Some measures matter more to some folks than others.
North Carolina was one of the last states to outright ban gay marriage (Constitutionally, no less! It had never been legal, of course, but they really wanted to make a point of it), somehow not swept up in the wave of tolerance that was taking the rest of the nation. We’ve slashed budgets for education, leaving teachers with some of the lowest wages in the nation cutting out their long-term contracts while allowing legislator’s pals running shady companies to set up shop with some of the most unrestricted rules around magnets around. We’ve written up one of the most vile pieces of anti-immigrant legislation in the nation (impressive, given our conspicuous lack of land borders or nearby neighbors-by-sea), and tanked taxes for the wealthy while allowing tax cuts for the poor to expire. We’ve given polluting companies that have soiled countless gallons and acres a free pass and might even charge the affected municipalities to clean it all up, once all’s said in done. We’ve waged an effective war against women with Planned Parenthood as proxy and increasing limitations on perfectly legal abortions and stagnating wages as further players. We tried to force through the vile sort of vote-restricting ID laws that are cropping up all over the country, settling for a watered down version this cycle in preparation for more next go around. The state’s gerrymandered to hell and back, with Democrats locked safely away in a handful of districts that somehow contain most of the state’s blacks and urban poor.
Best of all’s the refusal to expand Medicaid, which I very much hope I’m going to be lucky enough to not say was directly implicated in the death of my long-term partner, assuming that whatever mystery wasting illness is slowly destroying her body isn’t terminal due to how long it’s taken us to get any kind of effective treatment in this Godforsaken place. Even more fun: we just privatized our minuscule attempt at Medicaid!
And in the end, like most of America, it’s the under-educated, under-populated rural wastelands, in which tiny pockets of sanity and civilizations float, adrift, that have drug us down to this point and done so much harm not just to current residents, but to all who will follow in our footsteps as massive cuts to education and healthcare slowly take their toll on the health of the state.
But yeah, if you’re taking advantage of the fabulously high wages paid by a few companies in the tech-rich RTP area, and enrolling your kids in one of a handful of well-rated private academies or wealthy districts, and enjoying the low taxes on your wealth, or if you just hate women, blacks, or the poor, it must be pretty great.
P.S. - Given my particular job, and the tenuous thread by which it hangs due to a political issue in the state, alongside the aforementioned health crisis my partner’s experiencing, I’m most likely not in the most level-headed position to talk about politics in NC at the moment. Apologies for any unnecessary rage/vitriol in the above, but it is a very good summary of exactly why I’m desperate to find some way outta this place.
