How’s THIS for “party disloyalty”?
Reports of conservative activists in western North Carolina being allegedly persecuted and harassed over “party disloyalty” for the offense of criticizing the ruling NCGOP junta in Raleigh have us thinking.
The GOP platform, at the state and national level, clearly lays out what you’re voting for if you pull the Republican lever on election day. But, are you getting that? Is it arguable that elected officials who ignore the party platform while in office are the ones truly being disloyal to the party? Let’s take a look at that.
NCGOP Platform, Article 2 The Economy:
[…] 2. Economic freedom is essential to human liberty and dignity. It preserves the inherent right to liberty and ownership of private property. To protect this inherent right, government must provide an environment for individual initiative and enterprise. We support encouraging economic growth through reduced regulation and taxation, and we oppose corporate welfare. […]
The GOP majority on Jones Street has been fine-and-dandy with special deals and favors for private corporations. Especially those who have lobbyists who throw a lot of cash around.
The GOP majority has approved such deals, and has sat silently by while Govs. Perdue, McCrory, and Cooper have executed such deals in the name of “economic development.”
NCGOP Platform, Article 3 Individual Liberty:
[…] 5. The Second Amendment guarantees the right of the individual to keep and bear arms. We support the constitutional ownership, sale, purchase and carry of firearms by law-abiding citizens. Further, we support reducing the number of “gun-free zones”. Gun owners have a right to confidentiality. Personal information acquired by government agencies for gun purchases and permitting should be available to law enforcement for investigative purposes only and not for public record. […]
We all remember when WRAL published a database of concealed carry permit holders. A bill doing away with concealed carry permits made its way through the NC House this past session in a tight, split vote but disappeared down a rabbit hole in the NC Senate.
NCGOP Platform, Article 5 State Government:
3. Government retirement and pension plans should be privately owned and portable.
- We oppose gambling.
The lottery is STILL HERE. Nothing has been done about #3 either.
Here’s more from that same section:
6. No State funds should be spent without an explicit appropriation. We oppose “slush funds” as rewards for political support. Raiding of dedicated funds should not be allowed except in an emergency as determined by law. Every bill heard in committee should receive a recorded vote. The budget bill should be made public at least two legislative days before the final vote in each house.
We’re not even close to meeting THAT one.
MORE: 
7. We support the issuance of a driver’s license or state identification card only to those who are lawfully present.
There is a group of Republicans in the House who regularly introduce legislation trying to give illegal aliens driver licenses.
NCGOP Platform, Article 9 The Environment:
[…] 3. We support energy security, affordable energy and energy independence.
The state’s renewable energy mandate should be eliminated and market forces be allowed to guide us in the use of alternative sources and energy independence. […]
The Republican majorities rammed an extension of the mandate through the General Assembly. (I think about 90 percent of the GOP House caucus supported this move.)
Ticked off, yet? Here is the national GOP platform approved in 2016: 
Republicans consider the establishment of a pro-growth tax code a moral imperative. More than any other public policy, the way government raises revenue — how much, at what rates, under what circumstances, from whom, and for whom — has the greatest impact on our economy’s performance. It powerfully influences the level of economic growth and job creation, which translates into the level of op- portunity for those who would otherwise be left behind. Getting our tax system right will be the most important factor in driving the entire economy back to prosperity.
[…]Our proposal is straightforward. Wherever tax rates penalize thrift or discourage investment, they must be lowered. Wherever current provisions of the code are disincentives for economic growth, they must be changed.[…]
Meanwhile, our Republican majority in Congress is balking at killing the taxes introduced in the enactment of ObamaCare.
Here’s what it says on health care: 
Any honest agenda for improving healthcare must start with repeal of the dishonestly named Affordable Care Act of 2010: Obamacare. It weighs like the dead hand of the past upon American medicine. It imposed a Euro-style bureaucracy to manage its unworkable, budget-busting, conflicting provisions. It has driven up prices for all consumers. Their insurance premiums have dramatically increased while their deductibles have risen about eight times faster than wages in the last ten years.[…]
We agree with the four dissenting judges of the Supreme Court: “In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety.” It must be removed and replaced with an approach based on genuine competition, patient choice, excellent care, wellness, and timely access to treatment.[…]
Anybody notice how many elected Republicans on Capitol Hill would not vote for repeal, replacement or repeal AND replacement?
We’re getting lied to — PLAYED — on a state and national level. Will you continue to reward people who run for office embracing a conservative platform but embrace the statist agenda when in office? Withhold votes from the liars and the frauds. Reward those who haven’t forgotten who they really serve. A ballot with just one candidate marked is just as valid as one completely filled out.
You are preaching the truth. #ConservativeBeforeRepublican They can feel free to ban me also but I want my ban letter printed with color letter head on high quality paper with signatures signed with a fountain pen so it is worthy of framing
Our State GOP party platform also calls on us to defend and uphold the Marriage Amendment. When I ran HB 780, that’s what I was challenging my colleagues to do. Naturally, the response will be to try again to take me out in the primary, maybe even by double bunking me in a newly drawn district. We’ll see.
Yeah, they did that with Glen Bradley, too. I know some Franklin GOPer’s had their philosophical issues with Bradley but they should have drawn a line in the sand for one of their own, the first Republican to ever represent Franklin County in the GA.
God bless and here’s to your continued steel spine!!!!
Thank you for your efforts Rep Pittman … Like the GOP Congress, and ObamaCare … there are to many in NC GOP that are nothing more than democrat lite. It’s a shame we have to fight the democrats AND the establishment GOP.
Thom Tillis and David Lewis used redistricting to turf out two conservatives, Glen Bradley and Bill Cook. Both then ran for Senate seats, Cook taking out a Democrat incumbent after beating a leadership backed opponent in the primary, and Bradley losing a primary to a House leadership backed opponent.
I hope that David Lewis and Tim Moore will not play a similar anti-conservative game in redistricting, but if they do, it should be all out war by conservatives to take down every establishment bootlicker we can, in the primary if possible, but in the general election if necessary. It may be necessarhy to burn down the corrupt mess we have in Raleigh and rebuild on a firmer foundation. Tim Moore reminds me of Jim Black or Liston Ramsey and Phil Berger looks more like Marc Basnight every day.
Larry, if they double-bunk you, or do something else stupid and wrong, I’ll bet we can find some conservatives to come and work for you! You are among the VERY BEST representatives we the people have in government!
After the big lie on repealing Obamacare, the GOP has forever lost the trust of the voters. It is a doomed party, and deservedly so.
The election curse suffered by “third parties” will be overcome when someone figures out that we have enough UNAFFILIATED voters to carry the day.
Give us a few good candidates and see!
What you have to have is a structure to recruit candidates and that is lacking for conservative independents. I do not see it being created before the next election, so the key will be the primaries. We still need conservatives to recruit and back solid primary candidates against the fake Republicans.
It would be interesting to see some conservative Unaffiliateds file in districts with no Democrat running. They would probably pick up most of the Democrat vote by not having an R by their name, and could pick off the conservatives among GOP voters by doing targeted mailings. Running against those who sold out on HB2, this could be a winning strategy, particularly if an independent group were doing the mailings on things like HB2.
Of course, a significant conservative Unaffiliated running in a district like Nelson Dollar’s where there is always a Democrat and a competitive race, would throw the seat to the Democrats. An organized group could go to party leaders and threaten to do just that unless the fake Republican stood down.
At this point, I do believe that the GOP would choose to lose to the DemocRAT rather than stand aside for a conservative candidate.
The D/R two-party charade is nothing but UniParty at its core. The UniParty doesn’t mind losing to the UniParty, because its fat cats all get to stay in power, and nothing much changes. (Example: The GOP Obamacare repeal scam)
What scares the bejeezus out of the UniParty is losing to uncontrollable Outsiders, like President Trump.
The problem with “third party” candidates now is simply getting them on the ballot. If they were there, I can certainly picture their being elected.
Not sure what the gang on Hillsborough Street is trying to accomplish, but they sure aren’t doing much to support the grassroots or promote conservative values.
You should see the complete story of the NCGOP vs Haywood Republicans
https://www.facebook.com/396465970730270/photos/a.396476387395895.1073741828.396465970730270/462925584084308/?type=3&theater
I got a blurb in the mail from your congressman today, asking me to contribute to the NCGOP. Y’all better have a chat with Mark Meadows about the perils of risking his reputation shilling for those people.
Someone ought to go through all the votes in the legislature and run them against the GOP platform and come up with a party loyalty score for each legislator, which could then be used in primaries agsinst or for them. If we had the grassroots running the state party, then that would be the obvious group to do that, but we unfortunately do not.
In the last eighteen months, we have thoroughly learned how determined those people are to retain control over the State Party. When the grassroots elected their own Chairman, they bounced him and routinely started breaking the provisions of the POO and violating the tenets of Robert’s Rules to seize an iron grip on the State Party to ensure that a grassroots rebellion won’t succeed again. This is in spite of the fact that there are plenty of County leaders and a few District leaders who believe as we do.
Where do we go now? One extreme measure is opt for county secession and go for a schism somewhat like the way the Catholic Church broke open in the middle ages with the Pope in Rome and another Pope (or anti-Pope) in Avignon. Those of us who want a grass-roots ruled Party should secede and take our counties with us into an opposing NCGOP organization and elect our own State leadership team, set our own rules for the purpose of empowering conservatives, undermining RINO legislators and their Party Affiliated Committees, and oh by the way, notify the RNC that a state of division has occurred in the NCGOP due to a breakdown of the rule of law, whose headquarters in Raleigh will no longer be accepted as the central authority by the breakaway counties. Since we’re a battleground state, I imagine that will make someone at RNC sit up and take notice.
Why don’t we stop talking and start running? Who are the main people that we should go after? Eddie Cabe should run for office.
The party loyalists, apologists and bootlickers are as much to blame as the pols themselves. They continue to enable the complete disregard for the values laid out in the party platform. These values are why I’ve been a registered Republican because they are my values. Voting for someone just because they have an R after their name is just as damaging to the R brand. The liars, enablers, bootlickers and apologists together, own the dysfunction that is the Republican Party. I don’t align with any of those people, therefore I’ve finally reached the conclusion that my values are not valued by the Republican Party and there is no longer any compelling reason to remain a member of a party that unabashedly supports liars and refuses to hold them accountable.
Party loyalty is a two way street. If a politician is not loyal to the principles of the party on whose ballot line he or she was elected, why should anyone in the party feel any sense of loyalty to that politician? Having an R by your name and nothing more is meaningless. What is important is a politician having an R in their heart rather than a question mark or a dollar sign. The problem of disloyal GOP politicians going over tot the enemy on policy is a major reason why the NCGOP should reconsider its policy of not endorsing in primaries. Of course, it is necessary to get the grassroots in charge first to do the endorsing.
To bounce off of Raphaels comment, it is as time goes on becoming easier and easier by their actions to distinguish between Americans and Americans at heart.
Browny Douglas
We have an election coming up next year. It is important to elect or reelect the limited government candidates and to defeat the big government candidates, regardless of party. Some of those big government politicians are registered as Republican and will seek office on the Republican ballot line. They need to be opposed by limited government candidates.
The strategy of conservatives should be geared to the situation in each district. In some cases, it is clear that the challenge should be made in the Republican primary. In others, there might be advantages to doing it by running an independent conservative in the general election. In some districts it might be advisable to have two bites at the apple, by doing a primary challenge, and then have an independent conservative challenger ready to go if the primary challenge fails. Unless there is a large influx of conservative independents, where there might be advantages to caucusing separately, conservative independents who are elected will get more punch to caucus with Republicans, and might, for example, veto any Tim Moore types put up for speaker.
Running and winning as a conservative independent is not easy, but it can be done. A few years ago, for example, there was a special election for a marginal State Senate seat in Pennsylvania, and under the special election rules, the party leaders chose the nominees instead of the voters. A local Tea Party member, who was independently wealthy from the business he had started and could self finance, sought the GOP nomination and was rejected in favor of an establishment squish, so he qualified to run as an independent. In a three way race, the Tea Party conservative independent won by a landslide.
I suspect most challenges are going to have a better shot in the GOP primary but all options should be on the table to elect a limited government oriented legislature, something we are a long way from at present due to the preponderance of big government politicians in office. Lets drain the swamp in Raleigh!
I can picture the conversation from the “Little General” in Raleigh.
“We understand you have an Alt Right problem,” says the General.
“Well, it’s a matter of perspective, and the RINO’s in Raleigh seem to see it that way,” says the western NC liaison.
“Then GET IN LINE, MAGGOT!” barks the General.
“Yes, sir,” replies the spineless local. “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
“Very well,” the General adds. “And make sure they give generously to the State Party coffers this year.”