From her living room, Gretchen Whitmer has led Michigan through a pandemic, an economic meltdown and even a dam collapse — all at a time when government itself seems broken…

Whitmer is not naturally introspective. Recounting the almost incomprehensibly consequential decisions she was making on a daily basis, she rarely lingered on how she felt or the magnitude of the moment. She was more inclined to review events and discuss strategy, approaching it all with the same practical mind-set and vocabulary she brought to more manageable governmental challenges like fixing potholes. The effect wasn’t necessarily stirring — there was no soaring rhetoric about the need to rise to this historic challenge — but it was oddly reassuring; she was channeling panic into process.

Story length: 6,732 words

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