Ditto. Med school lad has been considering a residency app in Michigan. I’ll make sure he knows about them being such an outlier with this. He has many places he’s considering. Not all need to stay on his list. As with colleges, something needs to take things off a long list. He can decide if this would be a worthy reason or not. To me, it’s not “just” masks as the underlying emotions that would make anyone consider that a hill worthy of fighting about. “No, I have no interest in protecting my neighbor - at all costs!” The guns in the statehouse weren’t terribly impressive either - very impression-making, for sure, just not in a “that’d be a great place to go” way.
Popularity is a factor, but so is credibility.
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
“The novel coronavirus arrived in an Indiana farm town mid-planting season and took root faster than the fields of seed corn, infecting hundreds and killing dozens. It tore through a pork processing plant and spread outward in a desolate stretch of the Oklahoma Panhandle. And in Colorado’s sparsely populated eastern plains, the virus erupted in a nursing home and a pair of factories, burning through the crowded quarters of immigrant workers and a vulnerable elderly population.
As the death toll nears 100,000, the disease caused by the virus has made a fundamental shift in who it touches and where it reaches in America, according to a Washington Post analysis of case data and interviews with public health professionals in several states. The pandemic that first struck in major metropolises is now increasingly finding its front line in the country’s rural areas; counties with acres of farmland, cramped meatpacking plants, out-of-the-way prisons and few hospital beds.”
‘Counties with early outbreaks have flattened
“Fourteen counties in New York, Michigan, Louisiana and Washington accounted for about half of the nation’s coronavirus-related deaths through mid-April. Since then, deaths in other parts of the country have increased and are now where most of them are.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/24/coronavirus-rural-america-outbreaks/?arc404=true
stillinfirstwave
I don’t mean to imply that the majority of folks in Michigan and Maine are part of this resistance. That is absolutely not true. It’s just that there seem to be stronger “protect my liberties” groups forming in those states. I wouldn’t avoid it for college or professional school based on a few groups of militants who want to challenge this.
I give credit to the Texas political leaders in this regard. The governor and the county executives are vastly different politically, but I will say they have all urged masks and do not publicly criticize each other much. The governor undercut the counties by overriding jail time and fines for non mask wearers, but most counties had already adopted a different approach of offering free masks to violators.
I just went to the closest hardware store to buy some tools. (This was not 100% essential, but I wanted to replace the very worn-out items that I share with my brother, who lives nearby.) Almost all the people I saw inside (employees and customers) were wearing masks, as was I. The checkout area has been reconfigured, and I think it works better than before, even without COVID-19-related considerations in mind. The clerk wiped off the card processing machine after each use. I was impressed.
I think the problem in Maine started when the bleeping owner of the Sunday River Brewery decided to open in defiance of the governor’s orders. He was loud and blustery and made it clear he planned to sue the governor. The state took away his licenses to operate and he stayed open. A Superior Court judge (the dad of a girl I used to watch in return for her mom watching my son!) ruled in favor of the state closing him down.
He didn’t close down. He kept operating. Several GoFundMe campaigns were started and a lot of money was raised for his defense. It became a big deal in Maine, with everyone screaming that his civil liberties had been violated. So I really think that’s why so many people up here are now defying any and all of the governor’s orders. 
It’s too bad. I liked that restaurant. I will never eat there again.
The ironic thing is that not long after all the hubbub, the governor allowed restaurants in that county and 11 others to open. If he had just held off a couple of weeks, he could have opened legally. The state gave him back his licenses last week. The next day, he was shut down again because his employees weren’t wearing masks. He appears to be open again now. I’m totally confused about his legal status.
What a mess.
MI and ME don’t have the monopoly on extremist Libertarians. They’ve just received media attention.
They are the states most frequently mentioned by the retailers on my calls.
Possibly because they are Democrat governed states with more conservative populations. The conservatives in Ohio and Texas probably don’t want to make trouble for their Republican governor. Although it makes absolutely no sense, this has become politicized.
And yet - 64% of Michiganders polled in a recent survey approve of Governor Whitmer’s coronavirus performance. Only 11% of those polled do not wear masks in public.
The survey respondents who dislike Whitmer and refuse to wear a mask are largely Republican men.
Please do not judge all of Michigan by the actions of a few miscreants.
It’s the stronger “protect my liberties” groups that I personally don’t care for. I really have a disdain for those willing to bring guns out to solve their problems in some sort of “might makes right” mentality.
Those types exist everywhere. Getting organized and becoming openly fanatical is worthy of a cautionary flag to me, esp when there are plenty of other options.
My lad will decide for himself if he’s still interested, and if so, what position it will go on in his final list (that a computer chooses from). It’s a “lifestyle of location” thing he can consider akin to fit with colleges. Many doctors end up staying near where they do residency so it makes sense to pick places where he feels he would fit in.
Definitely a vocal minority.
I was personally in Home Depot today. Not only were most of the customers not wearing masks (we do pick ups frequently) only about 1/2 of the employees were wearing their masks correctly. So I am in total agreement with @MomofWildChild
This Michigan is very different than the one I thought I was living in.
A vocal armed minority.
CT resident here. I haven’t been to Home Depot simply because it looks very crowded, and I can shop local and get anything they sell.
But, my neighbors have been…and they report that less than half of the customers were wearing masks. Employees behind customer service and at the registers were wearing masks, but stocking folks were about 50/50.
With the large numbers in these stores, I’m not sure how this can be uniformly enforced. Folks wear the masks to enter…and take them off. You’d need someone enforcing in practically every aisle.
Now…our local Ace Hardware ? 100% mask compliance.
@thumper1 , the hardware store with almost everyone wearing masks that I went to this morning was an Ace.
Michigan also has some large political donors who I feel are pushing this agenda. Take that for what you will.
There are factions in this state who want discourse and dissent. And want to create trouble for this governor.
Michigan is definitely a state that has long time hunters and gun owners. I sometimes say that I married the only non hunter in Michigan. The first amendment is very important. Do most people I know open carry, no? But a majority of people I know do or have hunted.
One thing about the bogus use of “medical Issues” and ADA compliance maneuvers. It’s true that the store employees can’t ask what the medical issue is. But they also don’t have to then just let them in. Accommodations don’t mean you get whatever you want. The laws specifically mention that the health and safety of others must be taken into account. So a store can offer curbside pickup, or a personal shopper, to do one’s shopping for them. The don’t have to let the person in.