What Happens After the Island?
My first time at the Mackinac Policy Conference — and why leaving might be the whole point.
by Ryan Brown
Before I left for Mackinac Island, a colleague stopped me in the hallway with a timely question.
“I know the Mackinac Policy Conference exists,” he said, “and I know we go. But what exactly is it? And why do we go?”
I gave him what I thought was a reasonable answer at the time. Looking back, I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.
As a Grand Rapids-based person, I know the Mackinac Policy Conference exists, and important people go there, but as someone who had never attended, I really didn’t know how to answer his question.
Here’s what I know now: a lot happens up there. A lot of everything.
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The best comparison I can draw is Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
In a past life, I spent time on the Hill as a reporter for The Dispatch. That’s a very different role than what I do now. But the moment I stepped off the ferry onto Mackinac Island, the feeling was unmistakable. That specific, almost electric sense that everyone you could ever need to talk to is right here, that the physical circumstances are uniquely engineered for opportunity, and that the whole operation runs on a set of unwritten rules that nobody explains but everybody somehow knows. It didn’t hurt that The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, where the policy conference takes place, is also literally on a hill.
On Capitol Hill, you figure those rules out quickly, or you don’t last long. On the island, the same guidelines apply.
And honestly? It’s not complicated. I’d summarize the entire unofficial code of conduct at the Mackinac Policy Conference in four words: don’t be a jerk. If you can manage that — and I recognize that for some people in politics and business, this is harder than it sounds — you can walk into any chance encounter and make something of it. A potential client. A current client. A sitting U.S. Senator, even. On this island, those conversations happen, and they happen because the physical reality of the place makes avoiding each other nearly impossible.
No cars. No escape (you may even, on occasion, hear the MPC nicknamed “Mackatraz” because of the geographical set-up). Just the Grand Hotel, the front porch, and eventually, everyone you’ve ever wanted to meet.
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This year’s conference theme was “A Quest for Common Ground” — a fitting frame for a purple state like Michigan, standing once again at the center of American political discourse with the midterms on the horizon. And I’ll be honest: I walked in a little skeptical of that framing. “Common ground” can so easily become a slogan, a branded talking point that looks good on a lanyard and means nothing by Wednesday afternoon.
What I found instead was something I genuinely didn’t expect.
I watched Democrats and Republicans have real conversations — not the performative kind, not the “we agree to disagree” handshake variety, but actual, honest exchanges. Competitors sharing a drink and a real opinion. People who, back home, would never be caught dead agreeing with each other, nodding across a table at the same idea. I saw it more than once. I wasn’t imagining it.
The island, for whatever reason, makes this happen. Something about being physically removed from the noise — no algorithms, no comment sections, no constituent tweet to immediately fire back at — creates the conditions for people to be, well, people.
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And here is where I have to be honest about the thing that’s been nagging at me since I got back.
The problem with Mackinac isn’t Mackinac. The problem is what happens when we leave.
When you step off this island, just as when Capitol Hill staff and reporters all leave D.C. to venture into “real America,” you get a healthy reminder that life has kept moving while you were there. The conversations on the Grand Hotel's front porch were real and important. But for the people who weren't on the island, the week passed like any other. That's not a knock on the conference. It's actually the whole argument for it: what happens here only travels as far as the people who carry it home.
Unfortunately, what tends to happen is when we all go home, we open our phones, and all of a sudden, we’re back in the algorithm. We immediately start to feel more divided than ever because that’s the environment we live in. The digital one. The one where none of the “Mackinac Magic” happens.
Here’s the thing, though: that’s on us. Not on the conference.
I talked to a lot of people last week. Everyone said they had a successful trip. And look, maybe some of that was the polite thing to say, maybe some of it was the open bar talking. But I believe most of them meant it. Because if you came to this island and didn’t have a successful week, I’d argue that’s less a reflection of the conference and more a reflection of your own willingness to make something happen. Every opportunity was here. The connections were available. The conversations were waiting.
The island does its job. Whether we do ours once we leave is a different question entirely.
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People ask me all the time (admittedly, I was asked more while working on the Hill, but I do still get asked) whether people in politics actually hate each other as much as it looks like they do from the outside. My answer has always been no. Or at least: not yet. Not fully. The trend lines are not encouraging, and that’s probably a whole other piece. But up here, this week, I saw the version of things I always believed was still possible.
The problem isn’t the people. The people, face to face, are pretty decent.
The problem is that it’s easy to hide behind a keyboard. It’s easy to hide behind a press release. It’s easy, once you’re not physically standing in front of someone, to forget that the conversation you had on this island was real, that the common ground you found was real, and that it’s worth carrying home.
Drinks happen everywhere. Real, meaningful conversations require proximity.
My first Mackinac Policy Conference taught me something I suspected but couldn’t confirm until I experienced it: this place works. The model is sound. The unwritten rules hold. The opportunity is genuine.
The only question that matters is what we do with it the moment the ferry pulls away.