Unfit to govern

by | Sep 16, 2016 | Editor's Blog, Politics | 30 comments

Something is terribly wrong with the Republican Party. Nationally, they’ve nominated a con artist who launched his unofficial campaign by questioning the origin of Obama’s birth. Donald Trump was chief birther and he’s still refusing to admit he was wrong. The party controls both Houses of Congress but they’ve become essentially non-functioning bodies. They can’t or won’t carry out their most basic duties like passing a budget or approving a Supreme Court Justice. They forced the resignation of one House Speaker and have left his successor unable to push an agenda.

In North Carolina, the party continually chooses discrimination over fairness. House Bill 2 clearly discriminates against the LGBT community. Most of the state and the rest of the country find it offensive and wrong. GOP leaders, though, insist on saying it’s about protecting women and children when that rationale has been thoroughly debunked. The whole bill is polarizing and demeaning.

After the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the voter suppression law with a blistering decision, the GOP openly tried to circumvent it. NC GOP executive director Dallas Woodhouse sent out an email urging county election board members to put party ahead of fairness. He called on them to use their partisan advantage to restrict early voting schedules in clear defiance of the court.

When the NCAA pulled its championship games from North Carolina because of HB2, the state Republican Party released an unhinged press statement. Spokeswoman Kami Mueller’s statement said in part, “I genuinely look forward to the NCAA merging all men’s and women’s teams together as singular, unified, unisex teams. Under the NCAA’s logic, colleges should make cheerleaders and football players share bathrooms, showers and hotel rooms.” And nobody rebuked her because there are no adults at the NCGOP anymore.

Congressman Richard Hudson jumped into the fray claiming that the NCAA and ACC were violating their tax status. He called it a “blatant political move” that he intends to investigate. If he’s that concerned about “multi-million dollar, tax-exempt organizations” spending huge sums of money to influence elections, he should be calling for an end to Citizens United.

The Republican Party in North Carolina has proven to be a leaderless organization that targets citizens of the state for discrimination. It’s done long-term damage to the reputation of our state, costing us jobs and prestige. Nationally, the party has rendered Congress inoperable. They can’t complete their most basic responsibilities despite controlling the House and Senate with healthy majorities. The national nominee is a glorified carnie with little understanding of the role of government and no grasp of international affairs.

The Republican Party has become unfit to govern.  They’ve lost their ideological bearing and are falling back on dangerous reactionary strategies to win elections. Until they can get their own house in order, they have no business controlling the levers of power.

30 Comments

  1. Sam

    I personally don’t think it is allergies that is causing his sniffles. Given his proclivity for late night or early morning angry tweeting and his general aggressive attitude and distraction, I think he is snorting something a lot of his supporters have done jail time for.

  2. Norma Munn

    Troy, your comments re HRC deliberately destroying the server made me laugh. Not because I disagree. I actually think it is a perceptive point well made. Given HRC’s much touted evil powers and intentions, she could probably have just waved her witch’s wand and poof, all would be gone!

    • Troy

      Thank you Norma.

  3. Ebrun

    “Trump’s poll numbers should be in single digits, but it is possible that our fellow Americans will elect an incompetent orange dictator.”

    It’s that darn democratic process, Jay, that has you concerned. Why not advocate for elections where only self-identified intellectual elites can vote?

    • Norma Munn

      Ebrun, I rarely reply to you for reasons that would be a waste of time for your thinking ability. I actually know both Trump supporters (a few) and Hillary supporters. I also know people who are not well educated, but are also not dumb and a couple whose brain power is awesome. And I lived in NYC for decades. Trump is a jackass, and while that may not disqualify him for the presidency, his lack of brains and his overall conduct certainly should. The only Trump supporters I know are those whose life experiences have been sad and very hard. I am not prepared to call them names not top them from voting, but you, on the other hand, seem to feel that calling those who disagree with you any derogatory name you happen to think of at the moment is fine. Who is the “elite” in this? I actually read and subscribe to both newspapers and blogs that are seriously conservative. Why? Because I care enough about what serious, thoughtful people whose views are different from mine to show them the respect of reading and listening. I have yet to read anything from you except badly sourced, or not sourced, sour and hostile comments.

      • Jay Ligon

        Norma: Michael Moore was on Meet the Press this morning. He thinks Trump still has a decent chance of winning and he warned against victory celebrations on the 50-year line. His analysis made a lot of sense to me. He said that Trump voters are disaffected Democrats and angry Republicans who have lost faith in the political system. He said that a vote for Trump was their Molotov cocktail thrown at the system. You know? That sounds about right to me.

        • Norma Munn

          I think he is correct, and I understand why folks feel that way. However, losing faith in the system is too easy a way to excuse one’s own indifference to being a serious and informed citizen. The “system” is what we make it. Do nothing, or make ill informed choices, or be indifferent, or let one’s bias drive one’s choices, or believe utter nonsense and you get the results we too often see at all levels of politics. In this particular election, I would add being driven by one’s gonads to the list. Bluntly put, crap begets crap. Unfortunately, Trump is dangerous, not just a worse choice then usual. And he would probably have a Congress controlled by the GOP, including some who are also as ill informed as he and just as likely to be proud fools.

          • Jay Ligon

            I agree with you. Blowing up the world because you didn’t get what you wanted isn’t the answer. Knowingly supporting a completely irresponsible, unqualified, sexist, racist, narcissistic, con man is reprehensible. I have been wondering what would make a reasonably intelligent person ignore all that is known about Trump then decide to vote to put one’s nation and fellow Americans in peril.

            You wonder if they can read or understand what is being said by people who are intelligent and well-informed. Gun nuts are single-issue voters and they have been convinced, for some reason, that someone is coming for their guns. It is an irrational fear, but it is promoted by the NRA. Racists have no place in the Democratic Party, and they have been embraced by the Republicans. There are a large number of people who hate Hillary with single-minded purpose. There are those who hate Mexicans and Muslims and black people. There is no place for them in the Democratic Party. Trump has embraced the “uneducated,” and high school dropouts have endorsed Trump in large numbers. But how could there be enough of those people to elect a President? It seems hardly likely that gun nuts, racists, and uneducated people could represent more than half of American voters.

            Michael Moore suggested that there are a number of people who are just angry at the system and they want to throw a bomb at the United States. Trump is their fire bomb. We can be sure that the bomb will go off, and the firestorm will destroy things they didn’t plan when they pulled the lever.

            Ignorance of the source of the nation’s problem is the root of it, but it is easier to toss a malicious bomb than to work toward real solutions.

        • Ebrun

          Michael Moore was on Meet the Press? Wow, they really must have been hard up for perceptive commentary. Or is NBC news suddenly taking an anti-intellectual stance?

      • Ebrun

        “Elite” is a “derogatory name? Wow, who would’ve guessed? I am surprised someone who lived in NYC seems to be super sensitive. And other than a long-standing back and forth with Disgusted, who seems to be the local source for sour and hostile comments, I challenge you to show where I have engaged in personal insults or name calling.

        BTW, I mostly agree with you about Trump. Problem is, Hillary is worse from my point of view.

  4. John Nelson

    Agree that Trump has problems but how can one support Hillary who is one of the most corrupt and crooked ever, dating back to corruption and crimes in Little Rock and her law firm

    • Troy

      Proof? Where is it? She’s been investigated time and again by Congress and the FBI. I have yet to see the first charge, censure, or rebuke.

      Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of Hillary either. But my views and opinions of Trump are so low, they could parachute off a dime.

      So as the saying goes, it’s “put up or shut up” time. Not rumors, not pundits, not conjecture, hyperbole, or best guesses. Proof; let’s have it.

      • Troy

        Something dawned on me which I’m loathe to admit but since no one else has mentioned it and in the interest of clarity, I’ll go ahead and throw it on the fire now.

        All the Republican strategists and Donald just pee all over themselves every time the topic of the deleted e-mails come up. However had she any intention of being completely surreptitious about them, why didn’t she just destroy the server and hard drive? Or even better, claim it had crashed, she had it destroyed in the interest of national security and no record exists because the mirror drives were compromised as well. That way when the investigators showed up looking for it, it could have been, “server? What server? Its been gone.”

        So were she deliberately deceptive, wouldn’t the good deceiver destroy all of the evidence? I think so. If she were intentionally shady, deliberate, or unscrupulous in her ethics or actions, that would have taken care of this entire debacle.

    • Jay Ligon

      Which courthouse? Which case number? Which prosecutor filed an indictment? Name any regulatory body that issued a censure of Mrs. Clinton? Of what was she ever convicted? Can you name a misdemeanor or a felony…an infraction, a parking ticket?

      We get it. You don’t like her. You hate her. That emotion you feel does not make her a crook or a felon. You have been the target audience of decades-long, hate-filled campaign by the rabid right to smear and defame her. Lots of tabloid libel, lots of rancid reporting, lots of lies which you have consumed like a hobo finding a ham sandwich.

      She was a competent and popular senator from New York, a hard-working and effective Secretary of State, a lawyer, a Yale graduate and first lady of the United States.

      Donald Trump inherited a lot of money, and he bamboozled others out of their money and labor, filed for bankruptcy six times, employed a mob lawyer to keep him out of trouble. He has a long string of failures including three casinos, an airline, a mortgage company, and many many more. His unpaid creditors would fill Madison Square Garden. He is a creep. He fondles his daughter, raped his wife, is the defendant in a rape suit filed by a woman who was 13 when she alleges she was tied up and raped by Trump. He regularly appeared on Howard Stern’s radio show where he talked about which star he would bang and which star wasn’t worthy of his attention. When Tiffany was a baby, he speculated that she might have some nice boobs when she got older. He’s a creep.

      He is in business with some of the worst of the worst people in the world.

      He won’t show his taxes because it would reveal criminal conduct, tax evasion, and his lies about how he uses charities.

      You love the Trump, but he is a Nazi, a racist, a liar and a con man. You should raise your standards. He has twice suggested that his supporters take their guns and shoot Mrs. Clinton. Is that your idea of a strong, intelligent leader, or is he just another mob guy looking for a hit man?

      • Norma Munn

        As always, well said. And I can attest to the fact that Hillary Clinton was indeed an effective senator for NYS. Very good staff, which is one way we should evaluate an elected official. Those whose staffs are less than stellar are almost always the same. Those who are lazy tend to have similar staff. Since the staff is so important to getting anything accomplished, whether in an individual elected official’s office, or an agency, I prefer candidates whose track record in that regard is good. Hillary Clinton has consistently done very well on this point. As for Trump, I can’t add to what you have already outlined, except to say his orange tan and hair are truly ugly.

      • Jay Ligon

        It may not matter to die-hard supporters. The problem isn’t that Trump is crazy and incompetent; the problem is that his supporters don’t care. They approve of his racist message and his hatred of Mexicans and Muslims. Many of his supporters do not mind that Trump loves Putin, even as Russia is threatening NATO allies, killing Ukrainians and taking territory on the Black Sea. True Republicans would be horrified that Trump would be so cozy with a long-standing enemy of the state. They do not mind that he promises to commit war crimes and to violate international law. The Evangelicals have shunned their religious message ignoring Trump’s philandering and embracing hatred of Hillary, Mexicans and Muslims rather than practicing a love of God.

        Trump’s poll numbers should be in single digits, but it is possible that our fellow Americans will elect an incompetent orange dictator. His supporters may do what Communism and the Nazis could not do – turn our constitutional government into a fascist state.

  5. Ebrun

    There is no backing off. The real action is in the federal district court in Winston. McCrory’s lawsuit, filed in Raleigh, was redundant. And there are similar lawsuits in at least three other federal district courts in other states.

    The final outcome will be determined by SCOTUS, which has already stayed the ruling of the Fourth Circuit in the Virginia transgender school restroom case.

  6. Troy

    In keeping with that off topic sentiment, it would appear that McCrory has or is dropping the lawsuit against the US DOJ. I guess the loss of ACC basketball was the lynch pin to this entire boondoggle.

  7. Morris

    Except the “chief birther” – at least the original one, was actually the Hillary Clinton 2008 campaign against Obama. That has been well established but rarely mentioned now that they are on the same “side.”

    Never in my life have I seen such poor candidates on BOTH sides. You could fill – and people have and will continue to – books on both Trump and Hillary as to their unfitness for president.

    • Norma Munn

      Your information is wrong re Hillary Clinton and 2008 campaign bring source of “birther” issue. Print media as well as TV and online sources repeatedly pointed out yesterday and today (as they have in the past) that such accusations are simply untrue. A Clinton low level staffer sent one email referring to the gossip on this subject and was immediately fired. Hillary Clinton also apologized publicly and forcefully stated at the time that it was an untrue allegation – all within hours.

  8. Troy

    “I’m Republican.” Last night those words emanated from my television from a woman in a group of five being interviewed on the evening news. Of the five, she was the only one to pronounce or perhaps feel it necessary to pronounce that she was “Republican.”

    The realization suddenly struck me that the driving force behind this wave of conservatism isn’t simply a political ideology. Oh no, it’s much more serious than that. “Republican” has become a religion.

    Think about it. The faithful have a deity (money), prophets (Reagan, Bush, Cruz, Pribus, et seq), blasphemers (Democrats), heretics (Trump), pharisees (old guard Republicans) and a strategy to convert the heathen to conservativism.

    In their fervent zeal these people have melded politics with faith and these Republicans, some perhaps with good intentions initially, attack, twist, bend, and thrust their ideology and will upon others. This is all done in the name of liberty and freedom; their liberty and their freedom. Look at what the Legislature has done in this State just in the last four years. Look at what a Republican controlled House and Senate has done (or failed to do) since gaining control. They care not for the people, the challenges for daily life, or improving the lives of others. They care only for the perpetuation of their cause, their ideology, and the possession of their deity. As they lose support, they radicalize. The prophets lead them, not toward understanding and acceptance, but toward a Charlemagne-esque brutalization of those who resist. You will either live Republican or die Republican.

    Either way, you will be Republican.

  9. Sam

    Trump is a con…a normal human with average IQ and life experience can see that in a flash. Problem is, his supporters do not care…they think he will be *their* con. My personal feeling is that he will lose, but it will be closer than previously imagined.

  10. Jay Ligon

    Trump would be the first president to owe some part of his success to New York crime families. His lawyer, Roy Cohn, worked for Joseph McCarthy during the communist witch hunt in the 1950s. A mentor to Trump, Cohn was the mob’s lawyer who taught Trump to fight every battle, even losing battles for the sole purpose of wreaking vengeance on his opponents. Cohn was publicly hostile to gay rights, but he died of AIDs having lived his whole life in the closet. Under Cohn’s wing, Trump was able to curry favor with the New York crime families so that he could get his hotels built.

    Rule One in the Trump play book is revenge: get them 10 times harder than they get you. He doesn’t mind losing a long battle to someone if he knows that the cost of litigation cause pain or ruin to his opponent.

    His complex business empire has worldwide reach. Newsweek reported that he has relationships through 500 subsidiaries Some of his business interests are partnered with high-level government officials in nations which are hostile to U.S. foreign interests. In addition, his credit problems are such that he needed to look for credit outside the U.S and he owes money to foreign banks – $100 million to Deutschebank and $650 million to China.

    Trump’s businesses create plenty of known conflicts of interests, but the secretive nature of his businesses in far away places make it impossible to know all the conflicts of interest that may arise in negotiations with countries around the world. His mob ties are not limited to America. He has partners in the Russia and former-Soviet sphere involved in criminal enterprises. His business interests will inevitably conflict with the interests of the United States. His has been open about his love of Vladimir Putin, who has threatened our NATO interests. Putin invaded Ukraine and engaged in slaughter of civilians to obtain access to the Black Sea at Crimea. Trump approves. No leader in the free world supports Putin’s aggression.

    Trump life is a flamboyant, high-wire act. He has been a billionaire, and he has been in the red to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. He takes big risks, and sometimes he loses: six bankruptcies, failed marriages, failed businesses to the horizon – Trump Mortgage, Trump Airlines, Trump Steaks, Trump Water, The New Jersey Generals, Trump University, etc. Sometimes he is successful, but it is always a wild ride and everything depends on his volatile mood swings.

    Trump is obsessed by Trump and spends the first hours of his day sifting through the newspaper clippings his assistant piles on his desk where his name was mentioned. He reads every clip, thinks about how he might be perceived, and if he doesn’t like what is written, he will often call the reporter.
    He threatens to sue if he doesn’t get the treatment he wants. He spends the rest of his day glued to the television, looking for himself on the air.

    Trump is vanity on fire, ego run amuck, a man baby without self control.
    He breaks all the rules, and he respects no one. The presidency is a job which requires focus and hard work. Trump has not read a book in his adult life. How will he keep up with the voluminous reading required of the president – the reading that Mrs. Reagan complained kept her husband up until the wee hours?

    Let Trump be Trump on a reality show. He is over his head and he cannot conform his conduct to a strictly law-abiding life.

    • Apply Liberally

      Bravo, Jay, and amen!

    • JC Honeycutt

      Thank you! You’ve expressed very succinctly many of the personal and ethical problems Trump carries with him. A Trump presidency would combine the racism of Andrew Jackson with the corruption of Warren G. Harding–which may mirror the attitudes of current Republican politicians, but is hardly something for Americans to emulate, or even tolerate.

    • Norma Munn

      I see you read the Newsweek article very carefully. I hope a lot of independent voters are doing so also.

      • Jay Ligon

        Also see “Trump Revealed” and “The Making of Donald Trump,” two excellent books on Trumps business connections.

        • Norma Munn

          Thanks. Not sure I can stand an entire book. He is also (like Rudy) all too familiar from my decades in NYC. They are “kissing cousins.” Chris Christie is still in training compared to those two.

  11. Randolph Voller

    When I entered local politics as a longtime unaffiliated voter and business owner in 2005 I wanted to make a positive difference in my community.

    In 2006 I became affiliated with the local Democratic Party.

    I sincerely believed that making a positive difference in the community was an intrinsic value that most people held who ran for office regardless of political affiliation.

    Today in North Carolina I concur with Thomas Mills and I feel that something is seriously wrong with a political party that doubles down on failure and defends a heaping pile of manure otherwise known as HB 2.

    This current incarnation of the GOP is not the party of Eisenhower that my father supported nor is it even the party of former NC Governor Jim Martin.

    My father eventually lost patience with the “Tea Party” extremism and fact averse crowd and grudgingly changed his registration to Democrat after a lifetime of being an “Eisenhower Republican”.

    Of course he would still split his ticket now and again, but in NC he was convinced that the 21st Century strain of the GOP was no longer fit to govern as long as it was yoked to an ideology that was more interested in destroying government than actually governing effectively and fairly.

    If the latest boycotts from the ACC and the NCAA haven’t done the trick, then the only remedy is to vote all the rascals out of office who have supported HB 2.

    A failure to break this fever in NC now and restore our national and worldwide reputation will leave our brand tarnished beyond recognition.

  12. Norma Munn

    I don’t disagree, but this country needs two functioning, responsible, political parties to maintain democracy. Aside from nightmares over waking up to the words, President Trump, I fear that the constant comments about rigged elections, the hacking of the DNC and two state elections boards, will further undermine the legitimacy of this and future elections. I see no better way to destroy a country without resorting to military action than to demolish faith in the fairness of its elections. Even if Hillary Clinton wins, the damage already done, coupled with the guaranteed GOP obstructionism, leaves me with no hope for effective government in DC over the next four years. I wonder that no one seems to seriously consider that Russia may actually be trying to help us along toward that end.

Related Posts

GET UPDATES

Get the latest posts from PoliticsNC delivered right to your inbox!

You have Successfully Subscribed!