Michigan governors like to talk about one Michigan, suggesting that we are all one big, happy, homogenous family.

With all due respect to those misguided governors: “Ha.”

If they suggested that we were one big, happy, divided family, it would be much closer to the truth.

The recent polling data focused on Gov. Grethcen Whitmer underscores that point.

As you would expect, the state is divided along political lines, as only 2% of the strong Republicans think she is doing a good job, while 71% of the strong Democrats believe she is doing a bang-up job.

But the division goes well beyond the obvious.

The state is split along gender lines, with 60% of the men feeling that her job performance leaves something to be desired, while 57% of the women are impressed with her work.

Looking at education, Ms. Whitmer impresses 38% of college grads, while 27% of the high school-educated agree.

And 42% of those aged 65 or older give her good marks, but only 22% between 30 and 39 concur, 29% of those 40-49 and 33% aged 18-29 and 50-64 disagree with the seniors.

It’s a widely held belief that Michigan is anything but united when you consider geography, as there’s a different culture in West Michigan compared to Southeast Michigan, and everybody knows the beloved folks in the U.P. definitely march to a different drummer than the trolls below the bridge.

And, if you drew a line across the midsection of the state, using U.S.-10 as a guidepost, you would find the residents north of that line are mostly all in for Donald Trump, and, downstate, not so much.

Finally, along racial lines, 43% of the White citizens favor the governor, while 94% of the African Americans agree.

So, by this point, you might be asking yourself, “So what?”

Does any of this mean anything, beyond the obvious, that we are a pretty diverse microcosm, which is both our strong suit, but, from a political standpoint, it’s decidedly a challenge.

All you have to do is look at the 148-member state Legislature, which is a living example of that.

There is no question that, on a lot of issues, Republican and Democrats come together, setting aside their regional, philosophical, and cultural differences to pass what they call cats and dogs legislation — i.e., non-controversial and not likely to cause a fistfight in some bar on Saturday night.

However, when it comes to more substantive issues, cooperation is a tad more difficult.

Over the years, anytime you talked about state aid for the City of Detroit, it would touch off a spirited and often emotional debate. Years ago, under the William G. Milliken administration, the Legislature was asked to allocate $20,000 to study a subway for Detroit. Mind you, it was a study, not a budget bill to start digging the hole, but you would have thought the Republicans were being asked to pump billions of dollars into the proposal.

However, under the Rick Snyder administration, those regional disagreements were set aside, as this town was shocked when a bipartisan vote adopted the so-called Grand Bargain, whereby Detroit got bailout money to stay afloat, but, later on, Republicans were more than willing to force the city into bankruptcy. They could certainly justify that to their constituents.

Whitmer joined Republicans who were eager to reinvent the state’s no-fault car insurance law in order to save money. She took a lot of heat from her Democratic base for allegedly “caving in” to the Republicans’ demands. While Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan signed off on the plan, hoping to reduce the cost of car insurance for his citizens, Republicans were not worried about that.

So, when the mayor and governor inserted language in the bill to stop setting rates based on zip codes and credit scores, the R’s inserted other language that allowed insurers to base their rates on a credit report and territories, which, of course, is just another way of setting urban rates based on credit and zip codes.

Governors have struggled to dampen the impact of all those differences by explaining that we are all in this together and should be working with each other for a common goal, like getting a shot to kill COVID-19.

The harsh reality is we are not all in this together, and the aversion to getting the vaccine is Exhibit A.