For most of the latter half of the 20th century, at least from 1960 on, North Carolina was a state on the move. In contrast to its southern neighbors, North Carolina took a moderate approach to social issues and focused on building a modern economy. In doing so, it became one of the fastest growing states in the nation and attracted Fortune 500 companies as well as entrepreneurs. We had broadly shared prosperity and the tools to help people move up the economic ladder.
In the early part of the 21st century, that began to change. While the state continued to grow, the economic benefits were increasingly concentrated in a handful of urban areas. Trade deals, automation, and changing attitudes about tobacco hurt rural North Carolina, creating an urban/rural divide that continues today. Urban counties see unprecedented growth while rural counties lose population every year.
For the first decade of this century, the world didn’t notice the problems facing rural people. The state seemed to be growing. Tourism attracted people from across the country. Companies like SAS and Red Hat thrived in the Triangle while Charlotte became one the country’s major financial centers.
Then, the Great Recession hit and laid bare all of the pain in rural North Carolina. Unemployment, which had already been high in some places, skyrocketed in many counties to above 12%. They responded in an angry howl in November 2010 by throwing out incumbent Democrats across the state, giving Republicans control of the General Assembly for the first time in more than 100 years. Two years later, with the advantage of GOP districts, those voters elected the third Republican Governor since Reconstruction and gave Republicans veto-proof majorities in both the state House and state Senate.
Drunk with power and believing they had a mandate from the their largely rural constituency, the GOP started a reign of overreach that has embarrassed the state and damaged its national reputation. They locked in their power by drawing the most gerrymandered districts in the nation and tried to further solidify their support with voter suppression laws that targeted African-American and younger voters. When the Supreme Court opened the door to marriage equality, they responded by allowing magistrates to opt out of marrying gay people. They shifted the tax burden to the poor and middle class. They tried to pass a bill that established a state religion. They passed some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation.
They also tried to hobble local governments. They redistricted local races like school board, city council, and county commission without the support of residents. They tried to strip valuable assets away from local governments.
They also thumbed their noses at health care reform. They prevented the state from setting up insurance exchanges to attract competition in the health insurance market and they rejected Medicaid expansion, costing the state millions of dollars in federal money. They left 500,000 people uninsured.
Most people thought the Republicans would moderate after they got a good taste of power. They didn’t. Instead, they called a special session last March to quickly pass the infamous House Bill 2 that prevented local governments from enacting non-discrimination ordinances that protect LGBT citizens. The law has cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in business and revenue. An attempt to repeal it in December failed, largely, because gerrymandering has eliminated the moderate faction of the GOP.
In December, the GOP further damaged our reputation by stripping power from the Governor in a special session of the legislature that was called to address damage from Hurricane Matthew. The rest of the country asked, “What’s wrong with North Carolina?” How could a state that was known for its moderation become so radical in such a short amount of time?
North Carolina’s reputation is damaged but we have a chance to restore it. Governor Roy Cooper is already trying to make changes. The new legislature takes office next week. It’s time to make North Carolina great again.
The legislature can start by repealing HB2. Republicans who control both chambers might have to rely on Democratic votes but they can truly claim they’re attempting bipartisanship. Next, they can pass a bill authorizing an independent redistricting committee. Gerrymandered districts have clearly made caucuses difficult to control and led to the extremism we’ve seen in the state. Again, Republicans could argue that they’re trying to unite our dangerously divided state and nation.
The GOP should drop their efforts to restore voter suppression laws that were found unconstitutional. If there’s a fear of voter fraud, even if it’s unfounded, find a way to address that problem without restricting the right to voter. Surely, there’s a compromise in there somewhere.
Focus energy where it needs to be focused—helping rural North Carolina share in our economic revival. Let’s invest in infrastructure like broadband internet and better roads and rail that the will help rural counties compete. Let’s spend money on building new schools and attracting more teachers to rural North Carolina. And let’s expand Medicaid because rural residents will benefit disproportionally.
It’s time that we grab some good headlines for a change. Let’s show we’re still that moderate, welcoming state that values hard work and strong education. Let’s use this new legislature and our new governor to turn the page on the McCrory years. Let’s make North Carolina great again.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Before the North Carolina Republican ‘brain fart’, my husband and I planned to retire there. We foresaw the increase in boomer’s retiring and the tourist industry as a good fit. The political scandal makes this state too dangerous for seniors.
Smart move, Frazier. As a senior who moved here over 40 years ago, I feel threatened almost every day now. LOL
Overall a great analysis of how we got “here.” One small correction: The restrictions on governorship were passed in a FIFTH special session immediately following the FOURTH, which was the one that addressed disaster relief.
Mr. Mills has it right this time. It’s those red neck country bumpkins who reside in rural NC who are embarrassing the state and damaging its national reputation. It’s the voters who live in and around those rural towns like Hickory, Jacksonville, New Bern, Gastonia, Salisbury, Concord, Kannapolis, Mooresville, Hendersonville, Goldsboro, Pinehurst, Lexington, Lenoir, Morganton, Burlington, Monroe, Asheboro, Reidsville, Statesville, Brevard, Franklin, Havelock, Moorhead City and even Kill Devil Hills who keep voting Republican thus sullying NC’s national reputation.
Democrats need to come with a strategy that enables the big metro areas like Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte, Greensboro-Winston Salem and Asheville to dominate state politics and put those rural red necks back in their place. No doubt, NC’s national reputation would be restored in no time. LOL
I love your blog and analysis, and this is a great summary. NC has many things in the past to be proud of, like creating RTP, a research-backed focus on early education (Smart Start) and others. However, may I gently suggest that going forward, instead of the catch phrase “Let’s make North Carolina great again,” perhaps something like, “Let’s make North Carolina better in the future” or just “Let’s make North Carolina great.” We have a lot to be proud of, but there are many ways we could be better in the future. I cannot think of a year in the past when I believe that equality and civil rights for all people was quite where I would really like. Just one small example: NC never did pass the ERA. Also, we still have pockets of white supremacy (and possibly a slight human-trafficking problem in Eastern NC counties). Your analysis is solid – but I would suggest that our past is something to build on, not repeat.
Great summary, and sounds at least somewhat similar to what the country and perhaps even other places in the world are experiencing. What I don’t yet understand though is how infrastructure, broadband, rail and roads are going to bring back the jobs and prosperity that rural NC has lost to the expansion of women into the workforce (creating greater competition for fewer jobs), globalization, automation, technology and process improvements, de-industrialization, waning resources and market changes (e.g., tobacco). Its encouraging that some people want to focus on addressing these changes with innovative solutions. Unfortunately others seem to want to exploit them to continue to concentrate wealth into the hands of a few.
Perhaps one solution is to begin to redefine wealth and happiness. It shouldn’t be just how much power and money you as an individual have. There should be other qualities of life that are equally valuable, and provide more functional goal for people to attempt to collaboratively achieve.
I am not sure either that the solutions outlined are sufficient,but broadband and better education are essential. Experience with technology and a larger world tends to educate in a subtle way that is very useful in most jobs today. A lot of people work from home at least part of every week, and that is growing steadily. Better education should open up more of those opportunities for those in rural areas. I also think that the idea of a five day, 40 hour plus work week, has to change. And wages must increase for those jobs we consider unskilled. (Few actually are, by the way. Most of us have never tried them, or did so only as teenagers.)
A reporter from the Washington Post went to Mount Airy recently and interviewed the mayor of the town and several other residents. Many were over 60 and the general desire was for Trump to bring back the 1950s factory-based economy. This, of course, is never going to happen. The only industry really keeping Mount Airy alive is tourism.
I read that article yesterday Mike and there is a companion opinion piece today in the New York Times on the same piece.
That’s the entire point; that place in time doesn’t exist. It’s a fallacy, an illusion of a non-existent way of life and America.
People forget the cold war was raging then. There were bomb drills, bomb shelters, the beginnings of the proxy wars we were to wage through the end of the 20th Century and beyond. For some bizarre reason, peoples’ minds block the bad things and retain those things from a ‘simpler time’; except that during that period, it wasn’t simple to the people living it.
I like small town America and Americana. I like the pace at which life seems to flow and ebb. I like the fact that you can walk into stores downtown and people know you by name and you know them. I like the fact that you can pause for a few minutes and converse with them on something other than a superficial level and that exchange actually be genuine and not inspired by a TQM ideologist and means nothing to the person uttering the words other than that’s what they’re supposed to do.
But somewhere along the way, people fell in love with an illusion. Programmed by shows like “Andy Griffith” or “Leave it to Beaver” or “Happy Days”. We all know that life isn’t like that but there is this myth that has somehow become urban legend that is how it always was, is, and should be. A fallacy propagated by Republicans using talking points to instill a mental image construct of a lie.
People don’t want the truth. They don’t care to hear it, comprehend it, or acknowledge that their dream of the world is an illusion; a rhetoric fueled myth.
I applaud your clarion call! Since North Carolina has recently been branded by the “outside world” as autocratic and not democratic, your words are extremely timely and apt!
My concern is that the general political climate in the country with the un-election of our coming president (notice the lower-case ‘p’, and the mandate that he has conferred on retrograde legislatures like the NC assembly, will cement the rock-hard mindsets of our re-elected Republican majority. I hope that you will have more muscular recommendations for responding to this group in future columns!
Excellent summary of how we got to here, Thomas! The most important building block of North Carolina’s development was education. Our world-class universities, especially in the Triangle area, helped create the Research Triangle, a futuristic office park which was a national model. Cary, Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill expanded rapidly when major corporations built facilities in the park. The radicals in the NCGOP cut investment in education. Gov. Cooper is already taking action to repair the damage.