Up North Progressive

UPDATE! Tom Eckerle will resign his seat to the Leelanua County Road Commission on Monday, August 10, 2020

On Thursday, August 6, 2020, The northern Michigan county of Leelanau found the eyes of the world trained on them as the news broke that two days before, Tom Eckerle of the Leelanau County Road Commission, proudly said a racial slur in front of the other members of the commission before Chair Bob Joyce could call the meeting to order.  Despite calls to resign and condemnation from the community, Mr. Eckerle refuses to step down from the Road Commission.

If you think Tom Eckerle is the lone racist in Michigan, you couldn’t be more wrong. Eckerle is another symptom of the disease festering all over the state called the Republican Party. Toxic conservativeness, which includes misogyny, racism, homophobia, religious bigotry, and economic class warfare are the new ideals of the people who proudly belong to the party of Trump.

From the billboard in Lake County proclaiming Governor Whitmer is “little Hitler” to the signs in people’s yards cheering on their county sheriff for refusing to enforce the governor’s executive orders, so-called patriots flocked to the State Capital in Lansing in April waving confederate flags, carrying signs with swastikas and barged into the capital during legislative sessions armed to the teeth. They screamed for the lynching of the governor on social media and when those groups were removed for inciting violence they created new ones with new branding and circulated petitions lying about what the petitions were for to trick people into signing them.

Jack O’Malley, the state rep whose district includes Leelanau County condemned Tom Eckerle’s name-calling Thursday night by calling Eckerle stupid. O’Malley was behind the sheriffs of the four counties in his district to issue a press release stating they would not enforce Gretchen Whitmer’s executive orders. O’Malley insists Governor Whitmer is singlehandedly destroying Michigan’s economy and driving people to commit suicide. O’Malley insists children can’t get COVID-19 so it’s okay to send them back to school this fall and adults are going to get infected with COVID-19 anyway so might as well open the economy back up so everyone in Michigan can get sick together. As long as we get back to work, it’s all good.



Racism is a widespread problem with Michigan’s Republican Party. Tom Eckerle said out loud what the rest of the Michigan GOP is thinking. After months of authority figures and residents refusing to wear a mask, refusing to socially distance in public, refusing to follow executive orders to keep people safe, we finally got to see a glimpse of what motivates these people every day.

Racists like Eckerle emboldened by the current political climate say racist things. Call them out on it and will double down. Eckerle won’t resign. He will say the n-word every time you ask him not to because he like the rest of his kind in Michigan believe they’re the real patriots.

The only way to force Eckerle out office is through a petition drive to recall him. We will have to wait and see what happens next. In the meantime, it’s 88 days until the November election. What can you do right now to make sure the GOP is voted out of office on November 3, 2020?