Checks and balances? Republicans, even those in NC, just want power | Opinion

My teachers lied to me. We don’t have a democracy with checks and balances. We have a system that’s democratic-in-name-only and always susceptible to the whims of men and women who crave power more than they love fellow Americans. That’s true for the United States of America as a whole. And it’s particularly true in North Carolina.

Nearly 50 percent of voters chose to send back to the White House a man who just a few years earlier sparked a violent insurrection attempt in the heart of our Capitol.

That’s worth repeating, worth remembering — President-Elect Donald Trump sparked an insurrection attempt on our Capitol.

Thousands of his supporters tried to violently overturn the election because they didn’t like the results. They caused about $3 million in damage to the Capitol building and assaulted more than 170 police officers who were trying to protect the place.

Seven people died in connection with the insurrection attempt, including three police officers, two of whom died by suicide shortly after of the attack, according to a bipartisan Senate report. Two more officers present on Jan. 6 killed themselves after the report was released. Some of the attackers – Marines – were welcomed back into the U.S. military. Others have good reason to believe they will be pardoned by the incoming president.

Trump pressured officials in Georgia to “find” him enough votes so he could be awarded the Electoral College votes he had not won.

The Supreme Court made it difficult to hold him to account for those actions by ruling former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution.

That was only after Republicans refused to hold him to account during impeachment proceedings.

Nearly half of voters took all of that in and decided to return that man to the Oval Office.

Now, the Department of Justice is shutting down legitimate criminal cases against Trump because of Nixon-era guidelines that say a sitting president mustn’t be charged with crimes, no matter his actions.

That’s not a democracy, at least not a healthy one. It’s a system that has essentially placed the executive above the law and given him king-like status. No wonder Saudi Arabia is an ally.

Had I written those facts about any other country, the mess we’re in would be clear. But because we claim to be the world’s oldest democracy, we pretend we’re something we aren’t.

Democracies don’t act this way.

Maybe that’s why North Carolina Republicans have felt no shame about their recent power grab.

While about 51 percent of North Carolina voters chose Trump, Democrats in North Carolina won most high-profile statewide races, including for governor. In response, Republicans passed legislation to strip the incoming-Democratic governor of powers that belonged to the state executive branch. They want to turn over the stewardship of elections to the state auditor, for instance. It makes no sense for the auditor to appoint election board members. But Republicans want it that way because the auditor is a fellow Republican.

They already facilitated hyper-partisan political actors to be elected to the state Supreme Court, altering what’s supposed to be a non-partisan institution. They’ve long undermined democracy in North Carolina, gerrymandering their way to a supermajority in a purple state. But their most recent actions may be the most egregious. Even as our brothers and sisters in the western part of the state continue digging themselves out from the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in North Carolina history, Republicans kept their focus where it has long been — on power.

They used a bill about dental services to tie disaster relief to stripping the governor’s power. The state’s GOP lawmakers and officials have put little pressure on their Washington, D.C. counterparts to urgently send billions of dollars of needed federal help, the kind states routinely receive after being run over by major storms.

In D.C., the House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans, didn’t rush back into session to help people in North Carolina. They sat on their hands as a Democratic administration did everything it could.

It’s obvious why. Republicans are more concerned with having power than wielding it to help those in need. In a healthy democracy, that wouldn’t be true.

But it makes perfect sense in a democracy only pretending to be one.

This story was originally published November 27, 2024 at 9:47 AM.