Opinion (363)
COLUMN: Holiday consumerism: Who decides what 'nobody really needs?'
Written by Thomas L. Knapp
“Wasting resources, capital and income on stuff nobody really needs,” Charles Hugh Smith wrote in 2017, “is a monumental disaster on multiple fronts. Rather than establish incentives to conserve and invest wisely, our system glorifies waste and the destruction of income and capital, as if burning time, capital, resources and wealth on stuff nobody needs is strengthening the economy.”
I come across the “stuff nobody needs” argument frequently, from voices all across the political spectrum, for reasons ranging from economic to environmental to spiritual.
Oh, boy, did I screw up my first attempt at covering a town-council meeting.
COLUMN: Messaging as Manslaughter: Massachusetts modernizes the Salem witch trials
Written by Thomas L. Knapp
In July of 2014, 18-year-old Conrad Roy killed himself in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, by pumping carbon monoxide into the cab of his truck. In a bench trial, a judge convicted Roy's 17-year-old girlfriend, Michelle Carter, of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced her to 2 1/2 years in prison.
Democrats in North Carolina who think they’re about to sail to victory next November should think again.
The New York Times has an in-depth poll out this morning that shows Donald Trump leading the state against the top Democrats running. He’s ahead of Biden by two points and leads Warren and Sanders by three. The outcome of the presidential contest will likely have a big impact on races down the ballot. According to this poll, 2020 will look more like 2016 than 2018.
The poll shows a yawning gender gap with Trump leading among men by double digits and as high as 15 points. Women oppose him but not by as wide a margin. They prefer Warren by 10, Biden by nine and Sanders by five.
Trump has consolidated Republican support. He’s got about 85% support against all three Democrats. He’s also got 15% or more of Democrats. Most of those voters reflect the Jessecrats who are dying out but still voting. Unaffiliated voters break evenly between Trump and the Democrats.
Unsurprisingly, Trump’s base is among white, non-college-educated and older voters. Trump garners at least 59% of white voters against any of the Democrats while only about a third of whites support the Democrats. Historically, Democratic candidates need at least 33% of the white vote to win. The candidates are all on the threshold.
Fifty percent of voters without a bachelor’s degree say they’ll vote for Trump, but in the head-to-heads, that number is closer to 55%. In contrast, 54% of voters with a college degree say they’ll likely or definitely vote for the Democrat and 59% of those with a graduate degree or higher will, too. According to the sample, 65% of the voters have less than a college degree.
With the exception of Sanders, African American support for the Democrat is as solid as GOP support is for Trump. Eighty-seven percent say they will definitely or probably vote for the Democratic candidate. However, while both Biden and Warren garner 85% in the head-to-head, Sanders only gets 78%.
The age split is as stark as the gender divide. Voters under 45 overwhelmingly support the Democrat. Voters 45 and over overwhelmingly support Donald Trump. The latter group makes up 62% of the sample.
The poll indicates that this election is all about Donald Trump. Democratic voters don’t significantly favor one candidate over the other. While Biden might be a slightly better candidate for the state, neither Warren nor Sanders will be a significant drag on the ticket. Sanders has some problems with women and African-Americans but he has an advantage among the youngest voters so it’s a wash.
For Democrats to win, they need to put their resources into outreach, not persuasion. They need to increase turnout among African-American voters, women voters and younger voters — the same groups they’ve needed since Obama. Trump will motivate his supporters. Democrats need to motivate theirs.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant.
Gov. Roy Cooper is a likeable and experienced politician. But he’s not made of Teflon. His administration has taken a number of heavy blows over the past month, and his aides have done him no favors by reacting flippantly rather than substantively.
So far this decade, North Carolina’s economy — as measured by inflation-adjusted gross domestic product — has expanded by an average of 1.7 percent a year. That’s a bit faster than the Southeastern average but slower than the national one.
In an effort to be a more transparent journalist, I am informing the readers of this column that it was written about five minutes after I ate some hazelnut almond biscotti ice cream directly from the container.
COLUMN: On Twitter, some animals are more equal than others
Written by Thomas L. Knapp
“There continues to be meaningful public conversation about how we think about Tweets from world leaders on our service,” begins a post at the micro-blogging service’s non-micro-blog.
A National Journal article this weekend listed Sen. Thom Tillis as the incumbent U.S. senator with the lowest approval rating. The piece says that Democrats’ path to taking back the Senate is becoming increasingly clear and that North Carolina will be front and center again. In 2014, Tillis unseated incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan in the most expensive U.S. Senate race in North Carolina history as Republicans took control of the Senate after near misses in 2010 and 2012.
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As established in the federal constitution, America’s national government was meant to be small and tightly focused on matters of truly nationwide scope. It is neither. Washington busybodies have usurped countless powers that, according to the clear language of the Tenth Amendment, were “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
It's no big secret that I am not a North Carolina native. I've lived here for almost 10 years. I wasn't one of those folks who move from a northern place to North Carolina and try to make it like it was back home. I came here to get away from all that nonsense, so you don't have to worry about me being one of the transplants who moves here only to complain that life was so much better back home.
Unless there's some dramatic change in the political landscape over the next month or so, I believe that the U.S. House of Representatives will impeach President Donald Trump.
COLUMN: Zapata fulfills dream in hoverboard channel crossing
Written by Jaron Guinn
It must have been an impressive sight on Aug. 5 when 40-year-old Frenchman Franky Zapata crossed a 22-mile stretch of the English Channel on a hoverboard, escorted by helicopters and military ships.
