The face of the GOP

by | Sep 29, 2016 | Editor's Blog, NC Politics, Politics | 5 comments

North Carolina is different. In 2014, the country as a whole saw the lowest voter turnout in decades. In North Carolina, turnout was about average for a non-presidential year. While a Republican wave washed over the rest of the country, North Carolina Democrats picked up three legislative seats and the US Senate contest was the closest in the nation.

Democrats’ infrastructure accounted for some of that turnout. Since Obama ’08, North Carolina Democrats have built a machine that knows how to drive turnout and likely offset some of the drop-off seen in other states. More importantly, though, voters were motivated more by state issues than national ones, though ISIS and Ebola emerging in October likely cost Hagan the race.

When Republicans took control of the state legislature and Governor’s office, they took the state sharply to the right. After years of moderation, people across the state were shocked at the attitude of the General Assembly toward public education and the GOP’s strong embrace of divisive social issues. Moral Monday awakened the base by bringing attention to voter suppression laws and cuts to public schools and universities. The Republicans’ authoritarian nature showed up in heavy-handed attempts to redistrict local offices, restructure and reschedule local elections, and taking assets owned and controlled by local governments.

Those issues played out even in the US Senate race in 2014. As one person told a reporter, Hagan’s campaign almost turned the race into a school board election. Videos of ISIS beheading journalists and the threat of Ebola in the US shifted the focus of the race in the final month. Up till then, though, state and local issues dominated the political debate.

This year might be similar. While the presidential race will certainly weigh on people’s minds and drive much of the turnout, the impact of House Bill 2 is also on the ballot. It’s hard to compete with Donald Trump but losing the ACC and NCAA tournament games certainly gives him a run for his money. The Fourth Circuit’s ruling on the voter suppression law laid bare the racial bias in the bill, motivating African-Americans to organize against GOP attempts at disenfranchisement.

The business wing of the GOP keeps touting the modest economic gains North Carolina has seen while desperately trying to turn the conversation away from the damage the GOP has done to our national reputation. It’s not working so far. People aren’t feeling that much better about their economic circumstances, but they are aware that the rest of the country thinks something is wrong with our state—and that perception has been caused by Pat McCrory and the Republicans.

The presidential race may draw people to the polls, but as many people will be choosing a direction of the state as they will a president. The race for governor is really referendum on the job the GOP has done for our state. Gerrymandered districts may protect the legislature that’s driven the right’s agenda, but they can’t protect Pat McCrory, who has become the face of North Carolina’s Republican Party.

5 Comments

  1. JC Honeycutt

    …Not to mention repressing education in our state via defunding, et cetera. Apparently Republicans think the “keep ’em dumb” strategy is their only hope of maintaining control (other than nonsensical gerrymandering, which isn’t working out to well). They may be Republican in name, but they seem more like Know Nothings in practice. Personally, I’m not fond of living in a caricature: one more reason to vote Democratic.

  2. Edison Carter

    North Carolina – Just another example of failed ethically and morally challenged Republican legislative governing on a state level. Why do you think they work hard to want to suppress the vote here in NC?

    Forward Together, Not One Sep Back!

  3. A D Reed

    One other reason Kay Hagan lost in 2014 (besides her mediocre campaigning skill): in the weeks before the election, after the Oct. 1 reporting deadline, a slush fund of $4.9 million donated by one man was secretly handed over to the Tillis operatives to be used in the last two weeks of the campaign to slander Hagan and blast the airwaves with fear-mongering ads.

    And that money was all (almost) legal, thanks to Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo. All the more reason to be prepared for a last-minute financial onslaught against Deborah Ross (as well as Roy Cooper): the last thing they want is the possibility of Ross in the Senate voting to confirm a Clinton nominee to the Supreme Court who will overturn those anti-democracy, anti-Constitutional decisions.

    For those who don’t know or don’t remember, the Citizens United case was brought against the FEC to enable the right-wing group to promote its “documentary” film about Hillary Clinton without running afoul of existing laws prohibiting corporate money to be used in campaigns. And it succeeded in undermining and overturning virtually every law controlling dark money.

    If Clinton wins along with Ross, and a new case is brought to allow the Court to overturn those cases … ah, sweet revenge for progressives, and sweet hope for a true republic as envisioned by the Founders — for whom no corporation could even get a charter longer than three years!

  4. Progressive Wing

    Great blog, Thomas.

    And you used just the right word, Jay, for the NCGOP leaders. Thx!

    “obscurantism” (noun) – the practice of deliberately preventing the facts in some subject matter from being known or better understood. Two forms: (1) the deliberate restriction of knowledge dissemination, and (2) deliberately making true factual information too vague for public consumption/comprehension. Those practicing obscurantism are anti-intellectuals who actively oppose general understanding, enlightenment and the consequent change within society. Synonyms: propaganda, regression, disinformation.

  5. Jay Ligon

    Well said!

    Ideologues in the Republican Party speak to each other in Orwellian doublespeak. Their practice of obscurantism is intended to conceal their true objectives from the electorate and to provide a benign interpretation of their own misconduct; however, they get lost in their own deception and forget that they created the disinformation for the consumption of others. You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time. Republicans deceive each other because they can’t handle the truth.

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