If there was one thing that used to unite Republicans, it was economic growth. Conservatives of all stripes–led by politicians like Dick Armey and groups like, well, the Club for Growth–agreed that growing the economy would drive wide-ranging social improvements. This would be accomplished by free markets. One may have disagreed with the policies they pursued to get there, but their desire for growth as the destination was genuine.
Especially at the state level, that ideology is waning fast. It is astonishing to see Republicans dismiss nine figures in lost economic activity as a trivial aside. There was a time when the NCGOP would downplay the benefits of economic development “deals” that only created 500 jobs or so. Now they say with a straight face that it’s no big deal to lose investment of the magnitude of several auto plants.
This shows how radically their party’s priorities have shifted. Once the pro-growth party, they are now the anti-change party. Once convinced that growth was a societal cure-all, they now see it as peripheral to maintaining an inequitable society. Social issues have killed their economic focus.
This change’s most striking manifestation is the disappearance of Art Pope from public life in North Carolina. There was a time when Pope was the Philosopher King and Chief Villain of Raleigh. But his economic emphasis no longer comports with the character of his party. Dan Forest, who takes free-market economic positions but clearly doesn’t much care about them, has replaced the CEO as leader of conservatives in Raleigh.
Like so much else, this development traces its roots to gerrymandering. Bob Rucho drew a political landscape that is dominated almost exclusively by rural conservatives. As such the “core voters” of Tim Moore’s caucus are blue-collar white workers. The economy of the last several decades has delivered little benefit to their lives. So there’s no mass constituency for growth in the Republican base.
We should take seriously the economic fate of the rural white working-class. But Dan Forest’s Republican Party doesn’t. His GOP is content to let the economy stall and corporations wither so long as the phantom “threat” of progress stays absent from their state.
Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.
For most voters, “conservatism” means “NO.”
Alex’s observations are spot-on. As a former local chamber leader and life-long pro-business Democrat, I have been stunned by the anti-business and anti-growth attitudes of rural Republican legislators from safe, gerrymandered districts. Actually, to attribute “attitudes” to them is a stretch – they don’t seem to care and don’t appear to even be curious about economic conditions in any part of North Carolina other than that populated by their own hand-picked voters. To attempt to discuss the horrible effects of HB2 on, for example, the Triad, simply elicits blank stares from these Lords of Jones Street. The rural disdain for the urban, prosperous, better educated areas of the state is like something out of the pre-Civil War era. Another example of the sad state of affairs in a once-great state.
Thank you.
I agree 100%. The Republicans’ disdain for the urban areas of our state is astonishing. Never mind that the cities are the geese laying the golden eggs while the rural areas continue their decades-old slow decline. The Republican legislators from those rural and suburban districts don’t seem to appreciate the fact that their own constituents may be employed in the nearest urban county. Ever since their 2010 takeover of the General Assembly, Republicans have endeavored to hamstring, undercut and punish all the state’s big cities. And Charlotte seems to earn their highest level of scorn. (Why? Just because it’s the biggest?) However, as HB2 has clearly shown, there is one thing that these Republicans hate worse than Charlotte, and that is LGBT people. Their loathing of their fellow citizens who happen to be LGBT is apparently deep-seated, virulent and incurable.