Trouble in the Ballpark District

At the beginning of the year, the City of High Point decided to split ways with Elliott Sidewalk Communities. Out of the four parcels, only Parcel C was developed (into the food hall). Parcel A is still a parking lot while the other two never got developed.

I will not blame this on the city as yet another example of it being resistant to change. This is all on Elliott Sidewalk. They had six years and only developed 25 percent of the land given to them so if the Ballpark District ends up undercooked, it's all ESC's fault.

Source 1

Source 2

Cardiac Pack 2.0

I'm forever grateful that the Wolfpack men's basketball team turned it around when it was almost a certainty that a coaching change was inevitable prior to the start of the ACC Tournament in D.C. While I treated the Final Four run as an extremely pleasant surprise, I'm hoping that this is the beginning of a new era of success.

A pattern of the team's three ACC Championships in the multi-bid era (from 1975 on):

Every postseason game that the Original Cardiac Pack played in except the Sweet 16 against 10-seed Utah was a nail-biter.

The previous team to win an ACC title won every game in that tournament by single digits.

Most of this year's ACCT games as well as a couple of NCAAT games were close too.

Meanwhile, notice a glaring difference between the '24 team against the other two championship teams:

Can anyone say unprecedented?

No one gave this year's team much love whereas the '83 team was hampered by Dereck Whittenburg's injury before Cardiac Pack 1.0 went on that Cinderella run once he returned from his injury. The '87 team started the season as an NCAA Tournament caliber team before it fell off in the middle of the season and had to rally in Metro D.C. just to get into the Big Dance.

Stunted City Redux

Well, it looks like this prediction from almost seven years ago is coming to pass--albeit slowly:

Durham and Winston-Salem traded the #4 and #5 positions between 2007 and 2012 before the Bull City pulled away from the Twin City. Given the stagnant growth around the Gate City, it's plausible that Winston could leapfrog it for #3 or rather Greensboro falls to #5 some time around the 2020 Census or afterwards.

As it turns out, the Rhino took notice of Greensboro's stagnant growth, which is reaching zero population growth territory.

It looks like the Gate City will fall to fourth place in no time and may even fall behind Winston-Salem by the 2030 Census. Consider the evidence:

The bad news is that the growth in two years was only 2,394 or 0.8 percent, which compared to Greensboro’s peer cities in the state is anemic...The latest figures show that by 2022 the population in Durham had grown to 292,939. The population growth during that period was 9,432 or 3.3 percent...Even Winston-Salem right next door grew in population more than twice as fast as Greensboro. Winston-Salem’s growth rate was 1.9 percent to a 2022 population of 254,200.

Given that Durham has recently had its own issues, what's happening to Greensboro represents a precipitous fall as it far outpaced Raleigh for second place in 1960 and is staring at a possible fifth place showing in the near future. As a friend said last year, Greensboro has lost its way.

Bernie and the Failed Revolution Eight Years Later

After eight years of witnessing the scuttled political revolution of Bernie Sanders, I can logically draw one conclusion: It was a failure. Taking over the Democratic Party and reforming from within was never going to work when varied interests are so entrenched that the party bosses would much rather go the way of the Whigs than halt its continued rightward drift. I am so happy that I gave my money to a short-lived art event known as the Ruby Slipper Festival instead of Bernie's campaign when he came to Winston-Salem.

Here's a list of all of the issues that I have with these progressives and why organizing outside of the two-party system is a much better solution:

• During the ’20 Senate race in Maine, most progressives were either silent on Lisa Savage or all in for Sara Gideon despite it being the first time the state used ranked choice voting

• The Force The Vote debacle

• The Squad foregoing fighting for Medicare For All in favor of committee assignments. Instead, AOC got kicked off a committee by a 46-13 vote in favor of a New Democrat that the NY delegation hated but national leaders liked

• A $15 minimum wage was also cited for skipping FTV but progressives did nothing to boost that issue

• Ayanna Pressley possibly sabotaging The Squad by saying that each member voted alone rather than as a bloc

• Progressives in Seattle tone policed former councilwoman Kshama Sawant when she called out progressive Dem members of the city council for being a roadblock to progress

• Congressional progressives ignoring the Marches For M4ALL, which were held in 56 cities in mid-2021

• Squad members and the Working Families Party conducting a sham rally on extending the eviction moratorium at the U.S. Capitol while failing to hold their fellow Congress members accountable

• PMCs finding ways to defend Squad members when they took indefensible positions—Iron Dome, breaking the rail strike, funding Ukraine unconditionally, the list goes on

• After The Squad came into existence, the Democratic Party establishment readjusted its strategy. After Nina Turner’s first congressional campaign, progressives didn’t

• Turner’s opponent, Shontel Brown, being allowed to join the Progressive Caucus two months after she joined the New Democrat Coalition

• AOC and Ilhan Omar pretending to be arrested at an abortion rally outside of the SCOTUS building in July 2022

• Progressives rallying behind John Fetterman despite his troubled past and his own declarations that he was a Democrat and not a progressive

• Ilhan Omar coming within two points (50.3-48.3) of losing her primary two years ago to a Minneapolis City Council member backed by the status quo because her fellow Somalis had a falling out with her over the congresswoman’s support of imperialist policies in their homeland

• The CPC folding on keeping the infrastructure bill and Build Back Better together and its letter to Biden urging a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine a year apart

• Marianne Williamson’s failed slate of candidates in the ’22 election cycle 

• Last year, AOC sneered at the House Freedom Caucus’s FTV tactic with Kevin McCarthy and said that The Squad doing the same thing to Nancy Pelosi would have caused “irreparable institutional harm”

• The Bernie movement created a lot of careers but not a lot of legislative success

• Now, the organizations that spawned from 2016 are in tatters. Justice Democrats laid off nearly half of its staff and are playing defense this year, taking on no new candidates. Our Revolution started out with dark money and began supporting non-progressive candidates as early as 2021. As for Brand New Congress, it’s out of business

• Kyle Kulinski let the cat out of the bag last fall about Justice Democrats’ true mission (fighting Trump, not the Democratic Party establishment), and it explains why Squad members rarely fought the establishment (unless they were named Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema)

• Ryan Grim’s new book was all about simping made easy as he consistently ran cover for the Fraud Squad (like that time all of them except Rashida Tlaib voted to block the rail strike)

• Progressives (except for Marie Newman—and look at what happened to her) didn’t end the rightward shift. If anything, they moved to the right themselves in some instances (*cough* foreign policy)

• In Nevada, a slate of DSA-backed progressives ran the state Democratic Party from ’21 to last year and got sabotaged by the Harry Reid Machine. Instead of supporting his proteges, Bernie actually condemned them

• Brandon Johnson’s in Chicago last spring was a stay of execution—not validation—of working within the Democratic Party. As his woes demonstrate, he’s already susceptible to losing in a rematch against Paul Vallas in 2027 or someone who’s actually worse than Vallas

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Early Election '24 Thoughts

• Here in my hometown, six Republicans--including ex-High Point Mayor Jay Wagner--have filed to replace Kathy Manning in the 6th Congressional District...and that's it--no Dems, no Greens, no Libertarians. It's going to be a long year because the winner will be the next representative
• Compared to the working class issues that would-be independent candidate Kent Garrett brought up in 2022, good luck getting any of the current candidates running to discuss them on the record. Mind you, the outgoing congresswoman is part of Greensboro's one percent--meanwhile, these six people will happily do the bidding for that same one percent in Washington
• Speaking of members of the previous High Point City Council, At-Large Councilman Britt Moore has already plotted out his future. During last fall's election, I privately said that there were two possible reasons for him giving up his political independence: ambitions for higher office or him being that triggered by the 2020 uprisings. Now, it can be confirmed that he's running to replace a retiring John Faircloth--he himself an ex-city councilman--in another crowded Republican field in State House District 62
• The second most bitter contest in North Carolina (after the governor's race, duh) will be the race for the open Attorney General seat between 14th Congressional District representative Jeff Jackson and 8th Congressional District representative Dan Bishop
• The Libertarian Party of North Carolina has 46 candidates running in 44 races (and a well-organized website)
• The Greens are only recognizing one congressional candidate and Josh Bradley running for Raleigh City Council despite another congressional candidate and a gubernatorial candidate declaring themselves as Greens
• The Constitution Party is still trying to get back on the ballot
• No Labels is talking about a unity candidate for president but it has yet to make a commitment. The party is totally absent on the downballot races

Election 2023 Postmortem

A News Deficit

As I previously referenced, the lack of reporting has basically turned High Point into an information desert. Triad City Beat comes to the closest as it put out voter guide during the primary, but it didn't follow up for the general election--it didn't help that a number of candidates refused to cooperate for the questionnaire (I actually had to use one of the very organizations that I ripped for propping up a bland candidate running for a seat on the Greensboro City Council as a guide on who to endorse earlier this month). Yes! Weekly has all but abandoned the city. The Rhino went online-only in '19 and only chips in when there's drama between the city and the county (just like in 2017 when the City Council told the Guilford County Commissioners that it would go it alone on Truist Point after the latter refused to fund the ballpark). The News & Record can't even cover the ACC Tournament so forget about that publication covering its neighboring city so John Hammer can stop calling the daily The Eleven County Area News & Record now.

Reading Showroom City by John Joe Schlichtman and That Red-Headed Stepchild by Donald Mackinnon have provided me a much greater understanding of downtown's decline and city politics respectively. 

The lack of independent groups here makes it much more difficult to provide an accurate assessment of what's really happening with those of us who aren't part of the (old money) Emerywood crowd, the furniture showroom owners or the new money crowd of Far North High Point especially now that the People's Party of North Carolina has apparently become a stillborn organization.

The Results

Jefferson beating Jones comfortably was a bit surprising even for me even though he was the easiest choice for me. As far as the man he's replacing, it turns out that Jay Wagner is running for Kathy Manning's congressional seat so not a noble gesture (stepping down after two terms, that is) by the lame duck mayor after all. Wagner's national aspirations explain why he was the only one on the outgoing City Council to dig in on his opposition on all things One High Point Commission even as Jones and Moore changed their tune.

Cook leapfrogged Moore for the first at-large seat and she was the only one worth casting a vote for since Moore and Carr are both Republicans, and as for Davis, his affiliation as a Democrat helped him to advance to this round over the unaffiliated Orel Henry but as I correctly predicted, he's now 0-5 in five straight elections.

Ward Seats: McKiver swamped the historian in Ward 1. Johnson won overwhelmingly in Ward 2 as opposed to the at-large race four years ago. Peters rolled through in Ward 3 to the surprise of no one. I literally went back and forth on who to vote for in Ward 4 before going with the challenger who fell short. In Ward 5, the anti-critical race theory Black guy (Tim Andrew) comfortably won the vacant seat. Any fears of disaffected conservatives in Ward 6 using Holmes to get rid of Jason Ewing in 2019 only to dump him for Heather Brooks this time around turned out to be unfounded as Holmes beat Brooks by a 3-2 margin.

Fallout

The new City Council makeup is going to be interesting to say the least. For the first time ever, Blacks hold a majority whereas four decades ago there were no Black members on the council under the 0-8-1 system that was disguised as 4-4-1 during a six-year stretch. In terms of Black interests, it'd be appropriate to say that Andrew is akin to former councilman Lawrence Graves--who served a single term from '79 to '81--but much more conservative: He's less in touch with Black interests. Instead, Cook would have to be substituted in place of Andrew.

In That Red-Headed Stepchild, Mackinnon feared a whitelash this time around would upend the 2019 results in the at-large and Ward 6 races after monied interests took their eyes off the ball that year and would roar back with a vengeance, but it seems that did not happen. And while it's worth noting that Johnson traded the second at-large seat for an easy win in Ward 2, Cook has shown herself to be a white ally.

Mackinnon recommended that 6-2-1 be dumped in favor of an all-ward system and that there be an independent redistricting commission via a new ordinance or city charter so that the gains from the '19 election wouldn't stand a chance of being reversed. While I share the author's sentiments, I also realize that this city is a very reactive one that is usually one of the last ones to do the right thing, so it probably would be that worst-case scenario Mackinnon brought up for any substantive change to happen--and probably after the 2030 census.

High Point General Election Endorsements

Mayor: Cyril Jefferson

At-Large: Amanda Cook

Ward 1: Glenn Chavis or Vickie McKiver

Ward 2: Tyrone Johnson

Ward 3: Monica Peters

Ward 4: Patrick Harman or Wesley Hudson

Ward 5: Beverly Jo Bard

Ward 6: Michael Holmes