By Steve Woodward
During the afternoon business session of the 2024 North Carolina Republican Party convention on May 25, 2024, Moore County was represented by 48 Republican delegates who not only were pre-registered but had “checked in”. They were in the conventional hall, having reported for duty.
This band of citizens who chose to launch their Memorial Day Weekend in a hotel ballroom with seating configured similar to the economy section of a discount airline cabin could have elected to be anywhere else. Driving to the Atlantic coast. Driving to a mountain cottage. Smoking a pork butt at home on their patio. Playing 18 in the Cradle of American Golf beneath the pines.
But they assembled instead in an antiquated hotel and conference center overlooking strip malls to conduct the business of their party. Alongside them were more than 1,300 delegates from most of North Carolina’s 100 counties. Believe it or not, in this moment in time in America which finds us hurtling toward tyranny and Socialism, there are counties in our state that can’t find even one Republican to show up for the annual convention.
As for Moore County, our brigade was a familiar one. The “usual suspects”. Dedicated. Reliable. We are family. We respect one another though we do not always see eye to eye. There is underlying tension. There are generational issues. When we return to our county, we will have our disagreements while continuing to be united by a sense of duty.
Amid this perilous moment in American history, it is striking that actively engaged Republicans are perpetually worried that we’ll be outworked by well organized Democrats. One important function of a state convention is to energize attendees to go back home to rally citizens away from the sidelines. Each county is limited as to convention delegate counts, but it’s worth noting that the 48 Moore County delegates in the hall accounted for .00155 percent of the county’s 31,107 registered Republican voters as of April 2024. They could have traveled to the convention in a chartered bus with seats to spare.
Why do Republicans rarely max out their delegate counts at the annual gathering? There are plausible explanations. Some people avoid large crowds at all costs. Attending a convention is not inexpensive. The base registration price is $75. That ticket will not get you into the luncheons and dinners where the keynote speakers are on stage (Lara and Eric Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, etc.). Those tickets costs hundreds more.
But a majority of right-of-center folks have never and will never consider attending a convention, door knocking or phone calling on behalf of the cause. A lot of citizens are fully aware of what is at stake when voters go to the polls this November but choose to tune out the Left’s persecution of Judeo-Christian values amid overt weaponization of the judicial and legal systems to punish adversaries. They say they are not “political”. They chose not to watch “the news”.
What if we are mistaking what appears to be apathy for a deeper symptom? Maybe it’s fear. In the freest country in the world citizens are afraid. It’s easy to pay lip service to the courage of our Founding Fathers but our inherent fears — of character assassination, of job loss, of strained friendships and family relationships, of cancellation — stop most of us from embracing that courage. The Left is ruthless. A few short years ago, fear was weaponized to escalate a health crisis, to turn family members against one another, to isolate children, to re-order social norms, and to force healthy citizens to submit to experimental injections, and, ultimately, to compromise the integrity of an election season.
Some fear they’ll be labeled racist or transphobic for confronting the identity politics of the Left. But there also are Republicans who are afraid to stand up to fellow Republicans when our own teammates betray or disappoint. It’s easier, less confrontational, to sink into the shadows as the establishment shamelessly defends the status quo. Consider how many Republicans ardently condemned those who sought the removal of feckless Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.
In Moore County, the only vocally conservative member of the local school board is the one denounced by a Republican board chairman and the Republican Party leadership. The one person who demands fiscal accountability and transparency in public education was “primaried” last March. The ploy failed because authenticity and loyalty to principle always win. Ultimately, the establishment Right prefers that those who push too hard, say too much, and denounce the hypocrites just become fed up and quit. And many have.
At the convention, Ramaswamy (photo nearby), the former presidential candidate who is a rising star and now a Trump surrogate, and Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor, issued stern warnings to timid Republicans. The crowd applauded. Let’s hope their words resonated.
“There is a culture of fear that has spread across this country like an epidemic,” Ramaswamy said. “Fear of losing your job; fear of your kids getting a bad grade in school; fear of becoming an outcast in your own community. And that culture of fear has actually totally replaced our culture of free speech in America. What is the best measure of the health of our democracy? It is the percentage of people who feel free to say what they actually think in public. We stand for truth, and we do not apologize for it.”
Republicans are “not just on the right,” Robinson said. “We are right.” He went on to exalt the assembled to become “warriors” and to resist the urge deeply rooted in far too many Republicans to “tone it down”.
“This is our moment to start running to something, back to what it means to be an American,” Ramaswamy said. “It means we stand for the rule of law. It means the people we elect to run the government actually run the government, not the deep state … that is pulling the strings of power.
“These are American ideals we fought a revolution to secure, and the question is, do we believe those ideals still exist? The next question is, are you willing to fight for them? That’s what this year is about. … When we meet George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson, and John Jay in the afterlife, and they look us in the eye and say, ‘What sacrifice did you make for your country?’ We had better have a darn good answer to give them. What sacrifice are you willing to make for this country?”
We know these fearless warriors are out there. They were in Washington on January 6, 2021. Owed to the sinister trap set by the Biden regime and then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi, some engaged in and were not deterred from criminal activity, while others, curious about photo ops inside the Capitol, have been falsely charged as criminals and languish in prison cells. History will record that the motives of the vast majority assembled on January 6 were pure and just.
More than three years on, the spirit of January 6 grips the nation. It is seen and felt every time Donald Trump arrives at a rally. A recent rally in the South Bronx in New York City suggests the fervor to derail the Biden wrecking machine is building. The 25,000-plus who gathered demonstrated the power of hope over fear. What else explains the surging numbers of black and Hispanic citizens, and college students, boldly expressing their support for Trump’s re-election?
Political conventions are moments in time that have their place and fulfill a purpose. But that’s all they are. What matters in the four months until the onset of early voting is compelling sporadic voters to actually vote with courage for Trump and all of the Republican candidates who will advance the MAGA agenda. How is this accomplished? It is accomplished when individuals liberate themselves from their fears by adopting the spirit and courage of the founders, who relied on the hand of God to sustain them.
They knew their lives and finances were at risk, and some lost both. Today, in 2024, no one is asking fellow Republicans to run into a hail of gunfire. The asks are actually very reasonable. Get over the fear of signing a letter to the editor that condemns Leftist hypocrisy; of standing up at a school board meeting to defend the right of parents to protect their children from sexually graphic books and gender grooming; of denouncing elected Republican leaders when they betray our core principles; and of flying banners, planting yard signs and engaging with friends and neighbors even at the risk of enduring their wrath. Relish their misery.
Worse than fear is its by-product. Despair. Until the Left is silenced it will pursue its Marxist goals of ruling over a frightened, despairing, and defeated people no longer recognizable as Americans.