MLive articles on the DeVos family continues the tradition of acting as stenographers to power

On October 14, MLive posted two articles about the DeVos family, primarily around their funding of political candidates and other political funding in general over the last decade.

As someone who has devoted a great deal of energy over the past several decades to monitoring the DeVos family, these two MLive articles only cover the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how the DeVos family uses their money to influence politics, particularly in Michigan.

Let’s start with the primary article, headlined, Billionaire DeVos family has poured nearly $12 million into 2024 election.

This article begins with some superficial commentary about the total amount the DeVos family has contributed over the years, but then the story shifts a bit to say: 

The prominent Michigan family hasn’t kept the wealth to itself. Seven DeVos family foundations have given nearly $839 million to hundreds of nonprofits over the past decade. They’ve helped finance major developments in downtown Grand Rapids.

This sounds like apologetics to me, where the MLive writer seeks to paint the DeVos family has doing “good” through their foundations and with the money they have pumped into the downtown development projects in Grand Rapids. This overly simplistic defense of the DeVos family not only exposes the bias of the MLive writer, it is completely false. The DeVos family foundations have contributed a lot of money to non-profits over the last decade, but the bulk of these contributions have gone to higher education (to influence campus policies/departments), far right think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute or to religious groups that seek to impose religion on the public arena. I have been monitoring their foundations over the past decade, on an annual basis, just go to this link.

On the matter of financing major developments in downtown Grand Rapids, the MLive writer omits the fact that in almost every instance, public funding of development projects has outweighed what the DeVos family has contributed. Just look at the most recent example, where the DeVos and Van Andel proposed development project, with the total cost is likely to be $738 million, these families want $544 million in public subsidies.

There are other major omissions in the main MLive article, such as the section on the Michigan Freedom Network. The Michigan Freedom Network is the political action committee of the Michigan Freedom Fund, which was created by the DeVos family, something that was conveniently left out of the article. In fact, the person who ran the Michigan Freedom Fund a few years ago was Greg McNeilly, a longtime DeVos political operative, who now runs the Windquest Group, which is part of Dick and Betsy’s empire.

The article also mentions the Great Lakes Education Project, which the DeVos family has contributed to, but fails to acknowledge that the the Great Lakes Education Project was created by the DeVos family after Michigan defeated a school vouchers ballot initiative in 2000.

The remainder of the MLive article looks at campaign finances from the DeVos family around campaigns in Michigan for federal offices and State races. Unfortunately, the MLive article omits the amount of money that the DeVos family has contributed to Kent County and Grand Rapids City politics in recent years. 

If we look at how much of their wealth they have spent just since the 2022 election, even that amount is pretty staggering. In the 2022 election GRIID documented that the DeVos family contributed $12,304,750.00 to candidates running for office and for ballot initiatives.

When it comes to Kent County election campaign contributions in 2022, the DeVos family spent $60,900.00, which was also the largest amount from any one group in Kent County. In addition, for the Grand Rapids City Commission races, the DeVos family contributed $9450.00 to one candidate in the 1st Ward and $9450.00 to one candidate in the 3rd Ward. 

So far in the 2024 election, the DeVos family has contributed $264,000 for just 4 Kent County candidates, which include the County Clerk, County Treasurer, County Prosecutor and the Kent County Sheriff, all of which are running as Republicans.

The second MLive article, which is headlined, Dick and Betsy DeVos fund controversial, pro-Trump sheriffs program, is a bit misleading, since the article covers more than the pro-Trump sheriff’s program.

The major omission in the first part of the second MLive article on the DeVos family, is their failure to look at the larger context of the recent public scrutiny of policing in this country. The Black Lives Matter movement made policing an issue, primarily since the police shot and killed Michael Brown over a decade ago. Ever since then, there has been a push the billionaire class to fund policing, since the cops are a necessary component to protect the interests of the billionaires like the DeVos family. 

There is also a section about the legacy of funding conservative causes. MLive relies on former Michigan Governor John Engler to defend the DeVos family, so much so that they don’t challenge his assertions. The article sates: But the other foundations funded by the second generation of the DeVos family don’t evince the same level of enthusiasm for building conservative political institutions.

This is simply not true and I would challenge anyone to actually look at all of the articles I have written about how the DeVos family foundations have contributed to conservative causes over the past decade, which you can read in the section on DeVos foundations in my ever-growing document, the DeVos Family Reader.

Now, I’m sure that the MLive writer thinks that they are shinning the light on the most powerful family in West Michigan. The reality is, these two article continue to frame the DeVos family in a positive light, with only mild partisan influences, but fails to discuss the ideology that has driven the DeVos family to impose their worldview on the rest of us and the harm it has done over the decades.