NC voters must not look away from new revelations about candidate Michele Morrow | Opinion

Add this to the long list of concerning revelations about Michele Morrow, the woman Republicans chose as their nominee to lead North Carolina’s K-12 public education system: A newly surfaced video recorded Jan. 6, 2021 shows Morrow urging then-President Donald Trump to put “the Constitution to the side” and remain in power by military coup.

Republicans got us into this mess — having someone this extreme this close to taking over our children’s education — and they should get us out of it, even if it means losing a race they want to win.

At this point, new revelations about Morrow’s extremist views shouldn’t surprise us. In fact, she is so extreme it might be tempting to start tuning out new revelations, thinking we already know all we need to.

Don’t give into that temptation. Don’t look away from the train-wreck of a nominee the NC GOP has thrust upon us. Don’t allow her campaign to sand off her edges and pretend she’s just another conservative or Republican who deserves your support because of party loyalty. We can’t afford to do that. The immediate future of our education system — and the educations of a million and a half children — hang in the balance.

Morrow, like far too many candidates on the ballot around the country, attended what became a violent insurrection attempt on our Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. As CNN pointed out in its latest reporting, there’s no evidence Morrow participated in the violence, and in a Jan. 9, 2021 interview with The Charlotte Observer she said those who vandalized the Capitol should have been arrested. But that’s about as far as her reason stretched.

In a Facebook livestream on Jan. 6 2021, Morrow said: “And let me tell you, President Trump, President Trump has the military on his side because the military and many leaders in the military who love this nation and who love our Constitution and who have put their life on the line to protect the freedoms of people in the United States that they will never meet, they chose President Trump to be their candidate. So as long as he invokes the Insurrection Act before the inauguration, then he’s going to be re-inaugurated. He’s going to be put back in.”

More than her ignorance of the Constitution and Insurrection Act — or that she has called for the execution of political figures such as former President Barack Obama and N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper — is that Morrow is the personification of the far-right fringe gone mainstream via the NC GOP. It’s one thing for Morrow and others like her to spout conspiracy theories among themselves in dark corners of the internet, quite another for them to lead an invaluable governmental department with an $11. 6 billion budget.

Since she became the GOP nominee, she’s been busy scrubbing her bizarre rantings from the web, including what she said about Jan. 6 and advocating the killing of elected officials who dare see the world and democracy differently than she does. It’s not the typical flip-flopping that is common among politicians of both major parties. It’s clear evidence that Morrow understands that the more the public learns about who she really is, the more likely voters will realize it would be a collective-statewide madness to elect her to such an important position.

That’s why we must not look away. That’s why we must not become numb to new-ugly revelations about who Morrow truly is, has long been.

It is hard to vote against your party, no matter the circumstances, especially during a hyper partisan time such as this. Still, I strongly suspect Republicans in this state want the best for their children – most of whom are in public schools – just as Democrats do.

We are supposed to debate educational policy, disagree passionately and relentlessly. We must continue that well beyond the first week of November. That would be a sign of a healthy democracy. Elevating Morrow would be the opposite.

Democrats and independents know that. Republicans know, too, and must act accordingly.