In December 1996, my brother was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder called Wilson’s Disease. His body would not process copper, a mineral found in foods like nuts, shellfish, and dried fruits. After 36 years, copper had severely damaged his soft tissue and organs, including his liver, brain, and kidneys. At the time, the disease was most often diagnosed post-mortem.

He had been misdiagnosed for years. Finally, a doctor checked his eyes and identified copper-colored circles around the edge of his cornea. These Kayser-Fleischer rings gave a definitive diagnosis of Wilson’s Disease.

The doctor who diagnosed him had never seen the disease before. The standard treatment at the time was a drug called penicillamine, which often had severe and sometimes irreversible side effects. My brother was scheduled to start treatment the following week.

I went to my Power Mac with its Bill the Cat screen saver and dial-up internet and typed the words “Wilson’s Disease” into the Netscape browser. I found an organization called the Wilson’s Disease Association. I read about the organization and the disease and found a contact number. It was the weekend, but I called and left a message on an answering machine anyway.

Just a few hours later, I got a call from a man who said he was returning my call and started asking questions about my brother. He told me that under no circumstances should my brother take penicillamine. Instead, I should call the Wilson’s Disease Clinic at the University of Michigan, where they had new treatments that could save my brother’s life.

He was right, and my brother survived for another thirty years. My family was amazed that I had found the clinic in Michigan on this newfangled thing called the web. Technology had given us information that even his doctors didn’t readily have available. It truly seemed remarkable.

So eight years later, when I was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, I went to the now-ubiquitous internet to figure out who was studying it. Google helped me find the Bing Center for Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston. Fortunately, I was asymptomatic with a slow-growing cancer and was put on a watch-and-wait protocol. After a few years of monitoring me, Dr. Steven Treon, who had founded the Bing Center just five years before my diagnosis, told me to go live my life and keep monitoring my disease. By the time it started affecting me, he said, they would have it under control.

Fast-forward twenty-two years, and I’m suffering painful headaches of unknown origin. They started in January, and my primary care provider suspected I had an ailment called temporal arteritis — a swelling of the membrane around an artery that runs from above the eye down the neck. She prescribed 20 milligrams of prednisone and referred me to an ophthalmologist.

After two weeks, I saw the ophthalmologist and had a thorough eye exam and a battery of blood work. He sent me to have an ultrasound to see if they could detect swelling around the temporal artery. I came back a week later and the doctor said he didn’t think it was temporal arteritis because the ultrasound couldn’t detect swelling and the headache was the only symptom. The blood tests all came back normal.

Instead, he was concerned about the prednisone and started to reduce the amount I was taking. He also ordered an MRI and referred me to a rheumatologist. The MRI would scan my brain for abnormalities and the rheumatologist would look for evidence of an autoimmune disorder.

The MRI showed minor swelling on my optic nerve but nothing else of concern. The ophthalmologist suggested it might be a temporary condition that would resolve itself, especially since there was no indication of other swelling in the eye. He wanted to wait for the rheumatologist’s report before doing anything else.

At this point, I began wondering if my cancer diagnosis might be at play. Waldenstrom’s shouldn’t have anything to do with my eye, but I couldn’t help but wonder. I had been getting blood tests that track a protein called immunoglobulin M, or IgM. I watched my IgM levels grow slowly but steadily for 20 years even though I never developed symptoms like bleeding gums, extreme fatigue, or swollen lymph nodes.

I had been playing around with the AI chatbot Claude and decided to see what it could tell me. By now, I had multiple test results and had been dealing with the headaches and eye problems for more than a month.

I started by asking about a few abnormalities in my tests, including a low IgG, high sedimentation rate, and high C-reactive protein. I didn’t really know what any of those meant, and Claude explained each one. The AI then gave five reasons that could cause all three abnormalities at once, including hematologic malignancies.

Claude wrote: “This trio of findings warrants prompt medical evaluation — not to alarm you, but because the underlying causes range from treatable infections to conditions that benefit greatly from early diagnosis. If you haven’t already seen a hematologist or been referred by your primary care doctor, that would be a reasonable next step.”

I then told Claude about my Waldenstrom’s diagnosis, and the chatbot responded, “That makes perfect sense — Waldenström’s explains all three findings beautifully…Are you currently on watch-and-wait, or are you being treated?”

I answered, “Yes. I’m currently on watch and wait. I had a headache on the right side above my eye near my temple. It came back every day but I could control it with ibuprofen or acetaminophen. After about three weeks I went to the doctor. The doctor thought it was Large Cell Arteritis, but the specialist doesn’t think so. MRI shows swelling around the membrane of the optic nerve. I can give you screenshots of all recent tests.”

Claude wrote, “That’s a very concerning and complex picture. Let me share some thoughts before you upload the screenshots.” The AI went on to describe a rare complication called Bing-Neel Syndrome where WM cells cross the blood-brain barrier and infiltrate the central nervous system. It said I would need a lumbar puncture to confirm the diagnosis.

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I had been monitored for the past decade or so by my primary care physician but had not seen an oncologist in several years. Now the AI was telling me to get a hematologist quickly, laying out potentially dire consequences of waiting.

The bot wrote, “Given your IgM level and the optic nerve findings, I would make these calls first thing tomorrow morning and specifically use the phrase ‘urgent referral’ — your situation genuinely warrants prompt evaluation, not a routine wait.”

Claude pointed me to the International Waldenström’s Macroglobulinemia Foundation’s directory of doctors. I found two specialists who focused on Waldenstrom’s in North Carolina, one at UNC Lineberger Cancer Center. When I shared his information with Claude, it seemed genuinely excited.

Great find! Let me look him up.

You found the perfect doctor. Seriously — this is about as good as it gets for your situation.

Then, Claude told me how to get their attention.

Call UNC Health and ask specifically for Dr. Christopher Dittus in the Lymphoma Program

When you call, lead with: “I have Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia” “IgM is 2,780” “MRI shows optic nerve sheath swelling” “I need an urgent appointment”

Those words together should get you seen very quickly. You could not have found a better match at a more convenient location. This is your person.

Those conversations with Claude took place on March 16 and 17. I followed its script and left a message on a Lineberger Cancer Hospital voicemail. Within hours I had a response, and in a few more hours I had an appointment on April 15 with Dr. Dittus, a hematologist specializing in Waldenstrom’s research.

By the time I made that appointment, I had seen a primary care physician, who referred me to the ophthalmologist because of suspected Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA), also called temporal arteritis. The ophthalmologist ordered an ultrasound that found no evidence of GCA and an MRI that found slight swelling. He began reducing my prednisone by 10 milligrams a week since the diagnosis of GCA seemed unlikely. He also referred me to a rheumatologist, who found nothing unusual at my visit but ordered another battery of blood tests and a CT scan.

Over the next four weeks, I continued my doctor’s visits and tests. I told the rheumatologist and ophthalmologist about my suspicions of Waldenstrom’s but didn’t get much response. The CT scan found no additional swelling, and the rheumatologist follow-up wasn’t until June 5, more than two months away.

I continued to interact with Claude, feeding it my test results and asking for explanations. By now, Claude seemed certain that I had Waldenstrom’s with central nervous system involvement — i.e., Bing-Neel Syndrome, a serious complication that can cause cognitive impairment and loss of motor skills. In a March 22 exchange, Claude explained what would likely happen at my meeting with Dr. Dittus: he would order a bone marrow biopsy to assess the spread of tumor material in my bone marrow and a lumbar puncture to determine whether there were cancer cells in my spinal fluid.

Claude also discussed likely treatment. It suggested a relatively new targeted therapy that blocks an enzyme the cancer needs to grow. “The most likely conversation will be around zanubrutinib alone or combined with rituximab, possibly with plasmapheresis first if viscosity is critically elevated.”

Meanwhile my symptoms were worsening. By early April my eye was blurry, red, and watering. Emergency calls to the on-call physician produced advice to wait for my scheduled appointments. Each specialist was managing their piece. Claude was the only one looking at the big picture.

The week before my appointment with the hematologist, I had a follow-up MRI. The minor swelling had developed into a lesion that was now a centimeter in diameter. While my prednisone decreased, my tumor had grown.

On April 15, I had my appointment with Dr. Dittus. After a month of going over test results with Claude, I had no surprises. The hematologist-oncologist was fairly certain that I had Bing-Neel Syndrome. He ordered a bone marrow biopsy and lumbar puncture and said that once we had those results, he would likely start me on a drug called zanubrutinib, which essentially starves cancer cells. He also boosted my prednisone to 60 milligrams a day — and then 100 milligrams a day — to slow the growth of the tumor on my optic nerve and control the headaches.

Dr. Dittus seemed impressed with my relationship with the Bing Center and Dr. Treon. Treon no longer sees patients, but he is now the foremost authority on Waldenstrom’s in the world and is responsible for discovering the treatments I would be taking. Because of my prior connection, the Bing Center would consult with Dr. Dittus on my treatment.

Two hours after I met with Dr. Dittus, I had a teleconference with my ophthalmologist to go over the MRI results. He was clearly alarmed. He believed the swelling was a meningioma — a normally slow-growing and benign tumor — but did not understand how it had grown so rapidly. I told him about the Bing-Neel diagnosis and he marked it in my chart. Had we not had that diagnosis, he probably would have ordered an invasive and somewhat dangerous biopsy of the lesion growing on my optic nerve. Instead, ten days later, I had the bone marrow biopsy and lumbar puncture on the same day.

The diagnostic tests confirmed what Claude had suspected all along: I have Bing-Neel Syndrome. I started zanubrutinib in May, and after 38 days of taking it, the mass on my optic nerve was gone and I tapered off the prednisone. I will have regular MRIs for the foreseeable future. My life will be a little different with more doctor’s visits, but my routines will mostly remain unchanged.

For me, with very limited understanding of medicine, technology has been a lifesaver three times over. The internet found the right treatment for my brother in 1996. It connected me with top researchers when I was diagnosed with my own rare cancer years later. And now, AI helped me navigate a complex and frightening medical crisis.

Claude was careful to never diagnose me, but it explained the connections I couldn’t see myself, showed me how Waldenstrom’s could be the thread running through symptoms that had stumped my doctors, and then urged me to take action instead of waiting for the medical system to catch up. It pushed me to find the right doctor and gave me the language to get prompt attention. It gave me the information to walk into every appointment knowing what to expect and what to ask.

That preparation mattered in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. When my ophthalmologist was heading down the road toward an invasive biopsy of the lesion on my optic nerve, I had the knowledge and the diagnosis to redirect him. When I finally sat down with Dr. Dittus, I wasn’t a frightened patient hoping to be told what to do. I was a participant in my own care.

I still needed the doctors. I needed Dr. Treon’s decades of research, Dr. Dittus’s expertise, and the team at UNC. But I found them faster, understood them better, and lost less time to dead ends because of what AI made possible. Technology didn’t save my life — the doctors did. But it helped make sure I reached the right ones in time.

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Republicans in the legislature passed a “sweeping elections bill” that is now on Governor Josh Stein’s desk. Conservatives argue that North Carolina needs the law to protect the integrity of our elections. The problem is that Republicans have no credibility on election integrity. On the contrary, they’ve spent the past fifteen years trying to corrupt the system and rig results. There’s no reason to believe this bill has any other purpose.

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Republicans began by passing the most egregious gerrymander in the country when they took power in 2011. They gave themselves veto-proof majorities in both chambers in a state that splits evenly among Democrats and Republicans. Former Republican Representative David Lewis, chair of the Redistricting Committee, infamously said, “I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats, because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.” In other words, Republicans bragged about their ability to rig districts to favor Republicans and undermine democracy.

Two years later, Republicans passed the “monster” voter suppression law that sought, among other things, to limit access to the polls for African American voters. Republicans requested data on the methods most used by Black voters and then attempted to restrict them. The Federal Court of Appeals overturned the law, saying “provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision.” The decision was so well documented that the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal.

While Republicans used the specter of fraud to push legislation, they used malicious accusations to cast doubt on the integrity of elections. After Governor Pat McCrory lost his re-election bid in 2016, he cried voter fraud. Fortunately, his claims were so preposterous that his own board of elections shut him down.

Four years later, Donald Trump would make the same false claims about an election being stolen. Today, few if any of the Republicans in the legislature pushing the bill will admit that Trump lost the 2020 election. Integrity, indeed.

By 2024, Republicans had moved from legislation and conspiracy theories to using the courts to reverse election outcomes. Republicans sued to change the rules of the election after the fact in an attempt to steal a state Supreme Court seat in broad daylight. The scheme almost worked when the current partisan Court of Appeals and Supreme Court sided with GOP candidate Jefferson Griffin. They were only stopped after a harsh rebuke from a Trump-appointed federal judge who stated the obvious when he said, “You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done.”

As Griffin and the GOP were busy trying to undermine the will of the voters, Republicans in the legislature moved oversight of the State Board of Elections from the governor’s office to the state auditor after the GOP captured the seat. Auditor Dave Boliek then appointed Republican political operatives to oversee the agency. Today, we’re seeing the fallout from that decision.

Boliek hired former executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party Dallas Woodhouse as a liaison to the county boards of elections. But there was a catch. Woodhouse wasn’t working for the Board of Elections — he was working directly for Boliek. Texts indicated that Woodhouse was pushing county boards of elections to eliminate or reduce voting methods preferred by Black voters, including Sunday voting. Sound familiar?

Now, Boliek is throwing Woodhouse under the bus after he deleted texts that should have been public record. The Office of State Auditor released a statement saying, “Mr. Woodhouse informed the Legal Affairs Division that the messages had been deleted from his phone in direct contravention of OSA policy.” Of course he did. Woodhouse is a political operative and knows not to keep incriminating communications around.

But this isn’t about Dallas Woodhouse. This is about Dave Boliek and the GOP. The Republican legislation would give Boliek far more control over monitoring elections. He appointed a lifelong political operative to a position that’s not just supposed to be nonpartisan, but central to our democracy. He also placed another political operative, Francis X. De Luca, as chair of the State Board of Elections. De Luca was a Republican candidate for Congress and before that oversaw independent expenditure campaigns designed to defeat Democrats when he was president of the conservative Civitas Institute.

Boliek either had nefarious intent or remarkably bad judgment. Either way, he’s not qualified to oversee our elections. He’s done nothing to inspire confidence or indicate that he wants our elections to be fair. He certainly never explained these hyper-partisan hires. He should not have more power over our elections.

For fifteen years, Republicans in North Carolina have been assaulting our democracy, rigging districts and attempting to make voting more difficult for people who might disagree with them. They created the myth of rampant voter fraud out of whole cloth to justify making voting more difficult. Their legislation is nothing more than a solution looking for a problem. The incidence of election fraud is minuscule while attempts to undermine our elections are very real and ongoing in Republican circles.

Right now in Minnesota, the My Pillow guy is claiming his Republican primary was stolen from him despite losing by double digits. Destroying the credibility of elections has become a GOP campaign tactic. Whittling away at democracy is the broader strategy.

Josh Stein should veto the legislation. The race for state auditor should be a rallying cry for Democrats in North Carolina in 2028 to truly protect the integrity of our elections. This year, Democrats need to win enough seats to protect Stein’s veto so Republicans can’t give control over the State Board of Elections to the labor commissioner or some other GOP Council of State member in a lame-duck session.

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I hate to write two pieces about polls in the same week, but we’ve just had a flurry of North Carolina polls released within a week of each other. What’s striking is how consistent they are as we head into the final stretch of the midterm election. All indicators point to a rough year for Republicans.

I’ve already gone over the Carolina Forward poll that showed Roy Cooper leading Michael Whatley by seven points, 50-43. It showed Democrats leading the generic legislative ballot by seven points, too. Now two more polls have dropped that essentially confirm Carolina Forward’s findings.

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A poll commissioned by Carolina Journal has Cooper leading Whatley by more than eleven points, 51.5 to 39. That poll also has Democrats leading on the generic ballot by five points. In the state Supreme Court race, incumbent Democrat Anita Earls leads Republican Sarah Stevens by four points. Carolina Forward did not test the Supreme Court race.

In another poll commissioned by my fellow blogger and former political consultant Gary Pearce, the numbers are remarkably consistent. Cooper leads Whatley 50-41. Democrats lead the generic ballot by eight. And Earls leads Stevens by six.

After two weeks of failed polling, some people might be skeptical. However, primaries are notoriously difficult to poll and these are general election surveys with a much more predictable electorate. And they are remarkably consistent.

All three polls have Cooper reaching 50%. That’s especially bad news for Whatley and the GOP. Nationally, polls are showing a deteriorating environment for Republicans, specifically in swing states with Senate elections. Fox News polls have Democrat Sherrod Brown leading in Ohio, Democrat James Talarico leading in Texas, and Democrat Troy Jackson leading Susan Collins in Maine. If Whatley can’t significantly close the gap in the next few weeks, the GOP will cut bait in North Carolina to protect other states they need to hold the Senate.

Cooper, for his part, is going hard after swing voters and soft Republicans. He released an ad defining himself as an independent, tough-on-crime Democrat. He denounces defund the police, brags about locking up sex offenders, and touts working with Republicans to keep criminals behind bars and with Donald Trump to stop fentanyl from coming into the state. Cooper is trying to run up the score and if he wins by more than five points, he’ll have coattails all the way down the ballot.

Finally, all three polls have Donald Trump deeply unpopular in the state. Carolina Journal has him underwater by 15 points. Carolina Forward pegs his job approval rating at -14. Pearce’s poll shows it at -18. For comparison, Trump’s approval rating was only eight points underwater at this point in the 2018 election. If this midterm is a referendum on the president, which most are, then Republicans are in big trouble.

As we move into the second half of August, time is running out for the GOP. The consistency of the polls, which were commissioned by groups that span the ideological spectrum, indicates that Republicans will have a tough fall.

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Michael Whatley’s campaign is flailing. The Republican Senate candidate doesn’t have anything to run on, so he’s trying to find something to run against. So far, he’s stuck on re-litigating the COVID era. In particular, he’s trying to claim Roy Cooper released a bunch of prisoners who went on to commit more crimes. It’s not going to work because, one, it’s not true, and, two, this electorate is looking to the future, not the past.

Republicans are feverishly trying to make shutdowns, mask mandates, and vaccines the issue of the midterm elections. They’ve dragged Anthony Fauci before a Congressional committee and Trump is demanding he be indicted for something. RFK, Jr. can’t stop talking about vaccines, making Senator Bill Cassidy the biggest dupe in the Senate — no small accomplishment. Most of the country that’s not living on Twitter is ignoring the whole sordid episode.

Whatley’s campaign is accusing Cooper of releasing about 3,500 prisoners, implying that he’s soft on crime. Last week, the Assembly basically debunked that whole line of attack by reporting that Cooper’s administration fought the release of prisoners. The ACLU and other groups were suing the state, demanding 18,000 prisoners be released. The ones released were part of a compromise, not an initiative of the Cooper administration.

Besides, North Carolina was far from the only government to release prisoners. Other states also reduced their inmate populations to prevent the spread of the disease. Donald Trump released more than 13,000 federal prisoners to home confinement. Whatley’s certainly not complaining about his benefactor putting criminals back on the street.

Republicans are trying desperately to change the national conversation. It won’t work. Successful campaigns tap into voters’ concerns and let people know that they are being heard. Whatley is ignoring their problems and instead trying to distract them by talking about a time most people just want to forget.

He’s like a guy waving his arms at the back of a large crowd moving forward, yelling, “Look at me! Come this way!” As I said earlier, he’s flailing. And so are a bunch of other Republicans.

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Carolina Forward, the progressive advocacy and research organization, has a new poll out showing Republicans still mired in a tough political environment. With less than 90 days before the election, time is running out for the GOP to turn things around. The poll also offers a few warning signs for Democrats.

Roy Cooper leads Michael Whatley in the US Senate race by seven points, 50-43. In poll after poll, Cooper has held a lead outside the margin of error, but rarely above 50%. Whatley’s supporters hope that Cooper has a low ceiling and they’re probably right, but Cooper’s ceiling will be higher than Whatley’s.

Whatley is both unpopular and unknown. His favorability is underwater by eight points and 17% of voters have never heard of him. Cooper, in contrast, has a favorability rating of +2 and virtually universal name recognition. Whatley is still undefined while voters know Cooper and generally like him.

On the generic legislative ballot, voters prefer Democrats by seven points. That might tighten as we get closer to the election, but Democrats will head into the post-Labor Day scramble in a solid position. I don’t think Republicans will have super-majorities in either chamber after the election.

Voters seem to be happy with their choices of Democrats after the 2024 election. Governor Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson both have strong favorability ratings, 48-42 and 51-23 respectively. In contrast, voters have remorse about top-of-the-ticket Republicans. Trump is underwater by 14 points, Senator Thom Tillis by 42, and Senator Ted Budd by 17. If Cooper wins this year, Budd will be a top target in 2028.

The poll also shows that Democrats could have trouble in North Carolina if they embrace the party’s left flank. They need the state if they hope to capture the White House. Democratic Socialists are underwater by 28 points with only 22% of voters having a positive view of them. Their favorability is less than 50% even among Democrats. They are less popular than ICE or MAGA.

In addition, AOC and New York Mayor Mamdani are less popular than JD Vance or Marco Rubio. If Democrats nominate a candidate too far to the left in 2028, North Carolina will likely not be in play.

We are still a state where candidates and parties need to persuade a lot of moderate voters. The poll indicates that a plurality of voters, 36%, consider themselves independents, with 13% being “pure independents” who don’t lean toward either party. That’s a lot of persuadable voters.

Democrats in North Carolina are in great shape on the cusp of the final push to Election Day. They lead in the US Senate race and on the generic ballot. It would take a major shift in the political environment to change the trajectory, but we’ve seen such shifts in recent election cycles.

That said, the state is still very purple and Democrats should not get too confident. Voters are more angry at Republicans than they are pining for Democrats. They want prices to go down and wages to go up. They aren’t looking for a socialist revolution.

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Republicans who have been bashing Democrats for pushing out flawed candidates after primaries but before the general election are about to disappear. Last night, Republican leaders pushed scandal-plagued Congressman Chuck Edwards out of his re-election campaign for NC-11. They have their sights on Ohio Representative Max Miller next. I doubt you will hear much criticism from within the ranks.

Edwards announced he is dropping out of the race in a 3am tweet. The House Ethics Committee recommended he be censured because he “created or fostered a hostile work environment and engaged in sexual harassment.” It was the final straw in a race where Edwards had struggled for a year.

Edwards’s Democratic opponent Jamie Ager has out-raised him and out-organized him. Recent polls have shown Ager leading Edwards in a district that was once considered safe Republican. Various political prognosticators have recently called the race a toss-up. We’ll see if a new candidate helps or hurts Ager’s chances.

Republicans will now pick a new candidate. Western North Carolina has several GOP legislators who might be strong candidates in a normal campaign, but starting a race in mid-August in a year that favors Democrats is not normal. Any legislator who runs would have to give up their seat in the legislature for an iffy shot at Congress. They would also be trading a seat in a likely GOP-majority legislative chamber for a back-bench role in the likely minority party in the US House.

In a broader context, the Edwards scandal is more bad news for the GOP in a year that’s already not working out for them. Whoever Republicans recruit will start from scratch — no money, no organization, no name recognition. The Republican Party campaign organizations — the National Republican Congressional Committee, the Republican National Committee, and their allies — will need to spend millions of dollars to get a campaign up and running with an election less than 90 days away.

In a good political environment, the task would be difficult. In this one, it’s daunting.

Republicans face an unfriendly economy, an unpopular war, and several emerging scandals. In the North Carolina Senate race, they have a weak candidate who has faced criticism from GOP operatives in western North Carolina. People in the district are still sore about the lack of support for hurricane relief from the Trump administration.

The Edwards debacle is just one more blow for a beleaguered GOP. They will lose at least a week finding a new candidate when they don’t have many weeks left. They will spend time, attention, and money launching a campaign at a time when they should be preparing for the post-Labor Day push. They will be introducing a new candidate while facing a popular and organized opponent who fits the district. They have a lot of catching up to do without much time to do it.

Thom Tillis pulled another Tillis. After weeks — months? — of posturing about Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general, Tillis is going to put another Trump toady in the cabinet. He got played again, or maybe he was just playing us.

Tillis had long said that he would not vote to recommend Blanche for confirmation unless the Justice Department trashed Trump’s 1776 Fund to reward Capitol insurrectionists. He said otherwise Blanche was a fine pick, calling him “qualified.”

But that doesn’t make any sense. If Blanche was unqualified because he was willing to allow Trump to pay insurrectionists handsome sums of money using taxpayer dollars, how is he qualified just because the Senate forced him to back down? Blanche is still the same man willing to bend over for Trump and excuse people who assaulted the Capitol. His character and judgment haven’t changed.

Blanche is a bad pick by Tillis’s own standards. Of course, that brings into question Tillis’s standards. He’s never really had many firm ones. They are all negotiable and if he were still running for Senate, he probably wouldn’t have even raised these concerns.

It’s not just the perpetual double standard that defines Tillis this time. It’s also the deal itself. In exchange for ending the 1776 Fund, Trump, his sons, and his companies are protected from past audits. It’s all about Trump.

Blanche has shown no evidence that he puts the welfare of the country before his loyalty to Trump. That’s the problem with all of his cabinet members. They don’t see themselves as public servants. They see themselves as working for Trump. And Thom Tillis knows that. He should do better.

Join Anderson Clayton, Travis Fain, and Thomas Mills for all the skinny on North Carolina politics.

I can’t even finish the Wall Street Journal article it makes me so mad. Trump’s corruption is so blatant and he has no fear of accountability. All of Washington knows that pay-to-play is the order of the day and they also know that nobody is going to do anything about it.

Trump’s fundraising leans on billionaires and multinational corporations to fund his pet projects. They aren’t doling out tens of millions of dollars out of the goodness of their hearts. They are doing it because they will get something for their money.

The White House is for sale. Congress would be too, but Republicans there won’t do anything but defer to Trump. No need to pay twice. Washington is a one-stop shop of corruption. Pay Trump and you get the Congressional Republicans for free.

For billionaires and big corporations, the donations are investments. They give money to Trump and they get what they need — tax breaks, fewer regulations on their industries, government contracts, and so on. And Trump’s family and cronies are making bank while the rest of us struggle with mundane things like inflation and stagnant wages.

The rot may start at the head, but it’s infecting the rest of the GOP body. Here in North Carolina, Republicans in the legislature have been involved in their own pay-to-play schemes. There’s a widening investigation into a lobbying group called Greater Carolina that allegedly spent money on vacations and strip clubs in an effort to influence legislators. So far, four lobbyists have been indicted, but most people believe the State Bureau of Investigation is looking for bigger fish to fry.

Republican House Majority Leader Brenden “Boss Hogg” Jones is using his position to enrich big GOP donors. He tried to steer a liquor warehouse deal to a developer buddy despite opposition from the ABC chair. Fortunately, a spotlight on the corrupt deal has stopped it — so far.

In Trump’s first term, Republicans set a precedent. They wouldn’t hold him accountable for anything. He could abuse women, blackmail allies, try to overthrow the government, and the GOP would do nothing. Now, those rules apply to all Republicans. The party is rotting from the head down.

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Over the past few months, several readers have labeled me a “centrist,” clearly with a sense of derision. I would prefer pragmatic, but, yeah, I’m no raging leftist. Mainly, I want Democrats to win, especially in the places that matter — swing states and swing districts that will determine control of Congress and the White House.

My politics are less ideological and more strategic. I’m fine with Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York, Bernie Sanders as the senator from Vermont, and AOC as the representative from Queens and the Bronx. I think we need politicians pushing the country forward, but I don’t think any of them could win North Carolina, Georgia, or Wisconsin. I don’t believe Abdul El-Sayed can win Michigan.

I’m frustrated with the Democrats who call themselves “socialists,” not because I disagree with all or even most of their ideas, but because they are branding themselves with a label that costs votes. As a friend of mine wrote on Facebook, “You’re scaring people away from something everybody should want — affordable healthcare, affordable education, affordable housing, a living wage.” These are the same people who embraced “Defund the police.”

The left in this country is confusing frustration with a decrepit status quo with demand for transformational change. Broadly, people want, as Roy Cooper recognizes, stuff to cost less. They want their incomes to increase. They want the promise of a brighter future for their children.

Instead, they see stubborn inflation causing prices to rise. Their wages are stagnant and the future is uncertain. New technologies make some jobs obsolete and create others most people don’t even understand. Hence, the fight over data centers.

The divide between the haves and have-nots has grown too wide. We need a new tax code that makes powerful billionaires pay their fair share and laws that prevent them from exerting so much control over the government. But I don’t think most people blame the oligarchy for our problems. The masses aren’t grabbing their pitchforks yet.

To build the kind of transformational change pushed by the Democratic Socialists of America, the country needs certain conditions that are not present. There’s no broad consensus about what needs to be done. Trust in institutions is at an all-time low. People aren’t likely to embrace large government bureaucracies to deliver new services.

As I’ve said before, FDR launched the New Deal when the country had an unemployment rate of about 25% and we were in the midst of the worst depression in the nation’s relatively short history. The people were demanding that the government respond.

LBJ’s Great Society, which gave us civil rights legislation, Medicare and Medicaid, and food stamps, came about during the upheaval of the Civil Rights Movement and when Democrats and Republicans agreed that government could be a force for good. While many of the programs are still popular today, the reaction to the social programs and the taxes that funded them led to the Reagan Revolution fifteen years later.

The last great expansion of government came with the Affordable Care Act. Obama had watched Bill and Hillary’s attempt to pass health care reform go down in flames fifteen years earlier. He tried a different approach, setting broad goals and letting Congress hash out the details. It was still messy.

Passing the bill was hard even with 59 Democrats in the Senate. The country watched the sausage being made for almost a year. Progressives couldn’t even get a public option pushed through, much less single-payer. The uncertainty left voters skeptical for years, costing Democrats control of Congress and, arguably, setting up an environment that elected Donald Trump.

Before we can have the type of change that the left demands, we need to restore faith in the institutions that provide it. Government has to prove that it can deliver. We need to rebuild our public education system after years of assault from the right. Offering a public option for health care and expanding Medicaid to reach universal coverage is more likely to garner support than upending the existing system with a single-payer plan. A few years of smaller victories are more likely to build sustainable change than the massive disruption of wholesale transformation.

Finally, the left’s obsession with Gaza reminds me of my younger, more radical days. Back in the 1980s, US support for Central American death squads and Contras was the moral issue that consumed us. We protested and demanded that Americans pay attention and that Democrats take a stand. We were loud and drew a lot of media attention to our cause. However, like Gaza, most of the country didn’t care, or at least not enough to make them vote against the Republicans who supported those policies.

In North Carolina, Jim Hunt ran ads attacking Jesse Helms for his support of brutal right-wing nationalists. It didn’t work. Hunt lost. And while Iran-Contra became a scandal that brought down some people in the Reagan administration, George H.W. Bush was handily elected in 1988. Most Americans don’t really care too much about international affairs and may punish candidates who promote them over domestic concerns. Making Gaza a litmus test for Democrats is more likely to hurt the party than help Gazans.

My personal political journey has taken me from the far left to whatever you might call me now. Broadly, I believe that government can be a force for good. I also think that capitalism is the best economic system to deliver prosperity for the greatest number of people. That said, government is the only force powerful enough to mitigate the negative effects of capitalism and help the people who are left behind. The free market is the vehicle for creating wealth while government ensures that it is not too concentrated and is broadly distributed.

I believe that sustainable progress requires broad public support from an electorate that is inherently resistant to change. My political philosophy is basically to win elections to keep the assholes and greed heads out. I believe that competence and experience beat ideology most of the time.

Right now, I think that people want peace and stability. For the first quarter of the 21st century they’ve been roiled by 9/11, upended by technological change, knocked down by the Great Recession, quarantined by the pandemic, and plundered by Donald Trump and MAGA, all while some war rages in the background. The American people are tired. They don’t want more turmoil.

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Recently, a poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP) showed a much tighter race for US Senate in North Carolina than other recent surveys. According to the poll, Roy Cooper leads Michael Whatley by only four points. Other polls had shown Cooper with double-digit leads. The news rippled through the press with pundits saying the race is tightening.

In North Carolina, the polls almost always tighten for Democrats. Governor Josh Stein is the only statewide Democratic candidate to receive more than 52% of the vote in the last 15 to 20 years and he had a historically flawed opponent. If Cooper wins, he will probably garner around 51% or 52% of the vote and win by two to four points, about where the PPP poll lands.

North Carolina is a tough state for both sides. Republicans don’t get much more than Democrats when they win. Trump won by 3.3% in 2024 but only 1.3% in 2020. In 2022, Ted Budd won by only 3.2% despite a strong GOP year. He got less than 51% of the vote.

I agree with most of the prognosticators who rate the Senate race as leaning Democratic. Cooper is a demonstrably better candidate than Whatley. The former governor has outraised the former Republican National Committee chair by almost three to one. Whatley has faced criticism from his own party while Cooper seems to be energizing his base.

The political environment favors Cooper, too. The party in the White House generally loses seats in midterm elections. Right now, the country is angry at the GOP for rising prices and wars of choice.

Republicans will try to make the race about crime. It won’t work. Despite their greatest efforts, campaigns can’t drive the political narrative. Voters do that. Candidates either catch the wind driven by voters’ concerns or they fight against it. Whatley’s campaign will try to force the conversation to tack right, but it’s not likely to work.

Cooper, for his part, is tapping into voters’ angst. As New York Times columnist Frank Bruni points out, Cooper’s campaign slogan is “Make Stuff Cost Less.” It’s not flashy, but neither are the people who will determine the election. They aren’t activists looking for a hero. They’re just people trying to make ends meet and facing rising prices and higher bills.

Short of some sort of galvanizing event, I think Cooper wins North Carolina. I don’t think he wins big because nobody in North Carolina does. The four-point lead PPP found is probably how the race pans out. We’re a swing state for a reason. It takes a self-described Black Nazi with a porn habit to lose by double digits and even then he gets 40% of the vote.

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In the aftermath of the 2024 election, Republicans in North Carolina launched an assault on our democracy. In the race for a supreme court seat, the party tried to change the rules after the fact to overturn the will of the voters. Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin sued the State Board of Elections in an attempt to nullify Justice Allison Rigg’s victory. A ruling by the state Supreme Court almost made their effort successful.

Only the intervention of a Trump-appointed federal judge saved our democracy when Judge Richard Myers wrote, “You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done.”

It seemed like common sense. A principle so basic that no one should need a federal judge to explain it. But in North Carolina, by 2025, even the obvious needed defending.

It won’t happen again, because, in 2026 or 2028, Republicans won’t have a State Board of Elections standing in their way. While the state and country were focused on the outcome of the Riggs-Griffin race, the legislature stripped control of the SBOE from the governor and gave it to the newly elected Republican state auditor.

Within days of taking control of the SBOE, Auditor Dave Boliek fired election professionals and replaced them with GOP political operatives. Since then, the board has used mob-like pressure to force county boards of election to bend to its will. The legislature is trying to push through legislation that includes an additional 25 political appointees and grants the auditor the power to investigate election results in any county at his discretion.

What’s happening in North Carolina right now isn’t an isolated incident. It’s the culmination of a twelve-year experiment in stress testing democracy’s guardrails. And what Republicans learned in Raleigh, they’re now applying in Washington and in states across the country.

North Carolina was the prototype for the reactionary populism that became MAGA. In North Carolina, we had Trumpism before Trump.

In January 2013, Republicans took control of North Carolina state government for the first time in more than a century. They moved quickly to upend state agencies and purge them of Democratic influence. They slashed and burned, often with no obvious intent to rebuild.

In the legislature, Republicans introduced legislation so brazen that even some of their own members seemed shocked. They introduced bills to create a state religion. They allowed guns on campuses and in bars. They flattened the progressive income tax, shifting the burden from the wealthy and corporations onto the middle and working class. They ended teacher tenure and banned Sharia Law. They put limits on abortion and drug-tested welfare recipients. They began solidifying their power by making nonpartisan school board elections partisan, stripping authority from local governments, introducing voter ID bills, reducing early voting days, and ending public financing of judicial campaigns.

Republicans moved with breathtaking speed. Democrats were paralyzed and unable to muster any effective response. The press was overwhelmed and couldn’t keep up with the flood of stories coming out of Raleigh or offer the context needed.

For Republicans in control of the legislature and governor’s office, enacting their agenda was the easy part. With veto-proof majorities, they had little to stop them. Governor Pat McCrory, a former mayor of Charlotte, was elected as a business moderate but he was no match for the seasoned legislators in the North Carolina General Assembly. They overrode four of his six vetoes.

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As their policies shifted the state hard to the right, they changed the rules to lock in their power. Extreme gerrymandering effectively gave Republicans veto-proof majorities in the legislature and nine of the state’s 13 US House districts, even as Democrats won a majority of the Congressional votes and half of the legislative ones cast in the state.

North Carolina state Representative David Lewis, chair of the Redistricting Committee, famously said, “I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats.” A North Carolina lawsuit, Rucho v. Common Cause, validated gerrymandering for partisan gain and set the stage for the national redistricting wars ahead of the 2026 midterms.

In August 2013, Republicans passed a “monster” voter suppression bill that enacted a strict voter ID provision, ended same-day registration, restricted early-voting days, and expanded the power of observers to challenge voters at the polls. While the courts struck down the bill, asserting that it targeted African Americans with “surgical precision,” many of the provisions have been enacted since. Today, we see the spirit of the bill in the SAVE Act being debated in Congress.

More than a decade before the Trump administration pressured the University of Virginia to fire its president, the UNC Board of Governors abruptly fired UNC President Tom Ross, a highly respected administrator. They offered no reason for his dismissal other than his registration as a Democrat. The move began an ongoing effort to impose ideological changes on the university system and became a prelude to the broader assaults on higher education nationally.

In March 2016, North Carolina Republicans launched the culture wars that would rage throughout the next eight years. HB-2, the famous “Bathroom Bill,” quickly elevated a local ordinance to a national uproar.

In the short term, the tumult benefited Democrats as corporations and entertainment events boycotted the state. In the long term, it set off a backlash against the transgender community that echoes today. The seeds of Trump’s infamous ad tagline “Kamala Harris is for they/them; President Trump is for you” originated with the Bathroom Bill debate that began in North Carolina.

When, in November 2016, Attorney General Roy Cooper won the narrowest of victories, McCrory cried voter fraud and tried to stop the counting. He was rebuffed by his own board of elections. The system held, but the episode exposed what might have happened if people of lesser character had been in charge—a preview of what would unfold nationally four years later.

Before Cooper took office, the Republican legislature had their eyes on the state board of elections. They tried to remove it from the governor’s control, but the state supreme court blocked the measure. Republicans weren’t finished. They put an amendment on the ballot two years later to give the legislature control of the board of elections, but the voters rejected it.

While the courts battled over the Supreme Court race in 2025, the North Carolina legislature tried again. Before Josh Stein could even be sworn in as the new governor, Republicans in the legislature moved control of the state board of elections from the governor’s office to the GOP-controlled state auditor’s office—giving Republicans control of the election machinery. With a newly Republican-majority supreme court in place, the power grab succeeded.

The five member state board of elections now has a Republican majority. The new chair served as president of the Civitas Institute, an organization that spent millions to elect Republican legislative candidates. The new executive director served as legal counsel to the Republican speaker of the House. The new advisor to county boards of elections served as executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party.

The institutions meant to protect our rights—the state supreme court, the Board of Elections—are being captured by those who would use them as partisan tools. In 2013, Republicans began attacking democracy from the legislature. By 2025, they’re working to capture the very institutions meant to stop them.

This institutional capture represents the final stage of a twelve-year strategy. What began as a storming of the gates in North Carolina has settled into a coordinated elimination of dissent. National Republicans have followed suit. While establishment Republicans held Trump in check during his first administration, January 6 unleashed him.

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But North Carolina also offers a roadmap for resistance. To navigate this new Trump era, those who oppose it should look to North Carolina, both to understand the destruction of checks and balances and to chart a path forward. Through it all, the state is still standing. Democrats have battled Republicans to a standstill. The playbook for fighting back has been twelve years in the making.

The first lesson is to never give up. Before the Women’s March, pink pussy hats, or No Kings rallies, Moral Mondays energized the opposition in North Carolina and drew national attention to the state. Initially, the protests gave people a sense of hope and unity, showing they’re not alone. They spurred homegrown organizing efforts like Down Home NC and the New Rural Project that have multiplied across the state, reaching into rural communities and exurban counties where narrowing electoral margins have delivered results.

Rely on the courts. The federal courts protected the Allison Riggs victory. Lower-court judges often offer rulings more in line with the Constitution than the partisan warriors who inhabit the state’s appellate courts. They can slow or stop the pace of radical maneuvers.

Take the long view. The Democrats have a plan to take back the supreme court that began in 2024 but will not be complete until 2028. Holding a seat in 2026 is the next step, and winning two of the three seats up for election in 2028 will give them the power to reverse the damage done by the Republican justices.

Run everywhere. Democrats have filled the ballot in almost every contested race, giving voters a choice and candidates the opportunity to make their case for an alternative to Republican rule. They’ve also forced the GOP to defend their policies and actions. They might not win every seat, but they whittle down margins.

Nominate candidates with broad appeal and core competencies. While Republicans chose culture warriors as their standard bearers, Democrats nominated serious candidates with records to run on. Roy Cooper won two statewide races with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket; Josh Stein has won three. In 2024, Democrats won five of the ten council of state seats with candidates who focused on their accomplishments and broad solutions instead of divisive social issues.

Finally, understand the moment. Now is not the time for transformative agendas. Now is the time to counter populism and authoritarianism. None of the 2024 Democratic candidates who won in North Carolina pushed controversial policies. Josh Stein focused on his success combatting fentanyl, cutting taxes for workers, raising teacher pay, and job training while highlighting his bipartisan support.

Though we didn’t know it at the time, North Carolina was a dress rehearsal for MAGA. Republicans learned exactly how to dismantle democracy while claiming to protect it. They learned how to gerrymander ruthlessly, suppress votes systematically, weaponize culture wars relentlessly, capture institutions methodically, and strip power strategically.

Most importantly, they learned that the guardrails don’t have to be torn down all at once. They can be worn away.

The fight we’re in may last for decades. Those pushing back against the populist authoritarianism should look to North Carolina. The story here shows how far Republicans will go, but it also shows how to resist. In the battle for the soul of the nation, North Carolina has been ground zero.

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Just a few weeks ago, Senator Thom Tillis told reporters that he regretted his vote for Pete Hegseth to become Secretary of Defense. He almost certainly regrets his vote for Kristi Noem. He called for her resignation before she was unceremoniously shown the door. He probably regrets his vote for Tulsi Gabbard and RFK, Jr., two nut jobs who shouldn’t be employable at all, much less at the highest echelons of government.

With a record like that, Tillis should certainly be questioning his judgment. He’s clearly not a great judge of character.

Now, Tillis looks prepared to make the same mistake again. This time, he seems ready to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General. Blanche was Donald Trump’s personal attorney and seems to be more loyal to the president than to the Constitution or the people of the United States.

Blanche will do Donald Trump’s bidding. That’s why he’s been nominated. As bad as she was, Pam Bondi had lines she wouldn’t cross and Trump fired her. Blanche doesn’t seem to have any.

Tillis seems to be pulling a classic Thom Tillis. He’s been garnering all sorts of attention because he’s made a big deal about getting rid of the slush fund for the January 6 rioters. He’s said that if Blanche didn’t make it go away, he wouldn’t vote for him.

Now, he’s equivocating. Blanche says it won’t be used and Tillis is going to take him at his word, just like he did with all those other bad votes.

Don’t do it, Thom. Show us you’re more than just bluster. Don’t fall back into the pattern of saying what’s right and doing what’s wrong. And don’t find yourself making excuses for Todd Blanche.

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First, I owe an apology to the State Board of Elections. I assumed that Dallas Woodhouse worked for the SBOE since his title was liaison to the county boards of elections. In fact, he worked for the state auditor, Dave Boliek. I say “worked” because on Monday, Woodhouse resigned after several articles emerged showing he had pressured county boards of elections to change early voting schedules.

Woodhouse fell on the sword to protect Boliek and whoever is pulling Boliek’s strings. His resignation letter is a defense of the auditor and himself. He argues that his job was to prepare county boards for “one of the most significant changes in North Carolina election administration in decades.” In reality, nothing changed except who was running the state board. The rules of the county boards and their mission remained the same — or should have.

Pat McCrory didn’t need a county liaison when Republicans took over the boards when he became governor. Roy Cooper didn’t need one when Democrats took over after McCrory lost. The significant change was the state auditor’s office micromanaging boards of election and turning them into a partisan agency.

Woodhouse wrote of Boliek, “I believed in your vision that good government can strengthen both public confidence and public service.” That’s pretty laughable since the auditor put partisan hacks in control of the state board and put Woodhouse in as the heavy to pressure county boards.

I don’t fault Dallas Woodhouse. He knows what his role is in the North Carolina political landscape. He’s a partisan warrior looking for Republican advantage. That’s who he’s been since he left the world of journalism. There’s no reason to expect him to change. He had a job to do.

The question is, who is Dave Boliek and who suggested he needed to hire a bunch of political hacks to run the state board of elections? He was a Democrat until about three or four years ago. The man changed parties after the Republican Party had folded to Donald Trump and election denialism became a core tenet of the GOP.

It was one thing to change from Democrat to Republican when Reagan was redefining conservatism. It’s another to switch to the GOP as it became the party of grifters, racists, and authoritarians. That says a lot about a person.

Who would have suggested Boliek hire Woodhouse or appoint Francis De Luca board chair? I doubt he knew those folks very well. If he did, he knew that both were hard-core partisans, not election professionals. He clearly didn’t care much about the appearance of fairness in the administration of elections. On the contrary, he shoved it in our faces that he was turning the agency into a partisan tool.

I don’t really think Boliek came up with this plan on his own. I suspect it came from Republicans in the legislature who consider democracy a nuisance and for whom power is all that matters. Regardless, Boliek has diminished public trust in a vital public agency and done so intentionally. They aren’t even pretending anymore.

The GOP has been attacking democracy in North Carolina since they took power. They were early adopters of the extreme gerrymandering that has infected the country. They passed the “monster” voter suppression bill that was struck down for targeting African Americans with “surgical precision.” They tried to steal a state Supreme Court seat but were harshly rebuked by a Trump-appointed federal judge. Boliek is just the latest blunt instrument Republicans are using to pummel democracy.

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The State Board of Elections reassigned Dallas Woodhouse from his position as liaison to the county boards of elections. I’m glad that they made that decision, but it doesn’t give me any more confidence that the State Board of Elections is acting as a nonpartisan agency. They just got caught doing what they said they weren’t.

Woodhouse was using his position to pressure county boards of elections to make voting more difficult for constituencies likely to vote Democratic. He pressured Jackson County election board members to remove an early voting site from the campus of Western Carolina University. He told Pasquotank County officials to end Sunday voting.

Woodhouse was using his position to gain political advantage for the GOP. And he was doing it with the tacit approval of the state auditor and the state board of elections. Nobody admitted he did anything wrong. If they had, he would have been fired or disciplined, not reassigned.

Republicans clearly see controlling the state board of elections as a political advantage, not the administration of fair elections. Their goal is to undermine democracy, not promote it. They underlined that fact by putting political hacks in charge instead of election professionals.

Woodhouse is still in-house at the board of elections. Former president of the Civitas Institute Francis De Luca is still board chair. And Sam Hayes, former legal counsel for two Republican House Speakers, is still executive director. They’ve done nothing to build confidence that they will oversee free and fair elections. They haven’t even tried.

Republicans have been trying to rig elections to favor them for so long their antics barely get the attention of the press. A decade ago, appointing a former executive director of a political party to the state board of elections would have caused an uproar. Today, it barely gets noticed, even when they get caught.

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North Carolina Republican House Majority Leader Brenden Jones reminds me of Dukes of Hazzard County Commissioner Boss Hogg. They look alike. They control rural counties. They’re both buffoons. And they’re both grifters. But one’s an actor and one’s a Republican leader.

Boss Hogg was a parody of the old Southern political bosses of the 20th century. Jones is a parody of Boss Hogg.

In the Dukes of Hazzard, Boss Hogg controlled Hazzard County, Georgia, often through grift and ill-conceived schemes. He saw political power as a means to increasing his personal wealth. Brenden Jones is following his lead.

It seems Jones has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He’s using his influence to steer business to his cronies. And while Boss Hogg was concerned with illegal liquor, Brenden Jones is trying to take advantage of the legal booze business.

Jones is using his legislative power to steer business to developer buddies to give them a windfall at taxpayers’ expense. Jones has told the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission that they must use a developer that has given massive amounts of money to the GOP to build a new “high-tech warehouse.”

According to good government champion Bob Hall, Jones told his legislative colleagues that the ABC Commission approved his scheme when, in fact, the ABC chair actually opposed it, calling it a “horrible” plan. Jones’s plan “would cost $589 million in lease payments over 25 years, and the developer would still own the warehouse.” Commission Chair Hank Bauer “wants approval for the commission to borrow $310 million to build the warehouse, which it would repay with ABC sales and permits.”

Here’s the kicker: donors tied to the developer Jones is pushing gave more than $500,000 to North Carolina Republicans, including more than $50,000 to Jones’s campaign committee. That sure looks like a pay-to-play scheme to me.

Of course, Jones fits firmly in the grifter wing of the GOP. Don’t look for Republicans to hold their own accountable. Graft has become one of the party’s core values. They believe that getting elected should lead to getting rich. While that’s a time-honored tradition in politics, the Trump-led GOP has taken it to new levels.

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With another Graham Platner scandal arising, we’re reminded that Platner is a uniquely Democratic problem because character no longer matters in the GOP. He’s a failure of the activist base who rallied around an unvetted candidate with no political experience. And he’s a failure of the Democratic establishment who recruited an aging and unpopular governor at a time when the country is demanding change.

In this vacuum, Democratic Socialists are having a moment. They are winning primaries across the country and the most prominent Democrat at this moment is New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. He’s using his platform to shape a new Democratic agenda. I like Mamdani and agree with many of his broader goals, I just don’t think the way he talks about them will fly in swing districts and states.

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The Democratic Socialists use language that is as divisive as that used by MAGA. They equate people who oppose more immigration with racists. They attack the oligarchy, a term that I doubt resonates with swing voters. They focus on the flaws of our country more than its promise. Their criticisms are often broad instead of specific, leaving people who might not see the world exactly as the Democratic Socialists do to wonder if they aren’t the target.

In a broad sense, I agree with many of the DSA positions including a stronger social safety net that includes universal health care, addressing income inequality to make the richest Americas pay their fair share, and increasing affordable housing. But I also want to win the election. At a time when moderate and less engaged Republicans have little reason to vote, DSA is giving them one—or some.

I think the change people want is a return to stability. I’m less concerned about policies than I am about beating Republicans and I’m afraid we are about to squander our opportunity.

Wave elections occur when one side comes out, the other stays home, and the middle breaks for the side that’s voting heavily. Right now, Democrats are motivated to vote against Trump. Republicans who aren’t on social media have little reason to show up on election day. The middle that’s concerned mainly with kitchen table issues is going to vote against the party in the White House.

As DSA flexes its new found muscle, they are defining Democrats and giving Republicans a rallying cry that might change the equation. They are making immigration and Gaza top priorities. Those issues may inspire younger progressives who are already likely to go vote, but it will also motivate some Republicans who might otherwise stay home.

As I’ve said before, I don’t understand embracing the socialist label. For people over fifty, the voters who make up a disproportionate part of the electorate, socialism evokes thoughts of the Cold War and failed states across the globe. Alienating those voters seems counterproductive.

I fear that Democratic Socialists are going to have to learn the lesson of the Tea Party. Back in 2012, Republicans should have taken the US Senate, but the anti-establishment wing of the party nominated Tea Party darlings, Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdoch in Indiana. Both lost, leaving the Senate in Democratic hands for another two years.

I would guess that Maine, which should be a relatively easy Democratic pick up, will remain in Republican hands if Platner insists on staying in the race. I also think that Michigan Democrats are going to nominate Abdul El-Sayed, putting at risk a seat Democrats would otherwise win handily in this political environment. DSA is making this election harder than it should be.

Instead of division, the election should be about restoring stability and unity. Great changes happen when the country is united, not divided. We need to restore faith in institutions or build new ones.

The New Deal happened when a large majority of Americans demanded something new. The Great Society came about during a time of broad economic prosperity when Democrats and Republicans agreed on the ability of government to make our lives better. Right now, our country is closely, but fiercely, divided. We need leaders who find common ground to unite us because our system of government requires us to move forward together.

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Frank Fetzer Mills, Jr. died July 5, 2026, from complications related to Wilson’s Disease. His wife, Becky, was with him as she has been throughout his long struggle.

Fetzer lived life on his own terms, often doing what so many others only wished they could do. He never had a traditional career, but he was always doing something interesting. At various times, he was a writer, journalist, political consultant, tour manager, teacher, music producer, actor, documentary filmmaker, and security guard, among other things. He threw himself into his interests and often found himself enmeshed with his subjects. The writer Hal Crowther described him as “versatile.”

Fetzer was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on August 7, 1960, but he grew up in Wadesboro, NC. He was the oldest of four sons of Fetzer and Penny Mills. By all accounts, he had a happy childhood at a time when small towns were still thriving and cohesive communities.

He learned to read early and devoured books for the rest of his life. He graduated from Bowman High School in 1978 and then joined the Navy. He was recognized for his work as an Arab linguist and was stationed in Rota, Spain, for much of his enlistment. He was extremely proud of his service to his country and stayed in touch with a network of fellow veterans throughout his life.

After four years in the Navy, he enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His college years kicked off a decade of creative energy. While in school, he took classes that ranged from political science to art. He ran for student body president. He acted in plays. He wrote short stories. Fetzer joined the Chi Psi fraternity at a time when it was turning out a combination of political leaders and artistic innovators.

In an earlier era, Fetzer would have been considered a BMOC, or Big Man on Campus. In the 1980s, he was a big personality who was well known throughout the University community. He was awarded both the Order of the Old Well and the Order of the Golden Fleece for his accomplishments as a student leader.

After college, he spent a few years working on political campaigns and covering them as a reporter for several news outlets. He was the legislative reporter for Freedom Newspapers, a chain of mid-sized dailies across the state, and the political reporter for the alternative weekly Spectator Magazine, where his writings leaned toward Gonzo journalism. He would continue to publish as a freelance writer for the rest of his life.

While covering the 1988 presidential hopefuls at a forum in Chapel Hill, Fetzer asked them which article of the Constitution establishes the executive branch. Only Al Gore could answer the question. Fetzer was unimpressed, comparing Illinois Senator Paul Simon to a character out of Revenge of the Nerds, bemoaning Tipper Gore’s “crackpot crusade against rock and roll,” and declaring eventual nominee Michael Dukakis “as bland and boring as he is stable and competent.” He recommended Democrats nominate the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, with the slogan “Get down with Brown.”

Fetzer wrote the definitive narrative of the 1989 House coup in the North Carolina legislature for Leader Magazine. A handful of rebellious Democrats joined with Republicans to oust Speaker Liston Ramsey, widely regarded as the most powerful man in Raleigh, and elect fellow Democrat Joe Mavretic. His blow-by-blow account still reads like a political thriller.

Music was an important part of Fetzer’s life and he was drawn to roots music like bluegrass, the blues, and rockabilly. He briefly served as tour manager for the Flat Duo Jets, the influential Chapel Hill band, and helped promote Southern Culture on the Skids.

In 1988, Fetzer met Becky. It was love at first sight — two quirky humans who were up for life’s adventures. They married in 1989 on top of a mountain and initially settled in Hillsborough, NC, where Becky practiced law. Fetzer fell in with a group of prominent writers and artists who inhabited the town.

During that period, he published a short story called “Hexema, Hexema” about a young woman whose husband got killed in a septic tank accident. It was laugh-out-loud funny.

A few years later, Fetzer and Becky moved to Ripley, Tennessee, to be near Becky’s aging parents. They bought a condo in Memphis and the city became Fetzer’s new creative muse. He loved the music, the culture, and the river that flowed through it. He found himself right at home among the blues musicians, folk artists, and aging rockabilly heroes who gave the city its character.

Early in their marriage, Becky took Fetzer to Graceland, Elvis Presley’s mansion on the edge of town. When their tour group reached the Memorial Garden where Elvis is buried, Fetzer got into an argument over whether the King was dead or not. Fetzer took the alive side, claiming to have seen Elvis buying a shotgun at the Walmart in Wadesboro. It caused quite a stir. Becky was thoroughly embarrassed and Fetzer was thoroughly pleased with himself.

Later, Fetzer went to work at Graceland, where he befriended Vester Presley, the last living relative of Elvis to live on the grounds. In his book I, Elvis, Confessions of a Counterfeit King, Bill Henderson describes Fetzer’s time at Graceland.

Fetzer blended into the Memphis music scene seamlessly. At one point, he recorded two songs at Sun Studio with rockabilly legends Roland Janes and Malcolm Yelvington backing him up. Later, he became friends with Sam Phillips, the original owner of Sun and the man who discovered Elvis.

By the mid-1990s, Fetzer was plagued by a myriad of illnesses that slowed him down and landed him in the hospital on several occasions. He was finally diagnosed with Wilson’s Disease, a genetic disorder that causes copper to build up in soft tissue, destroying or damaging organs including the liver, kidneys, and brain.

Despite struggling with his disease, Fetzer remained productive. He received a master’s degree in Southern Studies from Ole Miss. He produced a documentary about the fight for voting rights in west Tennessee. When three hurricanes hit North Carolina in the late 1990s, Fetzer published a series of articles documenting the environmental impact on eastern North Carolina. He also produced records for recording artists in Memphis and Taos, New Mexico.

In Ripley, Fetzer organized a street fair called the Tomato Festival. He used his Memphis connections to bring talented musicians to the small town and fought to ensure the entertainment was inclusive and diverse, reflecting the population of the community.

Fetzer taught creative writing at Dyersburg State Community College in west Tennessee. When he realized that most of his students did not have computers, he found a company that donated refurbished ones. He told his classes that if they could talk, they could write. Fetzer had a deep sense of compassion for people who need a hand up in life.

Fetzer attracted people and was well known wherever he lived. They were drawn to his eccentric sense of humor and stayed for his quick mind and firm convictions. He had strong opinions and the intellectual heft to back them up. He felt a kinship with those left behind by society and had an innate sense of justice. His friends came in all shapes and sizes, both figuratively and literally.

Fetzer loved to travel and saw much of the country and the world. He loved dogs and cats and always had a bunch of them around him. He and Becky collected so much art that their homes were virtual art museums. Fetzer always said he had a great life and would not have changed a thing, despite his often exhausting fight with Wilson’s Disease.

He is survived by his wife Becky, his mother Penny, his brothers Thomas and Smithson (Kathy), three nieces, two nephews, and four cats. He was predeceased by his father, Fetzer Sr., and his brother Eddie.

Senator Ted Budd is opposing Donald Trump’s spending request because it does not include funding for Helene recovery. I guess I should be applauding him. I certainly think Budd should be advocating for disaster relief money, but I think it’s a more cynical move than that. Budd is looking at his 2028 re-election campaign more than the people of western North Carolina.

Budd has been a reliable vote for Trump no matter the circumstances. He’s also been an almost invisible senator with no significant accomplishments or leadership positions. He’s been a go-along-to-get-along Republican senator with little evidence of any intellectual or political heft.

Now suddenly he’s bucking the president. It’s evidence that Trump’s grip on the GOP is loosening. It’s also evidence that Budd is thinking about his political future.

Budd watched Tillis brown-nose Trump and debase himself repeatedly in an effort to show MAGA that he was on their side. It didn’t work. Instead, Tillis found himself disliked by everybody. MAGA knew he wasn’t really one of them and Democrats knew Tillis lacked the political courage to stand up to Trump regardless of what he said.

Budd is not Thom Tillis. He does not like the spotlight and seems to be more an introvert than an extrovert. He’s also probably more sincere in his MAGA loyalty. He won his primary in 2022 after gaining Trump’s endorsement.

Now, though, he realizes he needs to put a little daylight between himself and Trump to attract the moderate voters in North Carolina that he needs to win in 2028. He’s not waiting for an election year. He’s planting the seed now that he will stand up to Trump where North Carolina is concerned.

He’s also probably watching western North Carolina. Some western counties are trending blue. Some of that trend is probably due to the type of people moving into the area, but part of it is frustration with an administration that hasn’t kept its promises about hurricane relief. Budd is trying to stem the tide.

I don’t think Budd would have bucked the president a year ago, even for North Carolinians in need. I think he’s making a political calculation. Trump is unpopular and Budd’s re-election campaign is just around the corner. He needs some distance between himself and Trump and he needs the people of western North Carolina to believe he will stand up for them.

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It’s hard to predict where the country is heading. Democrats seem to be following the path of the GOP as a split divides the far left from the center left. Democratic Socialists of America look to be ascendant, at least in northern primaries. Centrists still dominate the Southern and swing states.

The Tea Party and then Donald Trump divided the GOP. The Reagan Republicans lost control of the party after 2016 and Trump consolidated his power in 2024, leaving little room for the pragmatists in the party. Today, fealty to Trump is the single core value of the national Republican Party.

Democrats appear to be treading a similar path without the cult of personality leading it. The ideological battle is between the DSA and moderate Democrats who have led the party since Obama. Over the past few months, the left has handily won primaries in New York and Maine, making the left flank of the party dominant, at least in the Northeast.

Michigan is the next big test. DSA-aligned Abdul El-Sayed seems to have the momentum right now against US Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. Stevens has been defined as the establishment candidate while McMorrow has tried to split the difference. El-Sayed has led in most polls for the past two months or so.

In other swing states, more moderate and establishment candidates are on a roll. US Senator Jon Ossoff seems to be headed toward re-election in Georgia. He’s certainly not a member of the DSA, but he’s getting national attention and rising favorability numbers. In North Carolina, Roy Cooper is leading his Republican opponent, former RNC Chair and Trump toady Michael Whatley, by double digits in recent polls. Cooper is a former governor, so you can’t get much more establishment than that.

The left is reading the momentum as an endorsement of their agenda. Congressman Ro Khanna, who has emerged as a leading proponent of left-wing candidates, says, “Voters are supporting candidates who have the guts to stand up for Medicare for All, for ending foreign wars and standing up to corporate lobbyists.”

Maybe that’s true in primaries, but I’m dubious that most Americans think that way. The voters who determine general elections are more self-interested. They don’t support Medicare for All as much as they support health care that’s more affordable and accessible. I don’t think they care what it’s called. I doubt most of them think much about foreign wars or corporate lobbyists. They’re wondering why their grocery bills are so high, when gas prices are coming down, and whether they can afford child care.

The wave election that is building right now is a reaction against Trump, not a demand for increasing socialism. The angst among swing voters is driven by prices. People who voted for Trump based on his promise to make things more affordable feel betrayed, but I don’t think they are blaming the oligarchy. If they had $2.50 per gallon gas or could feed a family of four for $25 at McDonald’s, they wouldn’t care who was making billions of dollars.

There’s certainly an anti-establishment undercurrent, but I don’t think it’s very ideological, or at least not on the traditional left-right spectrum. It’s rooted more in fear of change. People want a return to stability, something that I’m not sure politics can provide — at least not in the short term.

The forces scaring the American people right now are big and difficult to predict. Technology, immigration, and trade have remade the country. People are scared of losing their culture. They’re scared of a changing environment. They’re scared of losing their jobs. And they don’t know what is coming next.

Groups like MAGA and DSA believe they can offer what people want, but their solutions generally just cause more disruption. Then they suffer the consequences in the next election. It’s created political whiplash.

MAGA was sure people wanted immigrants deported, but Trump’s experiment in mass deportations quickly became unpopular and kicked off his falling approval ratings. Barack Obama was elected to provide health care reform but watched reactions to the Affordable Care Act cause wave elections that killed Democrats’ Congressional majorities.

We're about to find out in November whether the country is ready for candidates like Graham Platner in Maine and El-Sayed if he’s the Michigan nominee. Even if they win, Democrats would be making a mistake believing the country has taken a hard left turn. A wave election against Trump is not the same as a mandate for Democratic Socialism.

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