NC Republican Party

Apathetic or afraid?

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.

Trump 2.0

By Steve Woodward

What I learned at the North Carolina Republican Party Convention in Greenville:

Ernie’s Sub Shop (since 1980) is legitimate, and the best alternative to the NC GOP’s offerings, which left delegates craving airline food.

The ballroom of the Greenville Hilton is a cramped and stifling venue in which conducting a convention is not advisable. It surely was designed by a radical Lefty because it divides people and limits their ability to be heard.

President Donald Trump is reflective but not defeated six months after his inexplicable “loss”, and no longer opposes Joe Bidden as a “sleepy” adversary but as an enemy of our nation’s core values.

His Saturday night (June 5) address to dehydrated convention delegates and donors was, in many ways, vintage Trump. Our “45″ chided the media (which was assembled en masse), China (and its clear role in unleashing the Wuhan virus), and the Biden administration’s already collapsing economy and stature around the world.

What Trump did not do to any significant degree is belabor Biden’s obvious physical and mental limitations, other than mentioning Biden’s talent at falling “up” the stairs to the door of Air Force One. He pointed to the debacle caused by Dr. Anthony Fauci’s deceit, which fueled Wuhan virus hysteria. He acknowledged that he made a huge “bet” when directing the federal government to underwrite the launch of Operation Warp Speed, which ultimately delivered on his promise of virus vaccines in record time by sidestepping normal Food and Drug Administration testing.

Those like me who were at the White House ellipse on January 6, shivering in bitter cold, and in the Greenville Convention Center on June 5 shivering under blasting air conditioning, could not have escaped the conclusion that Trump has bounced back from the November election outcome more so than many of us.

That is reason enough to enter the road to 2022 and beyond rejuvenated and determined. The man who remains the heart and soul of the Republican Party is counting on that. (Not to mention the inspiration we can draw from South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who spoke with the eloquence of a leader and the common sense of a rancher during her June 5 convention luncheon appearance).

As demonstrated in Greenville, even if Trump never again runs for elected office, the sheer force of his personality will assist state parties in raising millions of dollars to support Republican campaigns. NC GOP chairman Michael Whatley informed delegates that Trump’s presence guaranteed that last Saturday’s fundraiser would reap the largest collection in party history. By four times, in fact.

In the unlikely event that Trump decides not to run for President in 2024, he will have positioned the Republican Party’s conservatives to rise up in defiance of the Socialist tsunami sweeping upon our shores. As our culture crumbles, constitutional rights slip away, religious freedoms evaporate, inflation soars and economic growth stagnates, we must look to the Trump example. We stand firm. We don’t back down. We elect candidates who execute on their promises from day one. We make America great again. Again.

Betrayal

By Steve Woodward

North Carolina Republican Party chairman Michael Whatley described Sen. Richard Burr’s vote to convict President Donald Trump after his Senate impeachment trial as “shocking and disappointing”.

Allow me to respectfully disagree. Burr’s track record during the Trump era strongly suggested he would, ultimately, join six other Republicans in voting against Trump’s certain acquittal. Nothing shocking about it. Disappointing? How about revolting? Or, vile. And, perhaps worst of all, calculated.

Who can doubt that a career swamp creature such as Burr would be tempted by a deal with the Devil? Consider this sheer coincidence: an investigation of Burr’s trading of 33 stocks timed around Wuhan Virus vaccine development was dropped by the Department of Justice the moment the Biden administration seized power. Or, perhaps, no coincidence. Wink, wink.

While the media and the Left conveniently forget about events of a week, or a month, or even years ago, as if they never happened (Ukraine’s extortion of $1 billion through then-Vice President Biden), even Republicans seem to not recall the manner in which the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Burr before his forced resignation amid insider trading allegations, aided and abetted the Russian hoax.

The Federalist’s Tristan Justice, writing in May 2020, referred to the revelations about the committee’s conduct in an early 2018 column put forth by a Federalist colleague.

Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway wrote in March that the recent (stock trading) scandal is only the latest reason Burr should be stripped of his powerful chairmanship after perpetuating the grand Russian collusion conspiracy theory implicating President Donald Trump was an agent of the Kremlin.

“The only notable thing to have happened in that committee over the course of the Russia collusion hoax was the arrest of one of its staffers for lying regarding his leaks of information to reporters he was intimate with,” Hemingway wrote.

But Burr assured Americans in an April 2020 statement that the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) of Russian “collusion” was solid and indisputable.

Burr: “In reviewing the ICA, the Senate Intelligence Committee looked at two key questions: first, did the final product meet the initial task given by the President, and second, was the analysis supported by the intelligence presented? We found the ICA met both criteria. The ICA reflects strong tradecraft, sound analytical reasoning, and proper justification of disagreement in the one analytical line where it occurred.”

The fatal flaw in this assessment is that the ICA was informed from the outset by an infamous document known as the Steele Dossier. The genesis of the Steele Dossier discredited it from day one.

“The Clinton campaign and the (Democrat National Committee) paid 12 million dollars to an American company called Fusion GPS for the purpose of digging up dirt on then candidate, Donald Trump,” writes former CIA station chief Brad Johnson, founder of Americans for Intelligence Reform. “It was Fusion GPS that then hired Steele. In so doing GPS would have obviously kept much of that $12 million for themselves. Neither the Clinton campaign, nor the DNC directly hired Steele.

“There has never been any announcement, or evidence presented, as to how much of the $12 million GPS kept for itself, and how much it paid Steele to further the ‘opposition research project’.”

Here is the bottom line on Richard Burr. Career politician. Complicit in advancing the Russia collusion hoax to bring down President Trump. Although not alone on Capitol Hill, not opposed to “selling off up to $1.7 million in stocks following classified congressional briefings on the coming pandemic from the novel Wuhan coronavirus” (The Federalist, May 14 2020). One of seven Senate Republicans whom history will record as voting to impeach a private citizen in defiance of the Constitution.

Just be glad you are not his book agent.

Indignation contagion

By Steve Woodward

Masks are being worn by compliant citizens in our community at an ever increasing rate. Some motorists are even donning masks while driving. In their own vehicles. Without passengers.

masks The upside to this rather odd habit is that said drivers are masking expressions of indignation, which has become a permanent facial condition for many. Even as the Wuhan Virus continues to disrupt daily life and destroy small businesses, a secondary illness has come to the fore — staggering numbers are foregoing personal freedom and unalienable rights in the name of “safety”. Stay safe. What does it mean? Nobody really knows. But it’s the right thing to say in “uncertain times”, apparently. A media driven narrative strikes again. Those who do not assume safety is a birthright have targets on our backs.

The presumption of safety and the delusion of certainty are woven more deeply into the fabric of the American culture than we knew, as demonstrated by the hysteria and tyranny-to-the-rescue solutions of recent weeks. The United States was not founded on either presumption. In fact, it could not have been founded by men paralyzed by fear. They viewed the world in quite opposite terms. Thomas Jefferson specified a preference for dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.

A tee shirt enshrining Jefferson’s words can be purchased via Amazon. Sadly, fewer Americans than ever seem inclined to wear one. It now appears certain that the weapons unleashed to battle the Wuhan Virus will remain intact long after virus hysteria has subsided. Democrat governors such as North Carolina’s Roy Cooper will feed on a permanent indignant class that embraces peaceful slavery in the name of safety.

Masks forever. Social distancing as a norm. No handshakes. No hugs. No salad bars. No buffets. Permanent requirements to register body temperatures of airline passengers and sports fans. No high fives, or low fives. No church communion. And these are merely the behavioral issues that some will want to impose, even absent edicts from Democrat lawmakers. Just because they know best.

The comfortably enslaved also will cheer for punishing lawsuits post-Wuhan aimed at everything imaginable, but especially products and companies that might have exposed innocent souls to the “deadly” virus. Also: higher hourly wages for employees of businesses that were bailed out (and falsely presumed to be awash with cash); or, permanent $600-a-week federal unemployment benefits for those who prefer to make a minimum of $15 per hour by staying at home. Which raises another one. Staying at home as a way of life? Just in case. No cozy cafes. No theaters. No street fairs. No cruise ships. No pilates classes. Heck, no classes, period.

A government large enough to give you everything we (think we) need, including absolute safety via rolling quarantines, is large enough to take everything we have, materially and ideologically, especially if we fail to stand up to it.

“The absolute worst part of the COVID-19 pandemic, and possibly its most unrecoverable damage, is the massive power that Americans have given to their federal, state and local governments to regulate our lives in the name of protecting our health,” writes syndicated columnist and George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams. “Taking back that power should be the most urgent component of our recovery efforts.”

Aided by hysterical throngs, Democrat governors Cooper, Andrew Cuomo (NY), Gavin Newsom (CA), Ralph Northam (VA) and Gretchen Whitmer (MI), to name some of the worst, are demonstrating they will be hesitant to relinquish the power they’ve claimed in recent weeks. In Michigan, a Republican-led legislature filed suit May 6 against Whitmer, seeking to force an end to orders that have closed down many nonessential businesses and largely confined residents to their homes. Whitmer is a power grabber.

In California, Newsom faces no such legal challenge. Knowing that, he moved the goalposts this week just as restrictions on citizens and the economy were about to ease. He declared nothing will be normal until such time as immunity to and a vaccine against the Wuhan Virus becomes reality. Newsom encouraged counties to override any easing of behavioral restrictions as they see fit. He has ceded martial law to the counties. Now that’s leadership.

Will Cooper be next? Friday, North Carolina enters “Phase One” of his plan to re-open the state’s economy. This will “allow” more retail activity for small businesses, but it keeps restaurants closed for at least two more weeks. Restaurant owners are pleading with Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly to help, but they have largely been met with silence. Lawmakers simply do not seem to have the will to take on the indignant class, which clearly has drawn people from both parties. They know best.

The reality is that freedom, too, is essential to health and welfare and is far more powerful than government responses to a pandemic. This was driven home by a letter in the Wall Street Journal by a Michigan reader. He quoted patriot John Locke: “This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it.”

World history largely has been defined by human suffering, plague and tyranny. The American experiment proves that this does not have to be. Those who will yield everything to government to achieve “safety” in the 21st century ignore this history. Draw the battle lines. Let’s get on with it.

War on democracy

By Steve Woodward

From both ends of the political spectrum a narrative is spinning in response to North Carolina’s embattled U.S Congressional districts. The essence is that the time has come for state Republicans to yield any presumption of controlling how districts are drawn despite their majority status in the statehouse and the U.S. House of Representatives.

This new “logic” dictates that Republicans must yield because the world has changed. Gerrymandering simply has become too precise, too data driven and, thus, overtly racist and unfair. Just ask former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, the ringleader of a national campaign to weaken Republican control of gubernatorial, state legislative and state court seats. Holder’s organization filed the lawsuit that just a few days ago received a favorable ruling from a three-judge NC superior court panel (two members are Democrats, of course): re-draw your U.S. Congressional maps immediately, or else. Republicans hold 10 of the 13 North Carolina seats in Congress. Not acceptable, say the Holderites. The wrong voters voted to impose an unfair imbalance.

Now what? Congressman Richard Hudson (NC-8) whose district includes Moore County very likely will be assigned to another district, or Moore will end up in another district. A member of Hudson’s staff acknowledges Republicans are powerless to stop what’s coming. The spokesman said the redrawing easily could result in 10-3 flipping to 6-7, the worst case scenario. This upheaval also handicaps fundraising by candidates like Hudson because he’ll find himself an unknown among new constituents.

Democrats claim they want to kill gerrymandering once and for all by taking map drawing out of the hands of politicians from parties in power, the American way for decades and a fact of life in our state during 140 years of Democrat control of the General Assembly until 2011. Confident in the public’s short memory span, Holder told The New York Times North Carolinians were “forced to vote on manipulated electoral maps … drawn to create a partisan outcome.”

Once a “fair” system of map drawing by independent bodies is in place, Democrats want us to believe they’ll never again try to leverage gerrymandering should they seize power in North Carolina, or elsewhere. (If you buy that, look at what happened in Virginia on Election Day 2019 as a result of new independent maps approved last February shifting Republicans into six Democrat dominated districts).

The Pilot‘s editorial board in November 6 editions declares “it’s time finally to bring meaningful reform to the redistricting process.” In fact, there is a bill pending (HB 140), known as the FAIR Act, proposing a constitutional amendment placed on a future ballot that would afford voters the opportunity to make a choice. The left claims passage would lead to “transparent” map drawing by independent panels. But who will form the panels, and what will stop well funded organizations like Holder’s from packing them with radicals? Nothing.

From the right comes another call for a serious look at the FAIR Act, and from none other than John Hood, author, television commentator and chairman of the Raleigh-based John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank. Hood’s November 6 column in The Pilot declares “the handwriting is on the wall”, pointing to how the court-ordered redrawing of General Assembly maps played out in October. “North Carolina now has fairer legislative districts because a court ordered the General Assembly to open up the process and stick to neutral criteria,” Hood writes.

Hood, who should know better, inexplicably gives “court ordered” maps a presumption of purity. Since when are courts devoid of activist Democrat judges? Since when are lawsuits by well funded far Left entities acting in the best interest of all voters rather than Democrat voters and candidates?

The former Republican Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, has a ready answer. Since never. Now chair of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, Walker says Democrats have toiled for a decade using power grabs disguised as well intentioned state lawsuits.

“They pick a state, they sue until it’s blue,” Walker told National Public Radio’s Miles Parks. “Sooner or later their goal is to make those states blue and add as many House seats as they can, to keep Democrats in power for the next decade or more.”

The forthcoming 2020 Census data will bring a new round of redistricting opportunities across the country in 2021. This scenario comes around once every decade. North Carolinians very well might end up living with a FAIR Act and its unaccountable map drawing panels, but numerous states where Democrats are in control will go right back to gerrymandering traditions that are abusive only when Republicans apply them.