“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
--H.L. Mencken
North Carolina is the state where the MAGA movement has achieved its apotheosis. This election cycle, it is showing us what Trumpism carried out to its alarming reductio ad absurdam will look like if the crazy-cult MAGA acolytes who have committed themselves absolutely to the Trump train wreck ultimately prevail.
The all-star cast of weird, malevolent people they have put up for statewide office is the stuff of nightmares and unequalled anywhere else:
Governor–Mark Robinson is an anti-LGBTQ, anti-Semitic, anti-woman and anti-science extremist. He is a consistent Holocaust denier who recently said that there are “Some folks [who] need killin.” He wants transgender women to go to the bathroom outside. He said that we should be reading the works of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Fidel Castro, a rogue’s gallery of supremely horrible monsters. The list goes on. Shockingly, this repulsive madman is polling very close to sane and sober Democrat, Josh Stein.
Lt. Governor–Hal Weatherman is, in fact, a meteorologist! He is also an extremist, a right-wing zealot who once worked for the infamous and discredited Madison Cawthorn, a wretch who made House colleague and supreme scoundrel, Matt Gaetz, look like a statesman (I exaggerate). He is an anti-abortion book banner who opposes raising the minimum wage and has bought into virtually every conspiracy theory advanced by Trump and his lunatic fringe.
Attorney General–Dan Bishop is best known for authoring the “bathroom bill” which prohibited transgender people from using public restrooms other than those of their biological sex at birth. The bill prompted companies and other organizations to withdraw their investments from the state. Undeterred, Bishop has continued to advocate extreme positions in line with the MAGAverse.
And that brings us to…
School Superintendent–Michelle Morrow who, if elected, would control the $11 billion state schools budget. Morrow makes her statewide office-seeking colleagues look almost normal (again, I exaggerate). She champions positions that would have made both the Nazi hierarchy and Hungarian Countess and Iron Maiden aficionado, Elizabeth Bathory, proud: the televised executions of Barack Obama and Joe Biden; the executions for treason of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer, as well as Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates. She calls public schools “socialism centers” and “indoctrination centers.” She is a big fan of QAnon conspiracies, including that celebrities harvest and drink the blood of children to prolong their own lives. Morrow gives new meaning to crazy, creepy and weird.
I thought for the past four years that no state would ever outdo Arizona’s recent cast of extreme Republican candidates from an alternate universe. But along comes North Carolina to disabuse me of any notions that the Trump cult could not possibly go this far off the deep end. Should this cast of out-there whackos and dangerous lunatics actually prevail in November, then Mencken’s quote at the beginning of this piece will have resonance befitting the occasion.
However, since North Carolina Republicans have nominated the greatest collection of bizarre kooks in history, Democrats should have a great opportunity to continue the bluing of this purple state. Moreover, this could be one state where down-ballot races could influence the presidential contest positively for Kamala Harris. Just this week, she inched ahead of Trump in state polls.
Keep your fingers crossed that North Carolinians will massively reject this malign band of evildoing fiends and restore the state to sanity. Prove the Bard of Baltimore wrong.
Dick Hermann
August 19, 2024
--H.L. Mencken
North Carolina is the state where the MAGA movement has achieved its apotheosis. This election cycle, it is showing us what Trumpism carried out to its alarming reductio ad absurdam will look like if the crazy-cult MAGA acolytes who have committed themselves absolutely to the Trump train wreck ultimately prevail.
The all-star cast of weird, malevolent people they have put up for statewide office is the stuff of nightmares and unequalled anywhere else:
Governor–Mark Robinson is an anti-LGBTQ, anti-Semitic, anti-woman and anti-science extremist. He is a consistent Holocaust denier who recently said that there are “Some folks [who] need killin.” He wants transgender women to go to the bathroom outside. He said that we should be reading the works of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Fidel Castro, a rogue’s gallery of supremely horrible monsters. The list goes on. Shockingly, this repulsive madman is polling very close to sane and sober Democrat, Josh Stein.
Lt. Governor–Hal Weatherman is, in fact, a meteorologist! He is also an extremist, a right-wing zealot who once worked for the infamous and discredited Madison Cawthorn, a wretch who made House colleague and supreme scoundrel, Matt Gaetz, look like a statesman (I exaggerate). He is an anti-abortion book banner who opposes raising the minimum wage and has bought into virtually every conspiracy theory advanced by Trump and his lunatic fringe.
Attorney General–Dan Bishop is best known for authoring the “bathroom bill” which prohibited transgender people from using public restrooms other than those of their biological sex at birth. The bill prompted companies and other organizations to withdraw their investments from the state. Undeterred, Bishop has continued to advocate extreme positions in line with the MAGAverse.
And that brings us to…
School Superintendent–Michelle Morrow who, if elected, would control the $11 billion state schools budget. Morrow makes her statewide office-seeking colleagues look almost normal (again, I exaggerate). She champions positions that would have made both the Nazi hierarchy and Hungarian Countess and Iron Maiden aficionado, Elizabeth Bathory, proud: the televised executions of Barack Obama and Joe Biden; the executions for treason of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer, as well as Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates. She calls public schools “socialism centers” and “indoctrination centers.” She is a big fan of QAnon conspiracies, including that celebrities harvest and drink the blood of children to prolong their own lives. Morrow gives new meaning to crazy, creepy and weird.
I thought for the past four years that no state would ever outdo Arizona’s recent cast of extreme Republican candidates from an alternate universe. But along comes North Carolina to disabuse me of any notions that the Trump cult could not possibly go this far off the deep end. Should this cast of out-there whackos and dangerous lunatics actually prevail in November, then Mencken’s quote at the beginning of this piece will have resonance befitting the occasion.
However, since North Carolina Republicans have nominated the greatest collection of bizarre kooks in history, Democrats should have a great opportunity to continue the bluing of this purple state. Moreover, this could be one state where down-ballot races could influence the presidential contest positively for Kamala Harris. Just this week, she inched ahead of Trump in state polls.
Keep your fingers crossed that North Carolinians will massively reject this malign band of evildoing fiends and restore the state to sanity. Prove the Bard of Baltimore wrong.
Dick Hermann
August 19, 2024
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