Upper Peninsula - Mid Terms

Marquette Michigan, on the shores of Lake Superior is where for three days last week we dropped anchor.

In 2006 I made a conscious decision to stop being an adult. I sought time to explore. I took to the road thinking of America as highways and state lines on a map. As I got to know better, I began to seek out waterways. In river and lake towns you will find our history, who we really are. You can traverse America using local taverns the way ancient navigators used stars. We spent last Thursday evening in a dive called "The Goose" and I can now tell you all you need to know about the Mississippi Rivertown of Dubuque Iowa.

The Trump Train is rolling nonstop into next week's midterm elections, barnstorming every contested state in a desperate attempt to keep the Republican Party in control of the legislative branch of the federal government.

But what if your train’s on the wrong track and every station you come to is the wrong station? Is that the way to run a railroad?

Opinion polls show America is no longer buying the tone-deaf menu of what President Donald Trump is selling. People are tired of the noise. They want to hear no more on ballrooms and luxury jets - they want instead policies on affordability and health care. They’re tired of elected politicians not being focused on the kitchen table issues that people really care about.

I am suspect of polls - let's wait for the count. But all signs say Republicans are headed to — to continue the analogy — a train wreck in next week's midterms.

Here in the most diverse of battle ground states, Michigan, I seek out Republican leaning voters who seemed to try their hardest to take the perspective of sincere analysis of topics made salient by President Trump in his campaign stops.

On the Thomas Rock Scenic Overlook trail in the Big Bay, MI area Shawna and I met Bob and Joan. Both are residents of Grand Blanc Michigan They were here vacationing in the Upper Peninsula. Both are recent retirees and neither sings from the Trump song sheet.

Bob self-labels as a fiscal conservative Republican. He is a longtime committed member of the GOP but has never supported President Donald Trump, turned off by his crass style of politics and chaotic approach to governing.

Recent surveys indicate a significant decline in support for Trump among those baby boomers who consider themselves traditional Eisenhower/Reagan Republicans, with many expressing dissatisfactions with the President's second term wild and shifting policies. Bob fits this box.

This shift is evident, as across the board Republican candidates in Michigan do not hide their discontent. Republican allegiance has flipped on Trump. His name, image and likeness is considered by most on the upcoming ballot as toxic. Their campaign literature and websites have been scrubbed of past Trump alliances.

Bob says it’s normal for candidates to break with their party leader at times of low polling. When you have a popular president, you want to hook your train right to him, but when you don’t, you want to unhook it. "And that’s what we’re seeing right now," he says. "Unpopular president, you want to run away from him.”

In recent weeks, the president’s approval rating has regularly dipped well below 40%.

While pragmatic in is his opposition to DJT, his partner, Joan's disdain for the current President takes on more existential terms. She is a retired special education teacher and demands of her elected officials both empathy for the less fortunate and accountability to the law. She says those foundations have driven the person she is, how she lives her life.

She admits with a grin that often her and Bob will on election days cancel each other's vote. "Bob won't admit it, but on social issues, we are both progressives." But on economic policies, she concedes, they have had some spirited debates.

“The lack of trust in our government, the lack of trust in each other and seeing each other as enemies based just on, you know, the color of your skin, the religion you practice, who you voted for,” she tells me, is the sad state of current politics she says the Trump movement has spawned.

“I worry about just the basic foundations of this nation after Trump is gone. He has done so much damage to the core of who we are as a nation. It makes me very sad."

When I ask what she hopes to see come from the results of the midterms, she does not hesitate. "We need to elect people with a spine to stand up to Trump." As a collective people, she says, we should all be alarmed at the current expanding, unchecked executive power. "Rules and laws are broken, and no one stops Trump from doing what he wants. I hope the midterms send a clear (grass roots) message to Congress that we want our country back."