For two years, since Donald Trump’s removal from office in the coup that culminated in January 2021, America First activists have organized to take the Michigan Republican Party (MIGOP) completely out of the hands of the Uniparty elites. On February 18, 2023, at the state convention in Lansing, MI, they succeeded. This has prompted apoplexy in the national corporate news media with dire pronouncements and threats to the effect that Democrats will now forever control this battleground state. If we take the challenge presented seriously however, we will have made a revolution over the next two years with citizens finally taking power and acting, capably, consciously, and potently as citizens of a republic.

The face of the new MIGOP is a tad bit different from the old pre-Trump stereotype of well-off (usually white, usually male) members of the political class. The new chair of the party is Kristina Karamo, the 37-year-old black woman who ran for Secretary of State in 2022. Her Ethnic Vice Chair is also a black woman. Her Co-Chair and her Vice Chairs for Grass-Roots and Youth are women. The Vice Chairs for Coalitions, Administration, and Outreach are young Muslim-Americans. But, checking the dumb boxes of these types of identity demographics does not begin to touch on the radical transformation now taking place.  All are passionate advocates of Making America Great Again and outreach to every nook or corner of “forgotten” working class America, including the Democratic enclaves of Wayne County and Detroit.  

LaRouchePAC was at the convention in force, as delegates, alternates, and leaders of local committees. We distributed more than 1300 copies of a two-sided leaflet to the 2000-plus delegates and alternates, keeping people focussed on the national character of the fight that will carry us through the next Presidential election. One side of the leaflet was our “Campaign to Stop Bush-Induced Stupidity” and the other side focused on Donald Trump’s unique capability to “Restore Our National Sovereignty and Our National Mission.” As anyone who has been involved in passionately-fought battles knows, it is all-too-easy to lose the forest for the trees of personalities, local considerations, and enemy operations. We made clear that the franchise name for the globalist elite is the Bushies and that the only national figure prepared to take on their policies of war and economic disintegration is Donald Trump. 

A Truly Participatory Process

In the months leading up to the convention, thousands and thousands of precinct delegates throughout the state attended scores of in-person and tele-meetings featuring 11(!) candidates for MIGOP chair. (In contrast, the chairmanship two years ago was settled by infighting between two establishment candidates, with the victory going to billionaire and Atlantic Council member Ron Weiser.) By the day of the convention, this time, two had dropped out and endorsed other candidates.

After a 3-hour-long battle over the rules, which determined the procedure by which the votes would be counted, and which involved a rather amazing display of 2000 people in relatively orderly dialogue, the delegates cast their first ballot. This narrowed the fight down to the top 3 candidates: (1) Karamo, (2) former Attorney General candidate Matt DePerno, and (3) political consultant Scott Greenlee. The MAGA movement was split between Karamo, who had built a passionate base of grass-roots activists, and Trump-backed DePerno. 

As Karamo and DePerno battled it out for the hearts and minds of the MAGA base, Scott Greenlee showed his bona fides as the establishment candidate. In his video speech addressing the delegates, he featured Newt Gingrich and gave his full embrace to Gingrich’s Wall Street-crafted Contract for America. While giving a nod of his head to Trump, he declared that he loved Ron DeSantis. Greenlee had also been endorsed by Nolan Finley, the Trump-hating editor of the Detroit News. Despite a very well financed campaign, Greenlee ended up with 22% of the vote in the second round, demonstrating how little grip the old guard has on the base of the party. The MAGA control of the party is overwhelming. 

In the final round, Karamo beat out DePerno.

What Was Missing

Ironically, Greenlee’s video, and his revival of Gingrich’s Contract on America, exposed what was missing among the grass-roots and MAGA candidates. None of the other chair candidates touched on economic policy. Most of the candidates stressed the urgent necessity of bringing MIGOP to long-ignored areas, such as urban and ethnic populations, and young people, and committed themselves to such outreach.

But, what will spark that absolutely necessary political transformation? Restricting the focus to highly emotional issues, like the culture wars, has long been a Bushie tactic (not that these are not real crises). Keep your eye on Ron DeSantis to see this in action. 

Donald Trump won over the “forgotten men and women” in 2016 with a ferocious commitment to rebuild our economy, by bringing back industry, and creating the kind of jobs where one income can support a family. He remains committed to turning the Republican Party into the party of working people.

LaRouchePAC’s message to the new MIGOP leadership and to the grass-roots who have taken over the party is this: Revive the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, as Trump has pledged to do. Present to the forgotten men and women—the younger generations, the blue-collar workers, the residents of our broken cities—a program for unleashing an economic renaissance and re-creating the United States as a great (and peaceful) republic, flourishing in science and technology.

After the 2022 midterm elections, when Republicans lost ground in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and other “rust belt” states, LaRouchePAC launched Project Prometheus to spearhead the campaign to provide such a policy. Project Prometheus takes the most forward-thinking elements of Donald Trump’s first administration and vastly expands them. It calls for the construction of 1000 nuclear power plants, which will necessitate a revolution in our economy, educational system, and culture. It supports and encourages the acceleration of Trump’s Moon-Mars Mission and the rapid development of commercial thermonuclear fusion. 

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “We’ve been given a party, if we can lead it with vision.”