Clowns to the right of me

In the you-can’t-take-them-seriously department, the John Locke Foundation has a newfound concern about energy production off the coast of North Carolina. After decades of advocating for building oil platforms off the coast of North Carolina, the organization says...
Kicking the hornets’ nest

Kicking the hornets’ nest

Republicans in the legislature may have just kicked the hornets’ nest. Yesterday, they announced a plan to ban abortions after 12 weeks, with a graduated series of exceptions for instances of rape, incest, and the life of the mother. There’s no exceptions for the...

The Most Interesting State in Politics

The Most Interesting State in Politics

North Carolina has faded into the second tier of American political attention. Since its Obama-era heyday, the Tar Heel State has voted Republican too consistently to register as a marquee swing state, and most observers have shifted their gaze to the bluer states of...

Knowledge scares conservatives

Knowledge scares conservatives

Republicans are set on dismantling our public education system from the ground up. Their voucher plan subsidizes private schools at the expense of public ones while continuing to put more money in the pockets of rich people. Their plan to end tenure at UNC and give...

Dismantling public education

Dismantling public education

I  remember when Republicans were first pushing the voucher scheme that will upend our public schools and turn many of them into underfunded warehouses for poor children. Back then, they insisted that “opportunity scholarships,” as they call them, were...

Elites

Elites

Mark Robinson’s candidacy in North Carolina is a test of Republican politics and the endurance of Trumpism. Robinson is an unabashed Trumpist, spewing most of his populist garbage and embracing his insulting and demeaning campaign style. Like Trump, he’s basing his...

Gene Nichol’s Righteous Grief

Gene Nichol’s Righteous Grief

"Lessons from North Carolina" is a phrase that in a recent political context seems unlikely to be edifying. After all, the last 12 years have seen our state transmogrify into an exemplar of modern-day retrogression. But somehow Gene Nichol has managed to write a book...

Robinson makes it official

Robinson makes it official

Mark Robinson is officially a candidate for governor. He’s the least experienced lieutenant governor in modern history. He has no political record or accomplishments. He’s the first social media phenomenon to win statewide office in North Carolina, maybe the nation....

More houses equals lower rent

More houses equals lower rent

For years, I spent several weeks every summer in Minneapolis. In 2019, the city was in the midst of the divisive 2040 campaign. Housing advocates proposed a plan to eliminate single-family zoning in the city as rent and housing prices were driving people further and...

The GOP’s shrinking margin in the suburbs

The GOP’s shrinking margin in the suburbs

John Hood recently wrote a curious column about the rise of the Republican Party in North Carolina. Much of it is right. The number of registered Democrats has been shrinking continuously for decades. The number of registered Republicans has been growing. However, the...

back to the future

back to the future

The electorate and the country are in transition. Politically, we’re in the midst of the most significant realignment in 40 years. Economically, we’re shifting from a manufacturing-based economy to a technology/knowledge-based economy. We are quickly becoming more...

A New Wave of Aggression from the Religious Right

A New Wave of Aggression from the Religious Right

Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech had little to do with the Soviet Union. Delivered to the National Association of Evangelicals, the bulk of Reagan's address was a feast of red meat for the Republican base's 1980s fixations: drugs, prayer, sexual promiscuity. The...

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