A decade to put behind us
by Tom Sullivan
Nick Martin's retelling of the last decade of North Carolina politics for the New Republic is a piece I might have written if I were not so occupied trying to affect repairs. Martin's Twitter bio shows North Carolina roots. We know a couple people in common. He's likely seen plenty.
It is a sad affair when North Carolina and Wisconsin can compete for which is most abused by Republican "power-hoarding" since the last census. The 2010 elections that gave Republicans control of North Carolina's legislature for the first time in a hundred years brought with it a Trumpian thirst for payback long delayed. That scenario played out in enough other states to place a majority of legislative chambers firmly in Republican hands in the course of a day.
Martin ticks off a list of North Carolina players whose plotting shaped the last decade. But national Democrats' complacency contributed as well, and progressives' media-drive fixation with federal contests that left the states vulnerable to the takeover:
... the Democratic Party’s inability to truly reckon with its many shortcomings—notably its lack of funding for down-ballot races in these state legislature races—helped hand the keys of dozens of state governments back to Republicans. Mo Elleithee, a former Democratic National Committee spokesperson, admitted as much to NPR in the weeks before the 2016 election. “Democrats just have not played that game as well as Republicans have,” Elleithee said. “Part of that is resources. The Republicans have more money that they pump into those races. And just the lack of focus on these races has been part of the problem.”The result has been a decade of revanchism: broad attacks on the right to vote, on the rights of women, minorities and immigrants; stonewalling efforts to fight climate change; undermining public education; denying Medicaid expansion across much of the old Confederacy; passage of "bathroom bills” in NC and Texas; and seemingly endless court fights, most of which Republicans lost. But they are working on that with the help of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and the Federalist Society.