The elephants aren't going anywhere

The Jim Hunt wing of the Democratic Party has made its choice and it’s to change parties. Politically speaking, North Carolina is the most backward state because of how long its political realignment played out. Moderate and conservative Democrats ran the state for much of the second half of the last century. As a result, immense GOP gains were difficult to impossible. What has happened since 2010 only means that NC is not a leader at all--it really means that it has finally caught up to the other southern states as the Nixon-Reagan realignment has made the state's GOP more in line with the national party.

Anti-urbanism’s power has shifted west. For decades, it was eastern Democrats. Now, it’s suburban Republicans joining forces with their rural counterparts to put the screws to the urban areas. Trudy Wade’s failed attempt to overhaul the Greensboro City Council was just a local example of this.

The right wing takeover could have been avoided (or at least dented) if only Dems had agreed to an independent redistricting plan in 2002!

Democratic corruption has given way to Republican stupidity and embarrassment

• Exhibit A: The lawmakers who said that the First Amendment didn't apply to NC.
• Exhibit B: The nipple ban bill that went nowhere
• Exhibit C: Making various elections partisan when nobody wanted it and attempting likewise with all municipal elections
• Exhibit D: Mike Stone of Lee County going out of his way to force a radio show off a college station after the hosts criticized him for interfering in local affairs
• Exhibit E: Attempting to reinstate a ban on same sex marriage, ignoring the high court
• Exhibit F: Drafting a laughable bill that would force NC State and UNC to leave the ACC if the conference calls the state on its bluff in the future
• Exhibit G: The law that allows people to run over protesters with impunity

Since the GOP will be in power until 2023 at the earliest, get used to this state being in the news for all the wrong reasons like the 2014 Jefferson Muzzles and all of the blowback over HB2.