Media says voting threatens democracy - Don Surber

Media says voting threatens democracy - Don Surber

"The Jeff Bezos WaPost sent two reporters to Grand Haven, Michigan, a town of 11,011 people and the county seat of Ottawa County. 

Their job was to do his newspaper’s version of a story in Politico in February, “What It Looks Like When the Far Right Takes Control of Local Government.”...
“Ottawa County offers a glimpse of what happens when one of the building blocks of American democracy is consumed by ideological battles.”

The Post story began, “The eight new members of the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners had run for office promising to ‘thwart tyranny’ in their lakeside Michigan community of 300,000 people.
“In this case the oppressive force they aimed to thwart was the county government they now ran. It was early January, their first day in charge. An American flag held down a spot at the front of the board’s windowless meeting room. Sea-foam green carpet covered the floor.
“The new commissioners, all Republicans, swore their oaths of office on family Bibles. And then the firings began. Gone was the lawyer who had represented Ottawa County for 40 years. Gone was the county administrator who oversaw a staff of 1,800. To run the health department, they voted to install a service manager from a local HVAC company who had gained prominence as a critic of mask mandates.”...

• People elected an overwhelming majority of 8 new Republican commissioners (out of 11 commissioners) that the Jeff Bezos newspaper did not like. 
• They made changes that the newspaper did not like, and so the Jeff Bezos Post said this threatened “the building blocks of American democracy.”

One of the changes made was to the county’s motto “that sat atop the county’s website and graced its official stationery.”

• The 186-year-old county adopted that motto — Where You Belong — six years ago.
• The new one is Where Freedom Rings.

Freedom must be a threat to democracy, too...