CAROLINA BLUES

How isn't it clear to EVERYBODY -- much less some Democrats -- that the GOP and their corrupt Court mean to end us RIGHT NOW?

I am continuing to untether myself from the battleground state of Wisconsin and a group of Democratic warriors who are giving their lives to protect a country that is under siege from a vile, lawless, orange bigot, and the millions of morally busted people who somehow support him with a slovenly gusto.

My move to North Carolina has been an eventful one, because pulling up anchor from a place you dug into for 15 years with everything you had, takes mental and physical strength best suited for an up-and-coming younger man, instead of an impatient older one.

I’ve moved scores of times, but I reckon this one might be the last …

I’ll spare you the gory details, but will shed a tear or two of happiness when I can finally get on with whatever is left of my wonderful life here in my old stomping grounds on the East Coast with only fond memories when looking back at my time spent in our nation’s roiling middle.

The late great Tom Petty sang my life best:

It’s time to move on, it’s time to get going,

What lies ahead I have no way of knowing;

But under my feet, baby, grass is growing,

Time to move on, time to get going …

Stumbles aside, I took another significant step in the easterly direction Friday when I battled through the bureaucratic red tape dispensed by the dreaded Division of Motor Vehicles office here in Carolina and secured my driver license. It went about as expected, and I almost escaped the place with everything I needed in but one try. Turns out they failed to put my veterans sticker on my Real ID, so I have to return to combat at the DMV office bright and early Monday morning, to get that last bit ironed out.

It turns out, the highlight of Friday’s trip was locking down the privilege to vote in my new state. I went to the offices to get my license and left with an American’s greatest power, the right to vote. I was both surprised at how easy registering was, and by how much it meant to me.

North Carolina becomes the eighth different state in which I have cast a vote. With our country under siege that vote has never been more precious, or threatened. You don’t need me to remind you of the trouble we are in right now, even if I make a habit of doing it all the time!

I am heartened that I have once again landed in a 50/50 state where a single vote can have such an enormous impact. I am truly honored my vote, my time and my treasure can go a long way toward defending our embattled country. I also want to publicly thank all the North Carolinians in this community of do-gooders and butt-kickers who have welcomed me to this eclectic state of mountains and sea.

I will work to make you proud.

As always, I registered as an unaffiliated voter, both out of habit as an old straight-down-the-middle newspaperman, and because I am a people not a party person. Don’t misunderstand, it’s impossible to think that any Republican will get my vote ever again, but I do have concerns with the opposition party that has proven capable of digging sturdy trenches, not rising up and going on the attack.

Lawless, racist Republicans are coming at us in waves, and they need to be met where they are, and stopped cold by any means possible.

Let me be precise about this: Republicans mean to end us RIGHT NOW. They have proven they will do anything to render our elections meaningless, and have a corrupt, radical-Right Supreme Court which is blessing this anti-America attack on our freedoms with their bloody stamp of approval.

Republicans have the Executive, the House, the Senate and the Court, if you think they are going to let a little thing like the will of the people get in their way, you haven’t been paying attention.

I have written fairly extensively about my new neighbors to the north in Virginia, where Abigail Spanberger blew out her Republican challenger in November to ascend to the governorship of that commonwealth.

I was proud as hell when the state’s voters answered the call and installed a bulwark of Democratic leadership against a morally busted party that is still fighting the 165-year-old Civil War.

I was prouder yet when the state did the most Democratic thing possible last month and voted to redistrict Virginia in answer to Republicans’ fascist power grabs in myriad states across our country.

This is the kind of fight that will be needed going forward if we are to survive.

So watching Spanberger and that so-called Democratic leadership cave to the Supreme Court which has ruled it believes in kings not people, has broken my heart, it really has.

Just what-in-the-hell is it that Democrats stand for these days? The will of this obviously bought-off corrupt court, or the people?

If Spanberger is even half the leader I fancied her to be, she’d be grabbing her bully pulpit and shaking this nation with thunder right now. She’d be using her political capital and power to make it crystal clear to the voters in Virginia and this country that what is transpiring during this truly terrifying chapter of American history must be checked — RIGHT NOW.

She’d be inspiring change, and leading from the front, not from behind in one of those blasted trenches.

I did not intend to go off on that tangent, good people, but the Democratic Party is a hard group to love right now, much less like, and simply are not doing enough to protect us and our vote.

The Jim Crow South has returned, and I just don’t think most people outside of the Black community understand how maddening and truly terrifying this is.

We all must rally to their defense, and stand with this nation’s most dependable patriots. My God, we owe them at least that …

For now, fortune favors the bold, so if I’m right and people not parties are really where it’s at, then you’ll find this person down here in North Carolina giving it hell, punching back and leading from the front.

Back when I voted in Maine, I used to have a bumper sticker on my old Honda that shouted:

“When the people lead, the leaders will follow …”

Well, I say: “Charge!”

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(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)

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Many thanks,

Earl