american coup: North Carolinians Fear the End of a Middle Way

[spanone]

EDEN, N.C. — When Pat McCrory, a Republican former mayor of Charlotte, was elected governor last year, he pledged to “bring this state together,” and to focus on bread-and-butter issues amid an ailing economy.

But with Republicans controlling all branches of the state government for the first time in more than a century, the legislature pushed through a wide range of conservative change. The Republicans not only cut taxes and business regulations, as many had expected, but also allowed stricter regulations on abortion clinics, ended teacher tenure, blocked the expansion of Medicaid, cut unemployment benefits, removed obstacles to the death penalty, allowed concealed guns in bars and restaurants, and mandated the teaching of cursive writing.

Just this week, Mr. McCrory signed into law strict voter identification requirements, prohibiting same-day registration and cutting early voting. “Many of those from the extreme left who have been criticizing photo ID are using scare tactics,” he said in a video on his Web site. “They’re more interested in divisive politics than ensuring that no one’s vote is disenfranchised by a fraudulent ballot.”

Lawsuits have been filed — including one on Monday by the N.A.A.C.P. — and protests are taking place almost weekly in Raleigh, the capital, and other cities, leaving North Carolinians across the political spectrum worried that the state’s often-hailed political pragmatism may have given way to the ideological warfare of Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/us/north-carolinians-fear-the-end-of-a-middle-way.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print

[Thinkingabout]

1. This is the American Taliban in action, the GOP is heading to bring the US back into

The Dark Ages. The party who cries less government invades the very privacy of a woman's body. This should never happen. The very thing which W ask for and got which put lots of debt on the US they are doing the same in NC, it did not work then and will not work now.

[HillWilliam]

2. Fear it? Not any more...

That mark has come and gone. Now we're suffering the aftermath of kook-rule. McCrory always was a snake in a suit. Now he's the head of a pack of total loons.

NC, you didn't turn out in the last primary when this coup was being engineered. So many people either didn't know there was a primary, didn't care, or were busy whining about Obama not doing enough. My partner and I talked to everyone we came across -- these were the reactions we got. The Kochsuckers made sure Amendment One was on the primary (not the general) ballot. That alone brought the loons out to vote -- and turn out they did.

It was a cynical f*king maneuver by the Kochsuckers and it worked. The craziest candidates got in on the craziest of platforms. Despite however much the rest of us who were awake and aware that this would be the inevitable result, we simply couldn't overcome the apathy or the whining.

NC, I hope you're happy. This is the cost of not participating.

[DonCoquixote]

3. If I may humbly add

There was a serious movement to get the D convention out of Charlotte. Some of us, defended you, seeing how you could have been an Obama state, like Florida was. Well, the state that held the GOP convention turned blue (AGAIN) and you repaid the democrats by turning red.

You are now the state Florida can look DOWN on!

[HillWilliam]

6. Hell, we've become the state

Mississippi can look down on. It's horribly embarrassing.

I do have to lay a bit of it at the DNC's doorstep. After they scrapped Dean's 50-state strategy and went back to the guaranteed-losing DLC strategy, NC got little national-level support. If it weren't for the real grass-roots efforts like those you're talking about I believe the outcome would have been even worse.

None of our state or national candidates received any real committee support. Burr got back in (that sunuvabitch). We got McCrory. We got a total nutjob gaggle in the General Assembly. That all could easily have been prevented. What the walking-around Democrats here got was a lot of nothing. The RWNJ's outspent and out-advertised us. They leveraged churches and nutcult groups. They coddled the Klan. The list goes on.

If I weren't trapped here I'd leave. The only option left is to stay and fight -- and I'm getting old and tired.

[DonCoquixote]

8. This Florida boy offers you support

Especially as we know that the folks in LA and NYC are too arrogant to know we exist.

[HillWilliam]

10. Much appreciated, DonCo!

As a former Florida resident (Wilton Manors) I've long felt your pain. When my partner and I left to come to NC we honestly thought we'd left much of the madness behind. I regret to report it followed us.

[CatWoman]

16. and I see the EXACT same thing happening in 2014

judging by the numerous anti Obama, pro Snowden threads i plow thru here daily.

[HillWilliam]

17. You should get a load of the TV ads going non-stop here

ObamaCare ==> Be Scared!
Voter Fraud ==> Be Scared!
Immigrants ==> Be Scared!
blah, blah, fricketyblah.

It's pretty clear Kochsucker money has flooded the state and the Lege is drunk as a lord on it.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. Democratic Talking Point: The Republican Middle Way Has Disappeared

Democrats and independent-minded progressives need to emphasize this over and over again. There is no more Republican "middle way." The Republican "middle way" is dead, caput, road kill. Mitt Romney may well be the last (phony) "middle way" politician the GOP ever fields for President.

It's also true in state-wide and local races. Right-wingers have run moderates out of office not only across the former Confederacy but in border states like Indiana, Kansas, and Ohio. Any Republican moderate who wants to stay in office beyond a single term (Assuming he or she gets that far in Republican primaries) is going to take a sharp right turn once they're in office, or they'll be primaried by Tea Partiers or other right-wing zanies.

It's time moderate-leaning voters wise up. Any Republican "moderate" is in effect a right-wing Trojan Horse candidate, no matter what sort of moderate talk they babble or however moderate they may once have been. A Republican moderate is a Republican liar--they can't stay moderate and go statewide or national. They HAVE to go hard right. Republican moderates are in effect moderates who are getting ready to drop their moderation and become reactionaries once they get elected. They can fake out moderates into voting for them, but once they're in office, it's off to stage right!

This is a talking point that both Democratic politicians and Democratic activists need to make over and over again.

[Lex]

7. "It's time moderate-leaning voters wise up."

True, and this state has a hearty amount of these voters who evidently either didn't choose to vote or trusted the lying Republicans (big mistake). I'm seriously wondering if we'll see a swing back now that the Republicans have made themselves known to be unhinged extremists.

The way they've effed with teachers and effed with voting rights has awoken a formerly sleeping giant, I would like to think.

[Vogon_Glory]

13. I Hope You're Right

I hope you're right, and I hope that North Carolina voters tend to be saner and more involved than their Texas counterparts.

I am still in despair about Texas voters. I'd have thought that they would have wised up and started voting against right-wing Republicans almost as soon as Dubya went off to DC. They didn't. I'd have thought that a term of Rick Perry and Phil Gramm's retirement would have meant that enlightenment would return to Texas. John Cornyn took Gramm's seat and Perry remained in the Governor's chair. Ted Cruz won the GOP primary and the Texas Democrats fielded someone sane, mainstream and who had a record of competence in the state legislature--and the voters went for the nut job.

I am still wondering what the hell is wrong with white Texas voters. We ought to be better people than the sorts of short-sighted, pig-blind fools who vote for Texas Republicans who are willing--even eager--to short their constituents' futures. But they keep voting Republican regardless, and they'll probably keep voting Republican until the majority of them are hobbed by six-digit debt and living in third-world shanty-towns and even then they won't stop voting Republican until the local transit system (Assuming there'll still be one) discontinues all service.

[HillWilliam]

9. One minor correction:

"A Republican moderate is a Republican liar"...

There. Fixed it.

[DonCoquixote]

11. may I humbly add

"It's time moderate-leaning voters wise up. Any Republican "moderate" is in effect a right-wing Trojan Horse candidate, no matter what sort of moderate talk they babble or however moderate they may once have been. A Republican moderate is a Republican liar--they can't stay moderate and go statewide or national. They HAVE to go hard right. Republican moderates are in effect moderates who are getting ready to drop their moderation and become reactionaries once they get elected."

THE DLC ALSO FITS,
even and especially Hillary!

[PowerToThePeople]

12. Here is a thought

Republicans dump their right wing. Democratics have already dumped the left wing. New "Ultimate party of the Authoritarian state is formed."

[PowerToThePeople]

5. Shame NYT. "Many of those from the extreme left"

We are in and have been in a new McCarthy era.

[struggle4progress]

14. Losing the General Assembly just in time for redistricting killed us

The Rs had a slight overall advantage in 2012, but the gerrymander produced results entirely disproportionate to the actual votes

Slightly more people voted D than R in the Congressional races here, but the gerrymander produced 4 Ds and 9 Rs as our Congressional delegation

[Eddie Haskell]

15. This is what happens when you elect from a damaged gene pool.

[malaise]

18. They will pay

Mark my word

[spanone]

19. the same thing has happened here in tennessee...thug gov, senate, house..thugs

both of our senators...thugs

[malaise]

20. Dems need to use their grass roots organizational strength

to take back the governors as well as state legislatures

[bluestate10]

22. I see North Carolina going the way New Hampshire did.

New Hampshire voters elected a right-wing state legislature in 2010 and turned to entire US House delegation to republicans, they also elected Kelly Ayyotte to the US Senate. Republicans went wild turning out reams of 1950ish legislation. Voters in New Hampshire didn't protest in the streets, but when the election came in 2012 those voters went on a historical bloodletting. New Hampshire voters elected two Democrats to the US House, elected a new Democratic Governor and gave the new Governor a solid Democratic majority in the state Legislature and Senate. North Carolina voters can make a change, they must have the will. Voters in North Carolina can't get rid of the Governor, but they can weaken him and prevent him from passing regressive laws.

[Dawson Leery]

24. Correct.

[Fire Walk With Me]

21. "The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato

And citizens around the world are quickly losing their apathy.

[theHandpuppet]

23. "...and mandated the teaching of cursive writing."

Well that's the only item on the NC Taliban's agenda of which I approve.

Seriously, though, just a few short years ago I had such high hopes for North Carolina. It looked for all the world as if it was trending blue but now the state government has gone freakin' RW nuts! What in the hell happened?