Ultimately, itās his fault for doing all the things that have brought him and NC to this point. However, if I were McCrory, Iād kick the shit out of the person(s) who advised me that moving to the racist and homophobic hard right was the way to go.
Gee, do I feel sorry for him?
Ah, no.
Itās always dangerous for a municipal, state, or federal government to be dominated by one party, Republican or Democratic. McCrory ran as a pragmatic moderate and has become a partisan super conservative. Perhaps he had little choice since the Legislature could overrule him. Itās time for him to go.
Whatās with the idea that you can just up & āmoveā to a belief system you previously abhorred?
Nothing here is incorrect, but the last couple of nightsā protests and violence will help him unfortunately. We all know how some white people (Iām using that term simply as a descriptor) see those images and feel very uncomfortable. Their tendency is to seek out the law-and-order candidate, which is usually the Republican, or to turn away from the candidate who tends to be associated with African-Americans.
The quarterback isnāt supposed to take a knee in peaceful protest, and the rest of the community isnāt supposed to take to the streets. So my question is: how the hell are black people supposed to protest in this country?
Yeah, thatās what I immediately thought after writing the comment. Isnāt it amazing how still, some 50 years later, this man is the answer to so many of our questions and problems? What an extraordinary human being.
From the beginning of his term, he has faced a veto-proof GOP legislature ā where gerrymandering has kept Republican seats safe ā that has set the tone for the stateās agenda.
This should be the lede. Republican gerrymandering has now saddled the party with uncontrollable extremists. The party may well end up being a victim of its own success.
Art Pope?
as may we all
Dear Ms Sneed,
Thank you for an interesting and informative article. It would seem that the Republican Party in North Carolina is the victim of its own success. The governor has become the tool of the veto-proof Republican majority in the legislature.
Rumsfeld summed this up when he said,
āRegimes without checks and balances are prone to grave miscalculations.ā
Of course, he was talking about Saddam Hussein, but it is true regardless of the regime. It is one of those āknown knownsā.
I honestly hadnāt read your comment when I posted mine. I donāt know whether this down to āgreat minds think alikeā or whether itās just one of those āself-evident truthsā that we keep hearing about.
I wonder how much of Gov. Pat McCroryās problem is the national news coverage. The Ohio legislature and Gov Kasich can do the same things (except HB2) and get away with it because there is little local news coverage and no national outrage.
Did you know the Feds rejected an Ohio plan to charge fees to Medicaid beneficiaries. Charge Medicaid folks premiumsā¦think about that. It was part of Kasichās plan to eventually privatize the whole program.
You broke it. You bought it. Now wear it.
Sorry, greysea and @leftofjuniper: much as I believe MLK, Jr. was the most important man for the job in the '50s and '60s, and as much as I believe in the tactics he used, his ātemplateā canāt be reproduced in this day and age. People were shocked and dismayed by the then-new footage of police dogs, firehoses, truncheons, bombs, and white riots, so the progress he and the rest of the civil rights movement (donāt forget that he was not by himself) were asking for visually represented the lynch mob mentality that sustained the Jim Crow laws.
As a society, weāve become inured to those scenes of violence. Even the scenes of unarmed black people cooperating with the police and being executed in the streets donāt move the needle when it comes to majority (read white) public demands for justice and equality before law enforcement. The defenders of those actions have become mainstreamed in a way Bull Conners could never be. Protests only inconvenience the ordinary people (again, read white) who could call for change, and violent protests only burn out the neighborhoods where people are already oppressed.
Do I have a solution? No. But I think itās time we stopped looking back 50 years to a man who couldnāt begin to understand America in 2016.
He seemed more moderate before getting the governorship, but moved to the right to appease more conserative state legislators that came in at the same time and because he thinks it will get him reelected. But I think a lot of NCās move to the right in 2012 was that a black Democratic president motivating republican folks to try and push the state right and a lot of left voting NCers not getting off their ass to vote. Hopefully having an all Republican controlled governor, state legislature, HB2 and a possible Trump presidency will motivate left voters in NC to get off their asses this election like Obama seemed to motivate them in 2008.
McCrory says he was always this guy and that everyone else just went hard left so that makes him look like a right wing stooge.
I realize heās a politician and out to get re-elected but how stupid is he and how insulting of the electorateās intelligence can he be?
He never ran on any of these issues and once the legislature realized that he was putty in their hands, they manipulated him into every hard right policy they preferred.
And the mess heās made in the environment isnāt even mentioned but it matters equally because heās also rolled by the energy industry.
McCrory is systematically working on dumbing down the electorate, whilst force feeding the population his religion and gutting the state to accomplish it.
What exactly is the attraction to this ogre?
They all do. Itās called āputting on the rubesā.