The election season reached a new level of intensity in July as former President and Republican nominee Donald J. Trump was shot in the ear, President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential election and Vice President Kamala Harris announced her candidacy. 

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told a sold-out audience at the Performing Arts Center on Saturday that she foresaw a polarizing election season, and her new her memoir, True Gretch, was released earlier this month in the thick of it.

True Gretch details Ms. Whitmer’s career of resilience and the lessons she’s learned while leading Michigan through a global pandemic, fighting for reproductive rights and combating the rise of domestic terrorism. Ms. Whitmer said she wanted her memoir to feel empowering and inspire others to refuse to be victimized.

“I thought, if there’s something I could put out in this year, knowing that it was going to be another heavy election year, the rhetoric would be hot and it would be divisive, I wanted to put something positive out,” Ms. Whitmer said. “If it’s just a little light reading while you’re on the beach… then I’ve achieved my goal.”

Born and raised in Michigan, Ms. Whitmer is an attorney and politician, having served as both a Michigan state representative and senator before becoming governor in 2019.

She is seen as a rising star in the Democratic party and is co-chairing Ms. Harris’s campaign for president. Since Ms. Whitmer was elected to the Michigan house of representatives at the age of 29, she has never lost an election of her own.

“The only sure thing is that we won’t [win] if we disengage,” Ms. Whitmer said. 

Several audience members at the Vineyard book event asked Ms. Whitmer was in contention to be on the ticket as Ms. Harris’ vice president. Ms. Whitmer did not give any indication that she is in the running. 

Actors Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, who live seasonally in Chilmark, moderated the book talk, hosted by the Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival. The couple expressed how they found True Gretch to be an important book that is also quite funny. 

“You should buy [the book] to give to every young person who’s possibly going to be a leader,” Ms. Steenburgen said. “It’s a really beautiful book about someone who is not victimized, who has an outrageous sense of humor, who has used her position of leadership to listen and spread sanity and kindness.”

Humor is a large part of Ms. Whitmer’s identity. She said it helps her connect with her constituents when campaigning. Ms. Whitmer got her sense of humor, along with many other traits, from her family. She spoke about her grandfather, Dana Whitmer, who was the superintendent of a Michigan school district during desegregation.

The Ku Klux Klan threatened to kill her grandfather and bombed buses in protest of desegregation. 

“I’m honored to think about his experience and think maybe some of that somehow helped me get through what I’ve had to navigate,” Ms. Whitmer said. 

Ms. Whitmer also faced death threats, particularly when trying to get former President Trump to send masks and ventilators to Michigan during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In 2020, the FBI thwarted a plan to kidnap and possibly assassinate Ms. Whitmer. At the book talk, she said her memoir delves into how she was able to cope while scared for her life and her family’s safety.

Ms. Whitmer also expressed dismay for the assassination attempt of Mr. Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.

“We must condemn violence in political rhetoric no matter who it’s against,” she said. “I also know that the threats against my family and me were stoked by a lot of those same rallies.”

Ms. Whitmer said she’s hopeful that there will be less hate in politics and that safety of American people is something she’s always prioritized throughout her career in public service. 

A large part of Ms. Whitmer’s platform is restoring reproductive rights. Her book recounts a time when as a Michigan senator she was presented with a bill that would require women to pre-purchase an abortion rider with their insurance before seeking abortion care. 

Her party had a small minority at the time, so she needed to persuade her right-wing counterparts to vote against the bill in order to make abortion care more accessible. They didn’t hold a single hearing where women and medical professionals could testify. She knew she had to bare her soul when given the opportunity to speak on the senate floor.

“I didn’t tell many people that I had been assaulted,” Ms. Whitmer said when recounting the time she had been raped by someone she knew her freshman year of college at Michigan State University. “I kept it very close because I had lots of really difficult feelings about it: guilt, embarrassment, shame, all of the things that survivors often feel.”

She shared her story with the senate and argued that the bill would severely limit survivor’s ability to seek abortion-care after they had been raped. But her story wasn’t enough, and the bill was signed into law.

“I shared the heaviest and most personal story and it didn’t change a single vote that day,” Ms. Whitmer said. “After the vote, to make matters worse, one of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle came over and said ‘my wife too was raped when she was in college and I wish I could’ve voted with you.’”

Ms. Whitmer then told the audience that 10 years later she signed the repeal of that bill as governor of Michigan. She said she learned then that it was important to never give up.

“These fights are worth having because we can win them,” Ms. Whitmer said.

Before Ms. Whitmer marched off the stage to venture back to the trenches of the campaign, she closed the talk with a plea for empathy. 

“The work that we’re doing, the things that we’re focused on, really at the end of the day is all about people,” she said. “Everyone of us is a person who wants better for our families and for our futures.”