Alternative and revisionist histories of the South
It seems HBO and #NCPOL are diving into controversial Southern history and causing a lot of chatter on social media. HBO has contracted to produce a series based on the alternative history question “What if the South had won the Civil War?” North Carolina GOP...
Could Democrats screw up 2018?
Right now, 2018 is shaping up to be a good year for Democrats and a bad one for Republicans. In Congress, the GOP has failed to fulfill their signature campaign promise of repealing Obamacare. Donald Trump garners bad press every day and then amplifies it through his...
Without legislative accomplishments, Trump will define the GOP in 2018
Until now, most Republicans in Congress have tempered their criticisms of Donald Trump. There have been a few exceptions like Lindsey Graham and John McCain but most members of the House and Senate have stayed quiet. They’re worried about angering Trump’s base and...
What hasn’t happened
I was wrong. Right after Donald Trump won the presidency and the GOP successfully held onto both the House and Senate, I predicted that Republicans would move swiftly to enact a sharply conservative agenda similar to what happened in the first few months of Gov. Pat...
Voting trends and predictions
The News & Observer has a very good article about voter trends in North Carolina. The reporter looks beyond just the registration numbers to examine trends in past elections and what to look for in 2018. He looks at money, enthusiasm and off-year turnout....
Reaching those blue-collar workers
About 30 years ago, I had an internship with a think tank that focused on rural economic development. One project involved trying to get welders in the mountains of North Carolina to buy state-of-the-art welding equipment co-operatively and house it in a central...
The growing conservative media infrastructure
Back in the 1980s, right-wing radio, led by Rush Limbaugh, drove much of the political debate in the country. Inspired by the Reagan Revolution, AM stations across the country started running conservative commentators who routinely bashed liberals and their policies....
“Squirrel!”
In the midst of a debate that is tearing the Republican Party apart, Donald Trump this morning yelled the equivalent of “Squirrel!” And like the dogs in the movie “Up!” progressive twitter quickly turned its attention away from health care to the latest presidential...
The ads write themselves
The ads are just too easy. At a time when violent crime is increasing for the first time in decades, the Republicans in the legislature cut funding for the state’s top law enforcement agency by $10 million. In other words, the GOP made us less safe. It’s a...
The stories they tell themselves
Nowhere is the GOP bubble more obvious than in the current debate over whether or not to repeal Obamacare. According the Republicans, the ACA broke a system where, as one person told me on twitter, “88% liked their healthcare before Obamacare.” Now, according to...
