They had bureaus in more than a dozen state capitals, including Michigan’s.
#Michigan gridlock series
In 2009 a conservative think tank, the State Policy Network, partnered with a new nonprofit called The Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity to create a series of online publications called Watchdog. The roots of this strategy stretch back more than 10 years.
“You have some policymakers that you want to influence, you want to have them hearing this from every angle, or every direction of their interaction … if you can create a lot of different avenues of influence that's generally going to be something that will work to your advantage.” “When I talk to the policy professionals who do this kind of work, the language that they often use is ‘surround sound,’” Walker told MCFN. Despite a long history of activists coordinating messages between states to influence policy, he said this combined variety of approaches may be “new in every sense.” Where political commercials interrupt television programming, online political nonprofits can become the programming, creating an ecosystem of digital content tailored to their messages, meant to target voters and engage them around their priorities - all while keeping their funding secret and operating outside the purview of Michigan’s campaign finance laws.Įdward Walker, a political scientist at the University of California Los Angeles, has researched how corporations and political consultants use new technologies for grassroots mobilization. Their approach may typify a new kind of political advocacy optimized for marketing in the social media era. Mighty Michigan also runs a private Facebook group with more than 4,200 members, but the aims of the American Culture Project (ACP), the new nonprofit running the page, seem to extend beyond giving a voice to everyday people. “It is important that you get this factually correct and not imply some sort of operational connection that does not exist.” “Various organizations may share vendors, but that is no different than people sharing office space at WeWork and using common vendors there,” he wrote. He was adamant Mighty Michigan is “completely independent” from the other organizations. John Tillman, an influential conservative activist in Illinois politics, is a founder or chair of three nonprofits MCFN found to be producing Michigan-specific content. The Michigan Campaign Finance Network found through an examination of IRS filings these organizations have exchanged millions of dollars and have shared staff, leadership, donors and contractors. Mighty Michigan’s website is a mix of pro-small government blog entries, petitions and a promise: “Special interests have controlled Michigan for too long.
The only other page Mighty Michigan has “liked” is the Michigan Conservative Coalition, the gridlock protest’s original organizer. Nearly all of their content is directed at Whitmer and the legislature. At times during the presidential primary season it was one of the top ten advertisers in the state. The ads appeared on Facebook news feeds in Michigan between 510,000 and 615,000 times, according to the site’s estimates.Ĭreated just seven months ago in September 2019, Mighty Michigan has spent more than $165,000 advertising in Michigan through the social media platform, amassing more than 26,000 followers.
Amid the growing anger on Facebook, a page called Mighty Michigan quickly crafted its own response.įor a week afterward, the page spent thousands of dollars on advertisements urging Michiganders to sign a petition against the order’s ban on motor boating and travel between residences. Gretchen Whitmer extended the stay-at-home order April 9, blowback from Republicans in the legislature soon followed. An array of out-of-state nonprofits funded by some of the same organizations are creating an ecosystem of alternative media online, delivering conservative content to Michiganders in the form of political reporting, grassroots organizing, advocacy and even satire.Īfter Gov. Now some of the same organizations that capitalized on the anger and resentment of the Tea Party are seizing upon this moment. Though it was the brainchild of two Michigan-based conservative groups, the protest itself felt like a grassroots event, not unlike the Tea Party protests that swept the country in 2010. LANSING ( May 15, 2020) - Last month, Operation Gridlock sent shockwaves across the U.S., marking the first significant protest of a state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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