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Release time: 2021-11-24 13:30:08 Update time: 2021-11-24 13:30:24

Released on November 24, 2021 at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

Editorial: North Carolina Republicans are becoming the party of bigots, insurgents, and cowards that make it happen

"This is not us."

Why don't the Republicans in North Carolina say about them—or better yet, take action against them?

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the state's highest elected Republican, again made abhorrent remarks about LGBTQ people at a sermon in Winston-Salem on Nov. 14. In the sermon, which was posted to YouTube, Robinson said heterosexual couples are “ Better than "homosexual couples" and compare homosexuality with "what the cows leave" and maggots and flies.

Prior to this, Robinson, who is widely expected to run for governor in 2024, called "transgenderism" and homosexuality "dirty" in a recent June video-comments that the White House called "objectionable", and Prompted some state Democrats to call for his resignation. However, members of the Robinson Party chose to forgive his comments, saying that he was referring to books, not LGBTQ people themselves.

Just last week, U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorne praised the Wisconsin jury for acquitting Kyle Rittenhouse. Kyle Rittenhouse was A 17-year-old white volunteer police officer who shot and killed three men and two in a protest in Kenosha last year. On Friday, Cauthorne offered Rittenhouse an internship on Instagram and told his followers to "arm, be dangerous, and be ethical." Of course, this is not surprising to Cawthorn, who reportedly helped plan the January 6th incident and warned that if our elections “continue to be stolen”, they will “bleed.”

What do North Carolina Republicans think about this? As you might guess: no.

A lieutenant governor who incites hatred and a U.S. congressman who publicly incites violence seems to be the kind of thing that sane people-or political parties-want to stay away from. The same seems to be true of state lawmakers who are reported to be members of right-wing militant groups and members of the New North Carolina House of Representatives who apparently participated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But the North Carolina Republicans did not condemn this moral bankruptcy, but made it their brand. They dutifully justified the insurgents and paranoid behavior—even embraced—no matter how offensive they were, and stood by when the ugliest voice in their party became loudest. At best, it is complicity; at worst, it is consent.

The "party first, principle second" approach is an important reason why people like Cawthorne and Robinson have a platform. Republicans didn't stop people on the fringes of their party from slipping into the mainstream over the years — and once they realized that it could win elections, they snuggled up even closer, abandoning everything they once stood for in the process.

Of course, some Republicans did criticize what their party has become. But they are difficult to find, and usually, they are either about to leave or they have already left. In general, those who want to stay in power choose to look away quietly; after all, those who break the rules are often punished. A good example: When the senior U.S. senator from North Carolina voted to impeach the current former president for sedition, his hometown party voted unanimously to condemn him.

This may explain why the Republican members of the North Carolina Congressional delegation did not vote to condemn Congressman Paul Gosall (Arizona Republican) for posting an animated video depicting him killing a Democratic congressman and attacking the president Joe Biden.

When it comes to bigotry and violence, there is little room for moral ambiguity: you either support it or you don't. It's hard to say whether Republicans really agree with their colleagues' ideas, but what matters is what they say and do publicly-quiet bystanders have at least some guilt in common with bullies.

This is the public face of a Republican in North Carolina. They are showing voters who they are. Now, as a state and a country, we must decide who we want to be.

Republicans in North Carolina were shocked. Someone would think that there was any blatant partisan racial and political discrimination in the shameful regional map that they had just passed a party vote.

Never mind the pattern of breaking down urban areas that tend to be blue into fragments, which effectively dilutes the voting rights of blacks and Democrats.

Don't mind dividing Guildford, Wake and Mecklenburg counties into three districts.

Never mind that Greensboro is counted as being divided into two districts, the largest of which is attached to a heavily conservative district, which has flowed to Banner Elk, home of the current Republican U.S. Rep. Virginia Fox. In pushing Greensboro's first Democratic Rep. Casey Manning into a region where it is almost impossible to win, her lair will gain a comfortable Republican majority. (The area of ​​Manning currently encompasses most of Forsyth County and all of Guildford.)

At the same time, the constituency that includes Winston-Salem and Forsyth counties will also include more rural areas, from southern Yadkin County to Lincoln County, again in favor of Republican candidates.

Divide and conquer. Stacking decks. Load the dice. Then shrug and pretend to be ignorant when someone calls you.

"When drafting these maps, I did not consider political data, election data, so I don't know what their results will be," said Destin Hall, chairman of the House Redivision Committee and Republican of Caldwell County. ) Say. ...Said sternly.

"Do they think we are stupid?" Steven Green, a professor of political science in North Carolina, told WRAL-TV.

If the map remains the same, Republicans may win 10 or 11 of the state’s 14 congressional seats, and Donald Trump won the roughly evenly divided state by 1.3 percentage points in 2020. Among these 14 seats, only one is considered highly competitive.

In an increasingly diverse state, these maps will also weaken the voting rights of minorities. As the North Carolina Policy Observer pointed out, if the new map is established, more than six black members of Congress may lose seats.

The Princeton Gerrymandering project analyzed regional maps across the country and gave the Guildford, Wake, and Mecklenburg maps an overall "F" rating because it blatantly tilted the region to support Republican candidates.

In addition to the obvious unfairness, this also caused serious damage to representative government. One of the reasons why this country is so divided as it is today and Congress rarely does much is the extremism encouraged by highly partisan areas. Moderately becomes a major crime and will be punished by major opponents of the extreme left or extreme right.

Despite this, Republicans insisted that they did not use racial or political data when determining the new route.

“Because political data was not taken into account in the mapping process, we were unable to understand the political tendencies of the regions,” Lauren Horsch, spokesperson for Senate Chairman Pro Tem Phil Berger, told WRAL in an email.

of course not. They are not necessary. They already know what they need to know. They already know which counties are highly democratic, and each county has a large number of black voters.

At the same time, Republicans are fully aware that this game of power blatantly violates the core principle they claim: success on their own merits, and let the "market" drive results.

Obviously they don't believe they can win a fair battle in a fair competition area, so why should they win a fair battle? When the affirmative action of Republican candidates is so easy, why pretend to create a level playing field?

As they should, these maps will be challenged in court. The latest report was submitted on Wednesday by a coalition led by the Coalition to Protect the Voters of North Carolina.

What needs to be clear is that two people can play this game. They do it. Democrats are pushing for secession in Illinois, Maryland, New York and Oregon. For decades, when they controlled the legislature, they did the same in North Carolina.

But the Republican Party is now the culprit in North Carolina, and their ruthless efficiency has divided the constituency to new heights-or depth, depending on how you look at it.

As for doing the right thing-what does it matter if it is right?

It's about power, pure and simple, and keeping it...in any way necessary. Residents of the state will suffer as a result.

Your mask may fall off now. The Guildford County Commission, as its other status, the County Health Commission, voted unanimously on Monday night to cancel the county's mask regulations.

The order is effective immediately, which means that the order implemented in mid-August during the surge in COVID delta variants was cancelled at the moment of the 8-0 vote.

Both the vote and the result are not surprising. Focusing on encouraging indicators, the Health Commission stated that it may cancel the rule when it schedules a Monday meeting two weeks ago.

The board’s decision will not affect Guildford County schools, where there are still mask requirements. Some school districts in the state require masks to be worn in counties that have not yet issued mask injunctions to the public.

If we decide, we may wait until the vaccination rate is higher and the temptation of the holiday has passed before we can cancel the county-wide mission. However, as we have known in the past, the vote of the health committee is a hopeful step towards life.

It is based on some positive trends in Guildford County and the entire state. Infection rates and hospitalization rates have fallen. In the last 21 days, the COVID positive rate has dropped to an average of 4.8%. This is a benchmark set by state health officials for relaxing some of the rules and restrictions.

But this good news, like all COVID, has asterisks and rules.

One number that is not as encouraging as the others is that Guildford’s vaccination rate is relatively low, only 56%. More vaccinations will help maintain current results against the virus. The approval of child vaccination provides an opportunity to improve this number. Therefore, more adults will step up the injection, this injection has been proven to be absolutely safe and effective.

Remember: As long as the number remains low, the blocking rules will be cancelled. If we are not careful, we may return to where we were before.

Dr. Christopher Ohl, an infectious disease expert at Atrium Health in Winston-Salem, described the period before Thanksgiving as the “best time” to remove the mask rule.

But after that period is the holiday itself and cool weather.

This means more indoor activities, family gatherings and travel, and more opportunities for new infections.

"There is no established rule book on how to mitigate the global pandemic," said Melvin, the chairman of the county committee, "skips" Alstom. "We have seen this pandemic improve gradually, but a new and more challenging virus is closely followed."

Looking at Europe, a new wave of infections has swept through, most of which are unvaccinated people. The World Health Organization reported that nearly 2 million coronavirus cases were reported in Europe last week, which is "the most in a single week in the region since the beginning of the pandemic."

Health experts cited the decline in vaccination rates and the cancellation of restrictive measures such as mask injunctions.

The key to breaking the cycle of hopeful forward and then frustrating backwards is caution and discipline.

In Greensboro and Guildford Counties, you can help by resisting irrational natural impulses and forgetting that there is still a pandemic.

We should still avoid unnecessary risks. We should also maintain patience and respect.

We should abide by the rules of businesses that choose to maintain mask requirements to protect customers and employees. With the cancellation of county mask authorization, business owners and workers no longer have county authority to authorize to support their own rules.

We should be decent. If you do not accept the rules of an organization, you should move your business to other places instead of promoting yourself or creating a scene.

We should continue to accept and abide by the school system's mask regulations. They are designed to protect the safety of children, teachers and school staff, not a conspiracy to rule the world.

The virus does not care about our politics. It just wants hosts that are vulnerable (or easily fooled).

In these latest calm waters in the eyes of the COVID storm, the more progress we make, the sooner it will end.

So, remember, as they (somewhat) say in the comic book: greater freedom brings greater responsibility.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. all rights reserved. Do not publish, broadcast, adapt or redistribute this material.

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