North Carolina a sobering reminder that there’s no line Republicans won’t cross
This editorial, written from the perspective of a North Carolina political commentator, does a fantastic job of warning America exactly what we’re in for once the insurgent Republican Party assumes full control of Washington, D.C., next month:
Just a few years ago, we [North Carolina] were the moderately progressive state known for great beaches, mountain vistas, a world-class university system, and a welcoming environment. Then, in 2012, Republicans took control of both houses of the legislature, the Governor’s Mansion and the Supreme Court. (Sound familiar?) Now, we’re known for HB2, voter suppression laws, and extreme gerrymandering.
The Republicans in Congress are about to get brutal. Everything you think they wouldn’t dare do, they will do. They will strike quickly and broadly. By the time you understand the breadth of their destruction, they’ll be rolling and you’ll be trying to figure out how to respond.
Nothing is sacred. Expect attacks on the social safety net, including Social Security and Medicare. The third rail of American politics now has a short in it. The social contract that we built in the New Deal and Great Society is in tatters.
Recent events in the Tar Heel State seem to bear out this dire assessment.
In a year where Republicans pretty much swept the map in North Carolina (and nearly everywhere else), the state’s highly unpopular GOP incumbent governor, Pat McCrory, managed to lose his seat narrowly to Democratic challenger Roy Cooper. McCrory, also known as the “bathroom governor,” is the guy who signed North Carolina’s infamous HB2 into law, prompting court challenges, public protests, and corporate boycotts that remain in place even now.
At first, McCrory refused to concede the election, making unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, even as his Republican colleagues were doing very well across the state. Some speculated that he was stalling so that the GOP-dominated legislature would install him for a second term, counter to the wishes of North Carolina voters. Sadly, I would not have put it past him.
Eventually, McCrory did concede defeat. Based on what his party is now doing, perhaps that was just part of their plan. According to Slate:
The North Carolina General Assembly is currently debating a series of Republican-sponsored laws designed to strip power from the newly progressive governor and state Supreme Court. If passed, these measures would have far-reaching effects on the state, significantly curtailing judicial independence, loosening environmental standards, diminishing the quality of public education, and preserving unlawful voter suppression laws. However, the public was not able to witness the debate over this de facto legislative coup on Thursday afternoon after the Assembly decided to close the House and Senate galleries and arrest a group of protesters, as well as a reporter.
In order to hobble the state’s Supreme Court and its newly-elected Democratic governor, the North Carolina legislature is resorting to the very same surreptitious strong-arm tactics that it used to ram through the bathroom bill earlier this year.
If you think this sounds undemocratic, un-American, and borderline fascist, you’re absolutely right. This is a political party that, in the words of Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, is “dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”
This is a political party that will stop at absolutely nothing, not just to achieve its destructive ideological objectives, but to stay in power. If that means employing strategies that demonstrate transparent contempt for voters and the democratic process — and indeed this recent coup does exactly that — then so be it.
This is a political party that has made clear over many years and at all levels of government that there is simply no line it won’t cross.
Frighteningly, Americans are about to witness this phenomenon unbridled at the federal level as early as next month.
Buckle up. It’s not going to be pretty.
UPDATE: Within hours of the publication of this post, news was reported that Pat McCrory, who doesn’t leave office until January 1, had already signed one of the bills passed behind closed doors with lightning speed by the Republican-controlled legislature. He’ll probably sign the rest that are coming his way as well. For some detail on the power-grabbing measures churned out by GOP lawmakers in North Carolina, read this article.
It’s almost as though McCrory’s Republican allies in the state legislature called him up and said, “Go ahead and concede, Pat. You’ll look better that way. Don’t worry, though — we’ll take it from here.”
