majority of Karamo’s leadership team is under 40, and it includes Muslim-Americans and is largely female. This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.

In a LaRouchePAC post covering the February developments, I asked the question, “what next?” That answer is beginning to emerge.

After two months of battling the outgoing donor-class-dominated MIGOP administration — which, to put it diplomatically, is making the transition extremely difficult — the new team unveiled its new website at its first State Committee meeting on April 15. As you can see in the picture above, the website captures Trump’s injunction to become the party of the working class. 

The new MIGOP attacks those who have abandoned Detroit and the working class, takes on the threat of “global authoritarianism,” and calls on all “makers, dreamers and believers” to build and renew the state.

But most singular is the following:

“The Michigan Republican Party believes families should have the opportunity to flourish on a single income — this is the foundation of our future.” (emphasis added)

The need for “single income jobs” has also been LaRouchePAC’s insistent message throughout the state, whether at MAGA rallies, at MIGOP activities, or out on the street organizing in blue-collar communities. 

Looking at what kind of income it would take to do that in 2023 is shocking. Various think tanks have put forward estimates for the amount needed to support a family of four in Wayne County, MI, the home of the auto industry and the city of Detroit. They range from $6700 to $8000 per month! Most auto workers today don’t make that much. But back in the 1950’s, auto workers’ wages made Detroit the city with the highest per capita income in the country, and, as many have said, created the middle class. 

Trump’s Call for a Quantum Leap in the American Standard of Living

Donald Trump wants to recreate that. He has put forward a series of initiatives under his “Agenda 47,”  but one in particular stands out. On March 3, he called for a “quantum leap to revolutionize the American standard of living.” In that statement, he proposes building ten new “Freedom Cities,” which will give young families the opportunity to afford housing, cars, and children! And he calls for baby bonuses to spur population growth.

This “quantum leap” proposal is, perhaps, the most revolutionary of Trump’s Agenda 47 initiatives. But the full scope of his agenda is sweeping, extending from ending the forever wars (and using the money to rebuild our economy) to economic policies which can make the United States a manufacturing superpower again. Yet talking to MIGOP leaders and the MAGA base, we have found that Agenda 47 is largely unknown or underappreciated — when these are precisely the policies which can realize the intention of the new MIGOP.

LaRouchePAC will continue to organize meetings and video-calls to bring Agenda 47 forward and make it the basis for winning back Michigan and other blue-collar Midwestern states in 2024. 

Check out our Agenda 47 page.

If you are in Michigan or any other Midwest state and want to participate in, or organize for, an Agenda 47 discussion, leave a comment and we will contact you.