Panel Makes the Case that NC is Still a Purple STate
A rising force in state politics, Carolina Forward held a forum the Thursday after our last midterm election that yielded provocative insights about the state of North Carolina’s political field. (Full disclosure: I am a Carolina Forward contributor.) The central...
R.I.P. Dad
October 6, 1932-November 24, 2022 Frank Fetzer Mills died at the Cyprus of Charlotte of heart disease on Thanksgiving morning. He was born in Wadesboro, NC, on October 6, 1932, the youngest of four children born to Fred Moore and Zeta Fetzer Mills. Fetzer embraced...
Thanks
This year, I’m thankful for the future Permanent Select Committee on Hunter Biden’s Laptop. Republicans are already getting themselves into a lather about another fake scandal that will keep their base outraged while alienating the rest of the country. They will...
Divided government and 2024
Well, the leadership of both parties in the U.S. House is changing. Democrats will be led by Hakeem Jeffries and Kevin McCarthy will probably be Speaker, though that's still not certain. Democrats, led nationally by Joe Biden, will push for legislation that helps...
Nobody Forces White Racists to be Racist
The preference for privilege over prosperity is a Southern pathology of age-old vintage. Race ideology came into play early in the region's history, when white slavers persuaded the indentured servant class to identify with masters on the basis of skin color. And this...
North Carolina is still purple
Republicans in North Carolina are crowing that the election results show that the state is trending red. Don’t believe them. Nothing really changed outside of district lines. The state is still a swing state that tilts toward the GOP. Ted Budd may have won the state,...
Younger voters and younger writers
Over the weekend, a spat erupted on Twitter between veteran political operatives and two opinion writers at the McClatchy papers in the state. Ford Porter, communications director for Governor Cooper and Dallas Woodhouse, former executive director of the North...
Upending conventional wisdom
I’ve spent the days since the election watching results, reading takes, and engaging analysts so I have a lot of thoughts right now. The election upended a lot of conventional wisdom. This post could be long, winding, and disjointed. I’ll get down a few ideas and...
The widening urban rural-divide and other thoughts
In North Carolina, the election turned out about like I expected. Ted Budd beat Cheri Beasley, the GOP took control of the Supreme Court, and Republicans added seats in both houses of the legislature. On the bright side, Wiley Nickel won the state’s one competitive...
Democrats’ steep climb on election day
Despite all of the noise and competing narratives, early vote totals don’t look very good for Democrats. There are some unknowns in the numbers, but several indicators fall significantly behind 2018 totals. The problems also don’t look evenly distributed. The election...
The Politics of Lost Entitlement
Human beings are not in the end all that different from a chimpanzee. They are ruthless and violent, tribal and jealous, and obsessed with their places in the pecking order. Would only that we were more like bonobos, the Chris Farley of the primate world. But it's the...
Out of the ashes of Twitter…
I must say, I’ve had a great time watching Twitter self-destruct in real-time this week end. New owner Elon Musk clearly does not understand the platform he bought and brings erroneous, pre-conceived notions about the people using it. Watching those people dunk on him...