The politics of today is not what it was years ago. The state is divided into tribes with one for seemingly every special interest group you can think of including left-handed, cross-eyed redheads and everything else in between. Back in the dark ages in the state legislature, whenever the chamber of commerce and its ilk wanted something, the leaders knew they would have an open ear and an easy yes vote from Republicans. Likewise, when the labor bosses at Solidarity House were pushing this bill or that, one phone call to the House and Senate Democratic leaders produced the votes labor needed to advance its agenda.

Ah, but over time, that “sure thing” from labor and business began to atrophy as the body politic in this town took on a more independent attitude.

A sure sign was back in the 70s when George Corely Wallace, who did not have a lifetime membership in the NAACP, came a courtin’ during the Michigan presidential primary. UAW President Doug Fraser was stunned beyond belief when a whole bunch of his members voted for the Alabama governor who won the Democrat primary.

That was followed years later when a former actor’s union president turned conservative Republican ran for president and helped to make Macomb County a household word nationwide visa vie the “Reagan Democrats” who bolted from the real Democratic party in that county to help pull Ronald Reagan into the White House.

And now, for the current metamorphis in the state Republican ranks.

The crafty House GOP Speaker has done a one-eighty on corporate Michigan. State tax incentives for those folks who used to be a sure bet are now summarily dismissed as “corporate welfare” as Matt Hall and company compare their former boardroom amigos much like they berated “welfare queens” years ago.

And irony or irony it is now Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her team fighting for those corporate grants designed to keep them happy and away from the moving van headed to some sunny location down south.

The most poignant example is the so-called MEGA grants. (Never mind what the letters stand for.)

Back in 2008, when the state’s economy was on the recession rocks and the auto companies were on the ropes, it was another Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, who joined hands with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to funnel a huge 20-year tax break for the Detroit three. It’s a giveaway that is still given but now Hall et.al. want to kill it, even though the autos are in the mud over tariffs, EV sales on the decline, and showroom traffic dwindling to just the sales persons and the coffee machine.

He wants the grant money to fix the roads and from a crass political standpoint, the Republicans don’t want to raise taxes on motorists to do it, so why not go after the corporate crowd which nobody likes anyway?

On her pro-corporate white horse, the governor is facing similar problems in her own party as many progressives are aligned with the GOP on the “corporate welfare” chorus as they want the money for better housing, better schools, and the list goes on and on. To confuse things even more, the governor is not carrying the corporate water on this road issue as she has warned those folks that they need to be part of the financial solution to pothole filing as she looks at taxing Amazon, huge truck haulers, and the others. Although no one has seen the bills to do this yet. And the progressives are with her on that front.

See how confusing all this is as it looks like a game of “who’s on first” when the politicians have alliances that are not beholden to one group all the time.

And some good government types assert that that is the way it is supposed to be compared to the lock-step attitude back when lawmakers fell in line on orders from the top. Now those orders are routinely ignored by the rank-and-file legislators on both sides of the aisle. In fact, last term when the House Democratic caucus had a bad case of “let’s ignore the speaker” there was constant private chatter about trying to boot Speaker Joe Tate out of his post. And, at the same time, the same chatter on the other side as a handful of ultra-conservatives were not too pleased with Hall when he was minority leader. The coup on both sides never got beyond the talking stage.

Back in the old days, any such hint of a mutiny would have had the leaders firing the staff members of the mavericks, reducing their office budgets, removing them from committee assignments and if it got really ugly, the leaders would threaten to find somebody to run against the wayward malcontents in the next election. Let’s hear it for old-school leadership. i.e., do as I say or there’s the door bunky.

Dare one conclude that we have a thinking man/woman legislature where you vote your mind and not somebody else’s?