Mitt Romney’s decision not to run for another Senate term has a distant echo of his father’s departure from politics five decades ago.

While the state has swung back to Democrats since Trump's narrow 2016 win, choosing President Joe Biden by more than 150,000 votes, Michigan's Republican Party has taken a hard right turn. Ad“All these things were a catalyst,” said Ken Sikkema, a former Michigan GOP Senate leader whose Grand Rapids district lost 5,000 jobs with three plant closures just before the 2008 crash. “Forces of nature take over at that point, and those forces were definitely tilting right, extreme far-right," said Venable, who was state Republican Party chief of staff in 2010. AdNodding to the emerging right wing, Michigan GOP fundraiser Ron Weiser invited Maddock to share the ticket for his bid to become state party chair. All the while, Michigan's GOP leadership has for the first time in memory bestowed legitimacy on its state's militia, long relegated to the shadows.

A man drives into the crowd at 11th and Pike, injuring at least one person, before exiting the car and brandishing an apparent firearm, Sunday, June 7, 2020, in Seattle, during protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. (Dean Rutz/The Seattle Times via AP)TOP OF THE HOUR: Man drives at Floyd protesters in Seattle, shoots one person Seattle mayor, police chief criticized for police use of flash bangs, pepper spray Artists paint End Racism Now on street in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina Romney becomes first known Republican senator to march in protest___SEATTLE Authorities say a man drove a car at George Floyd protesters in Seattle Sunday night, hit a barricade then exited the vehicle brandishing a pistol. The Seattle Fire Department said the victim was a 27-year-old male who was shot and taken to a hospital in stable condition. Police said via Twitter that several officers were injured by improvised explosives.The mayhem in the Capitol Hill neighborhood came on the ninth consecutive day of George Floyd protests in the city. While the vast majority of protesters have been peaceful, there were violent clashes with police and hundreds of businesses were vandalized.

WASHINGTON U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney marched Sunday in a protest against police mistreatment of minorities in the nations capitol, making him the first Republican senator known to do so. Romney, who represents Utah, posted a tweet showing him wearing a mask as he walked with Black Lives Matter protesters in Washington. Above the photo he wrote: Black Lives Matter. We need to stand up and say, Black lives matter.' Above the photo, Mitt Romney wrote: This is my father, George Romney, participating in a Civil Rights march in the Detroit suburbs during the late 1960s Force alone will not eliminate riots, he said.