California, the cliche goes, is where the future arrives first. But in the world of politics, the Golden State has ceded the title to us. What’s happening in DC now can be understood as the nationalization of North Carolina’s 2013.
A new chief executive had just won office by mastering the art of media manipulation. This man had no experience to prepare him for the job, and it showed. The McCrory administration started with self-inflicted uproars over personnel choice and staff salaries. Like Trump, he was clearly out of his depth. And this created a profound sense of disarray in the polity.
This incompetence was unnerving, but true convulsions came from policy change. Republicans broke new ground in reactionary governance. Their aggression created a crisis atmosphere, changing the way mainstream voters experienced politics. All political players were affected, most of all a suddenly super-charged liberal “base.”
This led to protests–big ones. According to some estimates, the “Moral March on Raleigh” (in early 2014) drew 80,000 protesters. It was the climax of a Moral Monday Movement that had raged for months and generated four-figure arrest numbers. Right-wing actions had set off an equally forceful left-wing reaction. Just as we’ve seen in airports and on the national mall.
What can we learn? On a big picture level, these parallels show that politics has become fully nationalized. State capitols are now Washington’s little siblings. The Republican Party that operates there has become as thoroughly radicalized as the NCGOP. It has to be fought with the same intensity they bring to the battle.
Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.
I was initially surprised by this article’s comparison of McCrory with Trump: but on reflection, it makes a good deal of sense. My initial surprise was due to the fact that while I never thought McCrory was competent to be Governor, I never thought he was crazy–which anyone paying attention knows Trump is. However, there are significant parallels: McCrory was inexperienced in governing (because the mayoralty of Charlotte is primarily a cheerleading/business-smoozing job, not one that involves actual governing in terms of passing laws, solving local problems or handling day-to-day governance; and heaven knows, the same can be said of Trump. The main difference between them is that McCrory kept a relatively low-key image in his campaign, so that it never became obvious how little he had to bring to the job–whereas Trump was bombastic, promising the moon and all the stars, but again ignoring the .nuts and bolts of what he was going to do: “Make America Great Again” sounded–well, great–but there were never any realistic details or explanations as to how this would be achieved–or if there were, they were in terms that the low-information voters couldn’t dissect. I guess what it boils down to is this: if you’re open to being fooled, how you’re fooled and by whom isn’t all that significant. I’m pretty sure this is why Betsy DeVose was the GOP’s pick for US Secretary of Education: so long as you can keep ’em ignorant and poorly informed, a significant number of potential voters will believe anything.
I am not sure we can be duplicated but we will see. Roy Cooper is a throw back to a day when the Democrats won elections in North Carolina by distancing itself from the national party, and keeping there distance from social liberalism, at least the controversial parts of them and by very much supporting corporate building of the state and tough on law and or order. Now they did support public education and tired to move away from racial divisiveness as long as it was not about law and order, and this separated them from the GOP. Cooper was very much in mold of Jim Hunt, or even Bill Clinton. There are not as many of those kind of Democrats around here anymore, but you get out of North Carolina they are hard to find.
Legislative remedies seem out of reach. Our executive branch is hamstrung by our legislature. While judicial seats are packed at least the rules of law apply and higher stages of remedy exist in appeals. Perhaps we have reached a new phase in democracy where the tension between what is permitted by law and what is not forbidden by law must be adjudicated. Appealing to decency, conscience, and common cause outside of what is legally required may be a waste of breath and possibly money. Classical political solutions seem remote. Support of legal actions and challenging legislative actions in the courts, however, at least keep everyone in the game. The new recipients of largess should legal defense funds over political party organizations.
Yes, NC is the pioneer in regressive governance that other red states appear ready to follow. Several GOP-ruled states are now considering HB2-like bills. The publication The Nation reports that the Trump Administration is drafting a radical religious freedom EO, Their take on it has me noting similarities to NC’s HB2 and magistrate recusal laws. And of course there is the NCGOP’s and McCrory’s transforming the state’s executive agencies into “business friendly” outfits, with less rules and regs protective of public health. Given Trump’s cabinet choices, we are likely to see similar drift toward the laissez-faire at EPA, USDA, USDOE, USDOI, and USHHS.
On the national stage, North Carolina has been leading the charge to yesterday. Racist legislation, the establishment of a state religion, regressive tax policy and dismantling the public school system are policies which have been rejected almost elsewhere, especially in California. The Republicans in Raleigh want to recreate the good old days by bringing back what did not work then, and will not work now. Attention to the state’s legislation is held up to the national spotlight as an example of the rejection of progress and intelligence.
The legislature does not reflect the state as a whole. The Research Triangle, for example, is a model of 21st Century progress – the harnessing of the intellectual horsepower generated at our fine universities. A sector of the state is an innovator in high-tech solutions. Everywhere and in every industry there is progress and innovation in this state.
The state has a foot in the dark past of Jim Crow, and a foot stepping toward the future. The Republicans are not capable of a vision beyond the next stolen election, and they are mired in a nostalgia for the past which is better left behind us.
Other states have rejected progress in favor of regressive policies, like Kansas and Wisconsin. Venal politicians have sold out their people for the approval of their oligarch masters. The results do not body well for those states.
The oligarchs want to bring about a plantation state, a world of low wages, poor education and workers without rights. We have been there; we have done that. We have worn out the t-shirt, and it doesn’t fit for North Carolinians. We are better than that.
“bode” not “body”
I strongly disagree that most states have rejected those policies. There are only sixteen sitting Democratic governors, and it shows in the sweeping adoption of ALEC policies from coast to coast. California is a clear outlier, not an exemplar of the norm.
I have never so much appreciated and feared for true democracy and freedom of speech. North Carolina and now the Federal Government demonstrate the impoverishing results of an agenda based on the despicable White Supremacy invented by whites to justify their noxious behavior. When each person is recognized as being innately equally valuable as the next, we all benefit. We are not diminished by providing all members of society equal rights under the law.
I am sickened by what I have learned about politics in the past eighteen months. I am heartened by the response of citizens who are acting to help make America a place where all can live in peace and cooperation and negotiation. We will not accept a dictatorship.
I have no problem with comments from people who disagree, but please keep it civil. I realize that name calling and insults, no matter how clever, will not help us heal ourselves, our State, our Country.