Hello everybody and welcome to the very first podcast episode of Left of Old North.
I'm your host Adrian and with me today is CJ.
We got a lot of shit to talk about, let's be honest.
This so-called hurricane relief bill was passed through the house after the governor tried
to veto it and then they went back voted on it again and overrode the veto and we're going
to talk about how the sweeping power changes have just completely corrupted this whole system
for the incoming democratic regime.
We're also going to talk about the legislative fallout from that and some other stuff that's
happening in Wake County right now that should severely piss off union members.
But first up, how are you doing today CJ?
I'm good, I'm good.
Just getting ready for the holidays.
How about you?
Same, same.
I've got to be honest, the holidays feel a little sour this week for a number of reasons.
We're coming off the heels of a pretty bad election, maybe not so much in North Carolina
because we actually managed to get some Republicans out of office.
So just a recap for all those who weren't paying attention.
The Republicans did have a super majority in the House legislature and Democrats overturned
that this year, well by a margin of one seat.
But hey, a W is a W, we'll take it.
Exactly, exactly.
Unfortunately, Kamala Harris did lose by more of a percentage of the vote than Joe Biden did in 2020.
We were hoping for a little bit of a closer race and Donald Trump ended up taking that quite
handily.
What was your reaction on that night?
I mean, I was up till, I don't know, probably about, I think like three or so in the morning.
I was just kind of watching the news in bed, family is sleeping and everything.
And part of me was just like, oh, God, to break that to folks.
How am I going to tell them, hey, guess what we have to live through again?
Oh my God.
Right.
Oh my God.
And then I think another part of it was I kind of went from that disbelief and everything to
this rage, this anger, all the stages of grief that there are.
And then I was kind of like, okay, screw it.
You know what?
I'm going to be mad.
You know what?
I should probably get used to that feeling for the next four years.
But I'm not going to be mad and not do anything.
I have never been someone who likes to kind of sit on the sidelines and watch things happen.
If I see that there's something bad going on,
I try to get involved and try to help mitigate whatever damage there is, help kind of alleviate
whatever suffering may be happening, et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah.
And so that's one reason, you know, I kind of came to you with this idea.
I'm like, hey, how about this?
Because, you know, one thing the world needs is another triple white dudes for the podcast.
But hey, you know, at least you are self-aware and at least we are trying to combat it from
the other end of the spectrum.
Yeah, exactly.
And I mean, I just like said, I love it was like disbelief, shock, anger.
And then I mean, I kind of like sat around for like a week or so, you know,
not really watching the news, not really watching TV, kind of like using it as like a period of
self-reflection at just kind of like, okay, well, that happened.
What's next?
You know, playing through all the scenarios in my head of what the next four years could look like.
Yeah, the local cleanser of sorts.
Yeah, exactly.
When we both needed it, I think, so just a little clarification for anyone listening to this.
CJ and I both were running house races here in North Carolina.
We were both on the ground talking to voters every single day.
We were managing campaign funds, endorsements, the websites, the freaking social media.
We were doing freaking everything.
We're not just two dudes talking.
We have plenty of contacts and plenty of people that know much more in depth than we do about some
of these things, but also like we were here experiencing it in real time, talking with
members of the coordinated campaign out here in North Carolina for the Kamala Harris,
sorry, the Harris Walls campaign.
So we're, this hits a little bit harder for both of us than I think for some people.
Not to, you know, rain on anybody's parade and say, oh, well, my pain's worse, but like,
we, I had a few too many shots that night because I just, I just needed to numb the pain,
but enough about our problems.
Let's talk about the problems for everybody else in this, in this state, in this old North state
of ours.
Right up at the top of this, we were talking about SB 382.
Now, CJ, here's a little trivia question for everybody in the audience.
Is this actually a hurricane relief, Bill?
No.
No. It is a hurricane relief bill in name only, really.
I mean, if you want to really kind of get into it, I forget how many pages long the bill is,
but I think only like 15 pages.
That's right.
132 pages long.
I think maybe 15 pages were even talking about Hurricane Helene and relief and all that stuff.
What this really is, is a partisan, a Republican, let's just call it for what it is,
power grab.
If we want to talk about the actual hurricane relief aspects of things, my understanding
and correct me if I'm wrong, none of the funds that they voted on are actually going to be used
immediately for hurricane Helene relief.
Essentially, it gets put into another account that can be accessed like next year.
And I don't think it's actually earmarked for hurricane Helene relief.
Now, it could be wrong, but.
So, I don't know if it was necessarily earmarked for just hurricane relief, but what I do know
is that this money didn't just poof from nowhere.
They didn't invent new funds.
They literally just took funds from somewhere else and pushed it over here from already existing funds.
And it can't even be used until much later.
So, it's not something that required such urgency.
And let's keep in mind, this bill was passed at the very last session of the North Carolina
Legislature this year, literally into the afternoon hours.
Yeah.
Is that?
They were supposed to meet up at 10.30, I think it was at 11.
And then they immediately called a recess and then met back up at 3 p.m.
Did the order of the day, voted on three things and then left.
Yeah.
And would you say that's an accurate statement of the cliff notes of what happened?
Yeah, no, it really is.
I mean, they were supposed to meet up.
They called a recess.
And then I think it got delayed one more time that day if I'm not mistaken.
And they reconvened late afternoon-ish.
Yeah, but see, that's the thing, right?
We're giving the sanitized version of what happened.
But we were both there that day.
And we slogged through two different sessions where nothing happened.
We had to show up again in the afternoon when they met up to vote on this thing.
And there were hundreds of protesters there.
Yeah.
Hundreds.
Oh, yeah.
And there seemed to be just more and more coming in by the minute.
Just in the morning, whenever I got there, I was actually probably one of the first
people who was there just because I liked to be places early.
Yeah, yeah.
Going to a protest and going to the airport early.
You got to get there like two hours early.
Exactly.
And like I said, I like to get places early.
So I showed up a little bit early.
And of course, there was kind of these stragglers or maybe not stragglers,
but these early birds just showed up, maybe about half a dozen dozen at one point.
And then quickly, just people started pouring in.
At one point, I went into the restroom, came back out, and I swear it had tripled in size.
It was, like you said, hundreds of people just standing there outside the gallery.
And for those of you who haven't been to the General Assembly building, it's like three
floors really.
So you have the third floor that has the galleries where you can watch the proceedings
of the House and the Senate.
And then a second floor, which if you're looking down from outside the gallery,
you can see down into.
And then the first floor you answer, but we don't care about that one right now.
But the third floor, the second floor, both for just filled with protesters saying,
uphold the veto, this bill is a sham, stop the power grab, all this stuff.
I don't think I saw one single person saying, oh yeah, override the veto.
So I will say, I think the state party has done an absolutely incredible job,
or did an absolutely incredible job, and get the word out about this bill, about this veto,
about this vote, all that stuff, and just educating the public on how blatant of a power
grab it is and how little it does for actual hurricane relief.
Yeah.
And yeah, let's keep in mind that this is only, it's going to sound like a high number,
but this is only 200 million for hurricane relief.
That's what this bill contained as part of the hurricane relief funds was about 200 million
dollars to put that into contact.
Okay.
This bill also contained within it a part that gave 500 million dollars in school vouchers
to private schools.
So there were double, double the amount of funds available for kids who, for parents
who wanted to send their kids to private school to have that all paid for courtesy of the North
Carolina voters, but only measly 200 million for the people of Western North Carolina and
the devastation that has happened there.
That's what we're dealing with here, because they're going to have, there was a representative
there, and you might need to help me out here because I can't on the nose remember his name.
I can't remember either.
I think I know your...
I posted on Blue Sky about him, and by the way, go follow some Blue Sky if you're listening
to this, we recorded and reported on this while it was happening in real time.
So there are a couple of posts for me like, we're getting kicked out as we were getting
funneled out.
But anyway, so there was, they each got 10 minutes to speak, and there was a guy who got
up and spoke, one of the representatives there, that just took up so much time.
And all he could talk about was how his home or his land was getting washed away by Hurricane
Helene for 10 minutes, 12 minutes, 15 minutes.
He just kept going on and on and on.
And to me, this really signified and it exemplified exactly where the bill was couching itself.
Within this emotional response to Helene, within this feeling amongst Western North
Carolinians that, hey, we have to do something now and the government's not helping us.
Republicans seeing that as a way to push through legislation on the basis of these people need
help now, knowing that most people in that area of the state would probably not have any idea
how those funds were going to help them, if at all.
Yeah.
And if I may take just a second.
So, of course.
A little bit for the audience.
I was born and raised in Western North Carolina.
I grew up in Redford County, which is where Lake Lure or Chimney Rock is.
So I know you probably saw it on the news.
These are towns that get completely washed away.
Luckily, they're rebuilding, thank God.
I was fortunate enough that my family and my friends, they're all fine.
But the thing to keep in mind about that part of the state, and again, this is someone who grew up
in Appalach.
I mean, I actually wear my app state hoodie right now.
But as someone who grew up in Appalach, Western North Carolina has been historically ignored
and taken advantage of by both sides of the aisle, I'll just say it, for years.
The infrastructure there is not what it should be.
The jobs there are not what they should be.
Back in the day, there were plenty of jobs.
And we had textile mills, we had furniture factories, all this stuff.
And then, 90s came around, and then left the country, left the city, state.
At least to my knowledge, and just based off my experience, there hasn't seemed to be a huge effort
to kind of alleviate that loss.
And I should also say just kind of a side note, again, these are the mountains of North Carolina
right here.
We get snowstorms.
We get a few inches of snow every year that we can flower our way out of and take care of,
no problem.
We don't get hurricanes.
Our buildings are not built to a hurricane code like you would find out at the coast,
or like you would find down in Florida, or Alabama, or wherever.
Because there's no need for it.
And so one of the many reasons the damage was so bad is just because we don't get hurricanes.
We don't build for them.
Right.
And we're about two months out at this point from the hurricane, three months.
Yeah, about three months.
Yeah.
A group, yeah.
And there are still people who don't have a place to go.
There are still people who are having to live in tents and sleep in sleeping bags and all the
stuff on a nightly basis.
They don't have jobs.
They don't have the ability to go get a hotel for the night.
And I mean, not to say they wouldn't even be able to because they're already taken.
It's December and it is cold in West Tennessee.
I was out there for Thanksgiving seeing family.
And I drove past Old Fort.
I didn't go into Old Fort proper, but for those of you who don't know, it's like a really small
town, not too, too far from Asheville.
And it got absolutely rocked.
It was basically wiped off the map.
And just from the highway, you could see the trees down.
You can see the devastation.
And knowing that there are people in these areas that aren't getting the help that they
need already breaks my heart.
And to see that the Republicans in North Carolina passed this bill or, you know, we're trying
to pass this bill under the sky that the guys, there we go, of Hurricane relief.
This is me off to no end.
Again, that part of the state has had a long history of being taken advantage of by the
government.
And this is just one more example of using it to its advantage and using it as a scapegoat.
Almost it has used it is using the suffering of good, amazing people.
And, you know, I might not agree with them on politics a lot, but they're still, you know,
they're still my people.
They're still my kin, let's say.
Sure.
And to see them again, taking advantage of like this, see them taking advantage.
Yeah.
Under this just to just to perpetrate a power grab.
Again, it pissed me off to no end and it is inexcusable is unconscionable.
And everyone who voted for this bill should be ashamed.
They really should.
Which is why when, and I did look him up, Representative Dudley Green from House District
85, he spoke for 13 minutes.
And I was wrong before it was that each legislator got five minutes to speak.
He went way over time, even if people, other Republicans are giving him time.
And like I said, during the time that he was talking, he spoke a lot like you did, right?
It probably did come from the heart.
I don't think anybody would question that.
But the problem is that what it's being used for and how they're using it, it is very emotional.
It is very impactful to a lot of people, millions of people.
In fact, if you count families and the economy coming from Western North Carolina.
But here's the problem.
Within the same breaths, he fails to talk about all the other things that are in his
bill.
He failed to address all of the other budgetary, all the other budgetary movements in this
bill.
But he had plenty of time at the end of his speech to personally congratulate Tim Moore
for winning a house seat and say and said, and make sure to congratulate him and wish
him well in Washington to continue the good work he's been doing here.
And I just gotta say, let's hope he doesn't.
Yeah.
Because if we know anything about Tim Moore, and unfortunately we do, he is a very good
guy.
He is kind of the face of this whole power grab, oligarchical movement of the Republican
Party here in North Carolina.
No, very much so.
We've got a desiccable wing of this party that is hell bent on continuing the destruction
of any kind of democratic means of equal representation.
They don't want it.
Yeah.
And you can see that.
I mean, okay.
So right before they did this vote, as is normal, I'm not saying this was out of the
ordinary.
There was a committee meeting amongst all the legislators.
Once they were done, I even saw Trisha Cotham in person walk right by me.
I was like, oh, look, there she is in the flesh.
And when all was said and done, I think that in these committee meetings or wherever they
were talking, there was a concerted effort to make some of the legislators, the Republican
legislators, that initially voted against it.
We're now going to overturn, we're going to vote with the Republicans and override the
veto.
And I want to know what happened in those back room, what was said to these guys.
Because it wasn't just one or two people.
There were three of them, three Republicans that all changed their vote right at the last
minute to override this veto.
So these three representatives were Mark Pless, Carl Gillespie, and Mike Clampett.
They were the ones that flipped their votes.
And then we can't leave out representative Cecil Brockman out of Guilford County.
So I think I remember.
And he attributes this to being sick.
He attributes this to being sick.
He prioritized his health.
And then he said, in the second paragraph of his official statement, the depravity of the
establishment within the NC Democratic Party knows no bound.
After gathering the strength to share with the world about my struggle with mental health,
the party sent angry mobs after me.
And here's the thing, the party didn't send angry mobs after him.
We were there on the ground.
There were many activists not affiliated with the NC Democratic Party that were giving his
number out to every single person that they could, urging him to come and vote on this bill.
Yep.
And he did that.
100.
Yeah.
And we can't pretend that this isn't a pattern with him because it very much is.
He one of the things he's known for his MO really is missing key votes or going in and taking a
walk or whatever.
And we can speculate as to the reasons why.
Plausible denigratability, right?
Yeah.
But it's inexcusable.
I mean, you say you call yourself a Democrat.
Now we can figure out what that is, whether you actually are, whether you just call yourself
that because, you know, if you were Republican, you couldn't get elected in your district as is.
Right.
Yeah.
Let's keep in mind to everybody out there that the reason there was a concern.
So even in his statement, he says, after wasting more than half a million dollars on a failed
Democratic primary to defeat me, the state Democratic Party still clearly does not respect
the will of the voters in District 60.
Again, because he would not win otherwise.
Right.
And I think one thing that he needs to keep in mind is I don't know the actual numbers up
to my head, but his opponent in the primary came pretty close to beating him.
Yeah.
Let me look it up real quick.
Yeah.
Because he that race was one of the ones that was targeted by some of the groups here in North
Carolina for sure, because they know what he is like and what he does.
And give anybody that's listening to this a little bit of a rundown on like,
it might seem like we're bullying this guy.
Right.
But this is like you said, this is a pattern with him.
Yeah.
And you know, if it's, let me take a step back really quick and just say this, you know, he
has talked about, you know, his struggles with mental health and I do applaud him for that.
I really do.
Sure.
I know that something that can be very difficult to open up about and very difficult to deal with,
especially when I figure like a politician, you know,
kudos for him for being able to come forward and talk about that.
That is actually really good.
I applaud him for that.
Yeah.
But as a politician, as a Democrat, he still has a job he needs to do.
And I understand that, you know, you should, what is it, vote your district, vote your conscience,
whatever it is.
But I think one thing in there, or one thing that needs to be there is vote democratically.
I don't mean like party democratically, I mean vote in the interest in favor of democracy.
Yeah.
Vote for the protection of our institutions and by being absent, you know, that was one less vote
that could have been a statement that could have said what is happening here is unacceptable.
Now, again, his votes wouldn't, I will say it would not have made the difference, right?
But still in a situation like this, you need all hands on deck.
You need as many voices as possible to call this out and to bear witness to what was going on,
which is one reason why there are so many people there that day is because they wanted to bear
witness to everything that was happening.
Right.
And here's the thing.
He's acting in this statement that he made that like, like there's some clear mandate for leadership
that, oh, the voices of his district were heard, that there was a clear indication they wanted
him specifically to represent them.
Let's be clear, 85 voters were the ones that made the difference.
Cecil Brockman won his primary election by 85 votes.
That's it.
His Democratic challenger, James Adams, man, he ran a pretty damn good campaign.
I'm going to be honest.
He did.
I want to click around on all of his stuff like he was going after and encourage him.
And here's the thing.
Primaries are not indicative of some kind of party apparatus trying to oust you.
Healthy primaries are part of why our democracy works.
It's part of why we need elections, right?
We don't want an uncontested primary.
We don't want uncontested general elections every single time because the general election
was a white vow.
He won by 10,000 votes.
It wasn't even close.
But here's the thing.
33% 33 point advantage rounding out versus a literal 1% difference in the primary election.
And people don't really come out and vote in primaries.
So who so the fact that it was this close means, yeah, you have some support, but it's not exactly
a mandate.
Exactly.
So it's interesting to me when I read about some of these local politicians that have already
gained a rep reputation for themselves, not as a servant of the community, but as somebody
that is a problem for both their party and for their constituents, because they refuse to be
a part of the actual bulwark of democracy, literally refused.
And again, we understand.
We understand that there is mental health.
If there are mental health issues, if there are personal issues, understandable.
But don't be mad when the next time, you know, two years from now, when you're primary again,
don't be mad when they decide to support somebody else.
You are not guaranteed that seat.
Exactly.
And he's the same too.
He said later, I want to round this off with the last part of his statement on last week.
So Vita override.
Oftentimes, I find myself negotiating for what may seem like small but necessary changes that
help to make legislation less problematic.
I have even brought back millions in state funds to a poor black community that has never seen it
before.
To some within the party that claims to care about black people, that isn't enough.
Let's keep in mind that his primary opponent was black and that the millions that he brought
back in state funds were granted to him by a Republican supermajority.
So clearly this is somebody who has found that rather than working within his structure,
that he is going to appease the Republican supermajority, that's why he missed this vote in my
opinion.
I can't prove that.
I don't know if that's 100% true, but that's my feeling on the matter.
Yeah, I'm not going to say it is, but if it came out that that was the case, I would not be
surprised.
I don't think anyone would really be all that surprised.
Yeah.
And this right here, this last bit that he decided to put in this statement really shows
exactly who he is.
For those in our party that desire to keep my name in their mouths,
let me make it plain and clear for you.
Over these next two years, you need me.
I do not need you.
I think that that shows exactly where his head's at.
Yep, and I mean...
Well, ending it off with, watch your mouth when talking about me and remember your neighbors
are watching and listening, especially those in the African-American community.
I believe that they definitely are Cecil and I think that maybe you should take your own advice
because people are pissed.
Yeah, they are.
And you're absolutely right that the party is going to come back with you, come back at you with
everything they've got because you screwed them over.
Yeah, and I do think it's interesting.
I saw this article, I don't know, day before yesterday in the News & Observer,
essentially a little interview with him talking about the fallout of the bill and his thoughts on,
you know, the party and calling him out and whatnot.
And essentially, he was alluding to Trisha Kotham's treatment or alleged treatment by the
party and how his was, is very similar and how, you know, and leave the door open for a party
switch if you wanted to.
Oh yeah, no, Republicans on Twitter love him.
There was nothing but, there was nothing but adoration and understanding from all of the
blue check marks in his replies.
And the thing is, again, the area he's from, hypolyphally, it's a very blue area.
If he wanted to switch parties, he would not stand a chance at reelection.
And he knows it, which is the only reason why he, in my opinion, he hasn't yet.
No, I think that that's a pretty fair statement.
I, you know, it's a tactical move on his part.
It's strategic thinking.
I think that he brands himself as an outsider.
He brands himself as somebody who goes against the grain.
But man, you ain't no AOC.
This is not the same thing.
Agreed.
This is like, I do what's best for my constituents, even if that means pushing their boat down the
river.
Ridiculous.
Anyway, moving on, because I think we've talked about, we've kept him in our mouths,
as he pointed for long enough.
So we've talked about all that.
We've talked about the fallout of SB 382, that this is going to have
extenuating circumstances for what's to come in North Carolina.
You know, Chris Cooper.
Yeah.
Yeah, the Western Carolina professor, right?
Yes.
And they were talking, he was talking about, like, do you think they were interviewing him
and they were asking, do you think that this is one of the most consequential bills
that's ever been passed? And he said, without a doubt, this is the most consequential bill
in modern North Carolina history.
And I just think when you have somebody who is very aware of the situation politically,
legislatively, in North Carolina, somebody that's been studying it for many years,
says that this is not just some one-off bill that we can forget about in a couple years.
This is going to have huge consequence moving forward.
They've effectively crippled the governor.
They've effectively crippled the attorney general, the secretary of state.
I mean, they moved the elections to the state auditor's office, which makes absolutely no
sense. The only silver lining in this is that the incoming Governor,
Josh Stein, and the outgoing Governor, Governor Cooper, are going to be, or have,
already filed suit against this and up to a higher court.
But in the meantime, we're all just sitting here biting our nails and waiting for some good news.
Speaking of good news,
in one of the closest elections in the entire country,
Allison Riggs still appears to have won her seat on the appeals court,
and Jefferson Griffith is still fighting it tooth and nail.
Yep.
It's actually pretty crazy how many times somebody has to lose in order to be told that they are a loser.
Yeah, no, it's incredible. It really is.
You know, he, this is why I'm about to say happened yesterday and of course being North Carolina politics.
Things move quickly, but yesterday he was asking the Republican majority state Supreme Court to throw out
60,000 votes, right?
And, you know, I saw that and I was just like, oh, good God, because, you know,
this is what the modern GOP is now. They don't like the results, so they try and they try and they
sue their way to victory to undermine the people, all because they don't know how to let go of power.
And it's it's pathetic. And it's just another example of how the GOP, both North Carolina and
nationally, doesn't actually care about democracy. They care about their power.
They care about their own self interests.
They have a party of petty rules lawyers, people that want to,
they want to win within the margins. They want to win within the footnotes and the loopholes.
Because, I mean, like I said earlier, a W is a W, you know,
we can talk about how the electoral college sucks. We can talk about how throwing out perfectly
valid ballots. But if they get away with it, we don't have much recourse to argue, right?
Something that has been stirring in the back of a lot of people's minds that,
you know, I talk to people pretty much every day about stuff like this and something that
continuously comes up in conversation is, well, what can we do? Well, what can we do?
Well, first off, if you're just asking now, and this isn't to, this is not to the little
people, but if you're just asking now, you're, it's a little too late and you should have been
asking months ago, you know, we've, we've, this has been years in the making for the North Carolina
GOP. This is years and years and years of planning. You need to get involved. You need to be aware
and you need to be supportive of the people that are actually going to make systemic change here
in this state. And, and hey, if you hate the national Democrats, fine, you know, there's a lot
of people across the state that cannot stand some of the Democrats that have been elected
nationally. But if you care about what's happening in this state, if you consider yourself left of
the current, of the current democratic establishment, hey, we've got plenty of people here that are
running way left of where the current GOP is. So you can't just sit around and wait for people
to change it for you. No, you can't, you can't. You have to take action. You have to, there is a
lot you can do. And one of the most important things is to stay plugged in. You know, these things,
oh, oh, Mr. Rachel is saying ball. Oh, so ball. You can start off if you want.
Um, I was just, oh, oh, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, there is a lot of stuff that you can do.
Um, you know, we would love to have had you involved, you know, a few months ago, but, you know,
it is what it is. Welcome to the party. Um, go volunteer with your county party. Volunteer with
the party. Um, one of the most important things in my opinion that you can do is stay informed,
stay in tune to everything going on. Because politics in general, in North Carolina politics,
especially gets insanely convoluted, insanely quickly at times. It gets really messy,
really fast. And it could be really hard to follow it if you don't know who to listen to,
or where to look for this information. Like when I first came here, that was the main problem for
me. It's like, I don't know what that is going on. There's like all these different people. There's
all like, oh, don't listen to Carolina Journal because they're actually bought out by a, by a
Republican and they are very biased and they're reporting. And then I'm like, oh, okay, I'm sorry,
I didn't even realize. And then you're like, well, you know, some Democrats aren't actually Democrats
in here's who aren't Democrats. And then sure enough, Trisha Cawtham switches. And I'm like,
Oh, well there it is. And so it's not really as straightforward as people would love to believe
that it, and as we just witnessed with Cecil Brockman and that whole breakdown, there are plenty
of people who love to play outside the bounds because it brings them some notoriety, including
Republicans. There are plenty of Republicans that love to go against the grain of the Republican
establishment. But then when it really comes down to it, they will vote with them almost every
single time. Yep. And I will say, once you do get in tune with everything, and once you get involved
with, you know, the party and fighting back against everything that's happening, make sure you still
take time to look after yourself, right? Because we've got, we got midterms in two years, we've got
presidential election in four years. Heck, we've got municipal elections this upcoming year. Yeah,
probably got municipal is coming up. There's a lot of stuff that's going to be happening. And this
is one of the situations where it is very much marathon and not the sprint. Pace yourself,
take it quick when you need to, but get back in. There are elections every single year, and it is
extremely important to, if not to be informed about like as much as you can be, be informed about
who's on it. Because there were people that won that in my county, there were people that won,
that we supported, that probably would not have won if we didn't get out the vote, and we didn't
actually talk to people and explain to them who these folks were, because some of these races
are complete unknowns. People, if you have no idea who they are, maybe they saw their sign on the
side of the road and they just go on about their day after voting doesn't doesn't affect right at
all. Exactly. And here's the thing in that county, in my county, we swung two points to the left
this year. That has never happened. Not since the 1970s has that happened. There is a shift that
is happening. But the problem is that people are so disillusioned and so tired of having to fight
back against this power structure here in North Carolina, that by the way is only about 15 years
old. The GOP has not had this much of a power grip in a very, very long time. But it's not that old,
and there are still always time to turn it around. You can't sit here and mope and wait for things to
get better. Sorry, that was my big spiel. You're right. And like one little thing that I'll keep
in here as well is that we know everybody has jobs. And a lot of the times you come to these
events, right, where or these protests, and you'll see a lot of people who you have, you have a
feeling they are either retired or they are unemployed. And that is very true. There are a
lot of those. But it just it really is how much how much does this matter to you? How important
is this to you? Yeah. So I think one thing that is very important, you can have talked about this
for a second. I think people need to really educate themselves on all the offices on the ballot.
I get it. You know what? Soil water commissioner might not sound interesting, but you know what?
It still has an effect. But you don't think the soil and water commissioner isn't sexy?
I mean, I do because I'm a nerd. But you know, as you said at the top of this, I
managed to stay house race this year. And at one point, they were going over provisional ballots,
all that stuff. And I decided, you know, I'm going to go out and watch this process because I had
never watched it before. And I really thought about watching it. And it was me and the county
board of elections, which was I think like six people maybe, that sounds about right. And like
four people from the public just watching. And you know, they were going around handing each
other provisional ballots, you know, saying, okay, yes, this should count, no, this shouldn't count,
this is why, so on and so forth. You know what? Some of these positions are elected. And sometimes
the decision to have your ballot counted to have your voice heard comes down to half a dozen people
in a random room somewhere. I guarantee you if you go to a random person on the street and you say,
hey, who is on your county board of elections, who's on state board of elections, they would not
be able to tell you. Hell, most people couldn't tell you who their state senator or state
representative, the people that actually make the direct most people couldn't tell you who their
county commissioners are. And you definitely know who your county because those are the
do's that decide a lot more than you probably. Oh, yeah. And that's I'm not saying that to, you know,
I'm not calling anyone dumb or uninformed or anything like that. No, of course. Well, maybe
maybe uninformed, but not dumb. Yeah, exactly. We are all busy with, you know, we all have stuff
going on. And you know what, people don't always have the time to sit down and again, say, okay,
who is running for dog catcher essentially, you know, but that doesn't mean it's not important to
do so. Right. And they don't like that way. You know, it is it is purposefully sometimes designed
to be a to be, yeah, to be exclusive to the people who the intention is to make it confusing.
Yeah, a great 100%. Okay, so for our last little bit here in calls to action, just recently, this
was about five days ago. But just recently, the head union organizer for something for a group
that's trying to establish a union in the Amazon warehouse in Garner was fired and is claiming
wrongful termination. And I mean, this is a tale as old as time. We will see we will continue to see
for years to come, I'm sure if you ever needed more understanding of what these folks go through.
Garner has a huge Amazon warehouse. I mean, it's massive. And most of the of all of the shipments
come through there because it's so close to Wake County, they have hundreds and hundreds of employees,
and they're not being paid enough for what they're doing. I mean, I think that most people could
agree with that. And this is again, like I said, it's a tale a little as old as time because once
they actually start arguing for more benefits for better pay, they find a reason to fire them to
keep them scared. And this has broader implications for unionizing efforts in the rest of North
Carolina. Because this isn't just here, this is happening all over the country for for Amazon.
warehouse workers specific. And this is yet another reason why there should be unions,
especially in Amazon warehouse, especially they terminated this guy 10 days before the holiday
before Christmas, 10 days for arguing for better pay for his work. Like you said, this is all
just as mean of means of intimidation. It really is. Yeah, you know, the Amazon business model,
for my understanding, has always been essentially, you know, they actually encourage high turnover.
Yeah, because then they don't have people who are there long enough to justify giving raises to
they don't have people there long enough to, you know, promote and, you know, move up in the company
and all this stuff, they can just, you know, fire them or have them quit because of, you know,
bad working condition and bring in someone else who will who will hopefully be gone in six weeks
or six months. Right. And, you know, North Carolina has a history of, you know, labor unions.
I'm reading a book called the paradox of the Tarheel State or sorry,
if you want to do some book recommendations on this podcast, I think it's great. I think we should.
Yeah. But, you know, they've talked about how like back in like the 1920s and whatnot unions are a
big thing here, or at least push pushes for unions are big. So that's the tell us all this time in
the state. And for as long as there's been unions really, you know, there's been pushed back because
the people at the top God forbid they give up, you know, an extra $1,000, right? Or extra
million dollars, which when you're someone like Jeff Bezos, you make up in like literally a minute.
Yeah, you know, yeah. I just saw this week where it showed in real time one of the Amazon or no,
it wasn't Amazon, it was Blue Origin, one of the Blue Origin workers, you know, his his own space
project, his version. Yeah, sex. We makes per second. And it had like a running clock or a
running ticker of how much each one of them was making. And he in the time that the video played,
he made $53,000. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, this book I was talking about. Yeah, the paradox of Tarheel
politics is by Robert Christensen. Fantastic book. But no, it's absolutely. I'll add that
to our official book list. It's absolutely. You just wait, they'll put official left of old
North stickers on these books at some point, it'll be like Oprah's book club level.
Be like, hey, that works. Hey, officially sanctioned.
Sorry. No, you're good. No, I mean, it really is still as old as time. And there's no excuse for
it. I mean, it is not that hard to treat people with respect and dignity and to pay them not just
a fair wage, but a actual living wage. If you want to get to it, you know, when FDR was talking about
the minimum wage and everything, he didn't just call it a minimum wage, he called it a living wage.
The whole point of it was to keep up with the times to keep up with the economy, to keep up
with inflation. And you know, you have right now this whole, you know, the fight for 15, I think
is what a lot of people call it. It's closer now, if you want to keep it with like inflation, a little
bit closer, like $25, $30 an hour. Yeah, I think the last estimate that I saw was 1950, should have
been the minimum wage at this point. And that's probably changed by now, because I don't know if
you saw, but the Fed has lowered rates again. And market confidence has dropped very quickly.
And we're headed for, we're headed for worse times, folks. And get ready,
this Trump's about to break the economy with tariffs.
Yep. But there, it's not that, it's not that difficult to treat people fairly. And, you know,
I know, I know I'm not the only one who thinks this, but there's no such thing as an ethical
billionaire. No, absolutely not. Like Bezos and Musk and all them, they have made their money either
through, you know, slavery, like Emerald Mines in South Africa, let's say, or just a random example.
Yeah, yeah. But they've either made their billions through that or through inheritance,
not even worth anything, or having to be in the right place at the right time, or most commonly,
taking advantage of everyday people who are just trying to put food on the table. That's it. You
know, and I will say, for the, if anyone tries to come after this and say, oh, well, you know,
just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and all that bullshit. No. The fact is, the way things
are currently, you know, be able to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps is no longer
a possibility as the economy stands, as the number of jobs stands, and as the state of the
working class stands. That's not possible. Yeah, we, and I think with this recent CEO drama,
let's call it, I mean, we could go on for a whole another hour about that. We can probably wait until
next episode to talk about that. If you want to tune in, we'll talk a little bit more about the
class warfare, about the widening gap of income, equality, and all these other things, but just
to kind of cap off this little space of it. Here in North Carolina, we have some areas that are
very, very high in poverty, high in homelessness, high in income inequality, and that applies to
kind of like CEO was saying, a lot of Western North Carolina, the Appalachian area, and a lot of
Eastern North Carolina, the swampy area. I mean, these folks, and I worked with, I was in East
North Carolina for my race, these folks are getting by, and that's pretty good for what they have
right now. They'll tell you that themselves. They have been largely ignored by the Piedmont.
They have largely been ignored by Raleigh. And the problem is that a lot of them continue to think
that Republicans are going to answer their prayers. And the problem is they're not going to. I'm not
necessarily saying the Democrats are going to either, but I'm also saying that just because
the majority party has some leverage to be able to do what they're going to do, doesn't mean that
they're going to do it for you. So there's this great book by Timothy Snyder that I will add to
the book list called On Tyranny. I've got my little handbook version here. There's a larger version
of the book that has a lot more lessons in it. But one of the first lessons that has been repeated
on the internet post this election was from the first lesson, do not obey in advance. And that
applies as well to legislative races. Just because someone has the power does not necessarily mean
that you should count out to them and subject yourself to them and what they plan to do,
you still need to fight for what you believe. Exactly. Don't fight for the scraps, fight for
the fight for the turkey. You deserve that turkey, man. You deserve even though, you know, I think
turkey's kind of on its way out as far as Thanksgiving is concerned. You notice a lot, people didn't
really, yeah, no, I agree. A conversation about turkeys this year, you know, I'm thinking, but
I think, you know, yeah, don't count out to them. And I think to me, one of the most patriotic things
you can do as a citizen of this country as a citizen of the state is criticize and call out
the government for what not by doing that. That doesn't mean, you know, you hate North Carolina
or you hate the US or anything like that. No, by doing that, you're saying, Hey, I want this to be
better. I want us to progress as a country. I want us to be stronger as a country as a state. So,
you know what? Yeah, go make your voice heard. And if you see some bullshit, like, you know,
you know, these power grabs, call them out for what they are, go pack the gallery, go bear witness
so that those people who are passing those votes know that they're not doing it in secret. Go there
so that they know that they are being watched and that they are being called out. Yeah. And
eventually, they will have to suffer whatever those electoral consequences are.
And some of them won't. And that's why they do it with impunity. We know that just based on the
district lines that have been drawn, people will always pretend as though this state is a majority
Republican state and they might be right, but they would also be wrong in thinking that it is
an overwhelming majority. Yeah, it is very much in my opinion, purple state, it really is. It is
still a swing state. It is somebody has somebody described it to me as a sorry, somebody described
it to me as a polka dot state. Like we've got we've got different pockets of blue different
pockets of red, even yeah, it's a blue in places where you think it'd be red and then
pockets of red where you think it'd be blue. It's all these different little yeah.
Now I can say that and I will say for those going back a few minutes, you know, for those
to are pissed off and want to do something again, vote, you know, in 2026. Yeah, in 2026,
we get state Supreme Court elections coming up. You know, make sure you go vote for those people
who will uphold fair election maps because those maps are going to aren't going to draw them again
until 2030. And the Supreme Court has said that, you know, maps are a state issue. Who do you
think that will go to that will go to the Supreme State Supreme Court. So make sure you go vote for
people who are actually who actually give a fuck. Sorry, I can believe it. Make sure you go vote
who actually care about democracy and care about fair representation, including our judges.
Yeah, because right now the courts are bought right now the legislature is pretty much has
a powerhold on everything. And the Senate like I heard it from Senator Bobby Hainick,
Republican out of East North Carolina himself. The Senate really doesn't do that much. The
Senate is just kind of a rubber stamp on whatever the House wants to do. Very rarely does a Senate
bill make as much of an impact. And this is this is one of those rare instances. But the Senate
has an overwhelming majority of Republicans as well. And that's where all this gets so twisted,
right? Because we should have a more representative democracy. We should have a more representative
form of government where it's a little more equal. And then, you know, we don't have these
packed and cracked areas where you're dividing black voters from majority white voters and
these eastern areas where clearly this district or this county should not be muddled in with the
rest because they don't have the same electoral goals. They don't care. They're gonna do whatever
they can to slice and dice so that they can win seats because that's ultimately what matters.
And this is when we're coming from the perspective, I mean, obviously the channel name is left of
Old North. We take a pretty nuanced approach here. We are on the left end of the spectrum,
but we are pretty open about the fact that we're Democrats. And this is not this is not
going to be a show where we completely stewed for the Democrats. But we are fully aware that in this
state, specifically, our path to getting out of this Republican show cold is voting in Democrats.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's bringing some balance to this damn thing. Yeah, exactly. And
actually being representative of the people, you know, and, you know, we could have fair maps and,
you know what, maybe we still end up with a majority Republican. I really need people to
understand that before these maps were drawn, we had 14 seats from the US House, right? Seven of
them were Democrats and seven of them were Republicans. This year, we now have 11 Republicans,
right? No, 10 Republicans and four Democrats going back to what going back to wash. We lost three
seats, three. That's insane. That's an incredible drop off. And it's not by accident. It's not like
these areas just suddenly switched their vision on what they wanted in a representative. These
places were gerrymandered all the hell. A court said in court documents that there was a s that
they cut up these areas with surgical precision. You know what, if we get fair maps, and it still
turns out that there is a majority of Republicans in office, you know, as a Democrat, yeah, that
sucks. But at least it's a fair map. At least there was a fair chance. Because you know what,
that's how a democracy should be, you know, you should have a a actual chance to select the person
that they want to have an office, right, and not and not have it's where the politicians are selecting
their voters. Because we support the people's right to vote. There's nothing wrong with trying to
make sure we have a fairer and more sustainable electoral system, even though it's not always
ideal. We know that there are problems with democracy. We know there's problems with Republicanism,
small-art Republicanism. But when the problem and when the fight from the left end of the spectrum
is that you're fighting against a party, a national party that seems hellbent on trying to just procure
and just and just hold as much power as possible over everybody, and then you have another party
that's willing to just continue to compromise on that goal, we're in pro we're in big red flag
territory. It's just this on red. And unfortunately, not from the more socialist or communist red,
because then maybe we have a little bit more balance, you know, instead of just having culture
warriors on Twitter talking about it. We have an issue here where this state, you're right,
is very purple by many standards, by many metrics. We just elected a Democratic governor by a wide
margin. And that's not just because and people love to argue that this is because Mark Robinson is
one of the worst Republican candidates that has ever run for governor in this state. But I would
put it to you that that's simply not true, because four years before this, Governor Roy Cooper won
his second term. And he's not even the, like even in modern North Carolina politics, he's not the
first Democratic governor that won by a large margin. It's not unheard of in other states as well to
have a split ticket between the president and the Democratic or the Republican governors. I mean,
just look at Maryland, they had Larry Hogan forever. Well, not forever, for as long as they are
allowed to, but you get my point. We have we have a situation where we have people on online, we have
people in public spaces that are calling for the overturning of elections simply on the basis that
split ticketing exists. The fact I can't believe that Trump won by so many points here in North
Carolina, and then we still got a Democratic governor, there's no way there anything that can
be happening. Okay, well, you just fundamentally don't understand how any of this works then,
I guess. No, split ticket voting is the North Carolina past. It really is. I'm sure that's
also talked about in the paradox of Targill politics. Yeah, go get it on. And I know, don't
get don't go get it on Amazon. Exactly. Now, I mean, I remember growing up, my grandma, she,
you know, she would never like telling me who she voted for, because, you know, that was the thing
with her generation, you know, don't tell people who you voted for. Yeah, it's your own personal
business. Yeah, but she would tell me, you know, she would vote for a mix. You know, she said she
on the same ticket as voted for a Democrat, she has voted for Republicans. And you know,
she mentioned that she's mentioned that her family, like her dad did the same thing. Yeah,
you know, this is this isn't anything new to politics, especially North Carolina. You know,
it's just reality of how things are. Yeah, exactly. And you know, we are kind of distilling it down
to its base present presentation. But that's essentially like, there's no hard and fast rules
for anything here. I think it's the motif of this episode is there are no rules except the ones you
make up and they will try to change the rules. So you better damn well know them. So so to kind of
wrap this up, again, got to go out and vote and not just mull over and brood over the results of
the last election, but you got to go out and vote, you got to go get involved. Hell, if you're if
you're somebody who's a little bit more of a socialist than we are, if you're somebody who's
more of a communist, someone else here in North Carolina that is more to the left than we are,
we encourage you to get involved in your democratic part and to listen and to understand and strategize
because your thoughts and your opinions do matter, but you you cannot go in and immediately just start
trying to shake things up because they will sniff you out real fast. And we've seen people get
ostracized because of that. Be tactical, be informed and stay active. That's something that we should
talk about another episode at some point is the role that third parties play in North Carolina.
And the how should I put this? The lack of some of your parts, the lack of what wins victories.
Oh, yeah. Part and we can talk about why that is, at least in my opinion anyway. No, I think I don't
even think it's an opinion. I think it's just, you know, you don't have any dubbies on the board.
That's a problem. Yeah, that's not to say that unaffiliated can't win, independence can't win.
We've seen it happen. Yeah, but we associate with yourself as an unorganized party that
doesn't have a clear message or goal. That's a problem, especially in a electoral, in a game
where winning matters. And as we can see, winning very much does matter. So 100. So just want to
round this off by saying thank you for listening. If you made it all the way to the end of the episode,
we really appreciate it. There's a lot left to be done. There's no shortage of things to do. So
what are you doing while you're listening to us? If you're listening on YouTube,
leave a comment on what you think about what we talked about and what you're doing while you
listen to this episode and how you can do more later on. If you have already gotten involved
in politics, especially in North Carolina, let us know. And don't make sure to leave like and
subscribe. Make sure to leave a like and subscribe. Tune in to us on X, the blue sky, where all podcasts
are available, at least the ones that I know about. But thank you for tuning in. CJ, you got
anything else to say for our lovely viewers and listeners? Just, you know, happy holidays, safe
travels, all that good stuff. Happy holidays. I'm actually gonna put pause right there because
she's demanding goldfish. Fair. Yeah, I would also demand goldfish. I am actually gonna keep
part of this in like at the end because I want people to see like, hey, we're working dads.
Like, this is a, this is a reality of politics here.