‘Operation Gridlock’: Shutting Down the Shutdown

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LANSING, Mich. (ChurchMilitant.com) - Patriotic Michiganders converged Wednesday to create a traffic jam around the state Capitol to redress their grievances against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for her stay-at-home order, which protestors are calling an unconstitutional political power grab.

Launched by the Michigan Conservative Coalition (MCC), "Operation Gridlock" (OG) attracted protestors from every walk of life, including health care workers, politicians and laborers.

"Whitmer wants Michigan to be in gridlock. We plan to give her a gridlock in Lansing!" reads an MCC advertisement for the event.

The intended gridlock around the Capitol was established quickly. With police monitoring the scene, cars began pouring in at 9 a.m. and continued to pour in from every direction for hours.

"Our governor and her allies are infecting ALL of us with their radical, progressive agenda. There is NO reasoned and public plan to promote our overall physical and economic health!" reads the MCC advertisement.

"Our radical governor needs to treat us like adults (a/k/a taxpayers who fund her JOB) who are aware that we need to take steps to stay healthy. Apparently, she missed that being healthy INCLUDES having a JOB, opening your business SOON and keeping our constitutional rights."

MCC spokeswoman Meshawn Maddock said Whitmer has done nothing to promote physical and economic health during the lockdown.

"There is no reason why she can't be looking at some safe ways to be opening up businesses. Instead of talking about what's essential and nonessential, let's talk about what's safe and not safe," said Maddock. "Safe businesses and safe workers need to get back to work."

Whitmer has become increasingly unpopular in her attempt to push what many are calling a radical liberal agenda and a potential audition to become Joe Biden's running mate.

An online petition to have Whitmer recalled had 250,000 signatures as of Wednesday. The petition states:

Her failures during the COVID-19 coronavirus is causing more Michiganders to get sick. Closing and banning various non essential businesses and activities while leaving others open. Further promoting the pandemic. She has lied since day one with her #Fixthedamnroads which she has failed to do anything in this regard. The response to #PFAS was negligence and completely removing funding for #PureMichigan clearly shows her lack of anything positive for the state of Michigan.

The protestors' concerns regarding the economy are largely based on unemployment. The response to the pandemic in Michigan has caused the state's website for unemployment to buckle.

"It's clear that the system is just totally overwhelmed," said Attorney Jennifer Lord.

"It's got to be overwhelming — you've just lost your job and the safety net that's supposed to be here for you — you can't even reach it if you spend all day [trying to file for unemployment]," she added.

Despite the numbers and fierce backlash, Whitmer has remained committed to her stay-at-home rules, saying recently in a kind of pep talk, "We have a few tough days ahead of us, but those days where we can resume some normalcy, they are on the horizon if we keep doing what we need to do to get past this moment."

How she responds to OG remains to be seen.

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