EDITORIAL: More North Carolina seditionists

North Carolina voters delivered for Donald Trump on Election Day, awarding him the state by 1.3 percentage points — 74,483 votes.

North Carolina Republicans continued to deliver for Trump even after he lost the election, destroying their reputations in the process.

We’ve named several seditionists from our state in this space: those who supported the Texas lawsuit to overturn some states’ results (reps Virginia Foxx, Ted Budd, Dan Bishop, Richard Hudson, Greg Murphy and David Rouzer), and those who protested fair election results even after their comrades had attacked the US Capitol Building (Reps. Budd and Madison Cawthorn).

Their efforts in perpetuating the Big Lie — that Trump actually won the 2020 election — are undeniable, committed in plain sight.

But let’s not forget a couple unelected officials from the Old North State who also must wear the shameful badge of sedition for the rest of their political days.

Former NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Martin must pay a price for his role in the insurrection, which has only recently become widely understood. According to news reports, Martin was the one who told Trump that Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to nullify some states’ electoral votes at the official count on Jan. 6. The degree to which this fueled the insurrection cannot be understated.

Currently the dean of a Christian law school in Virginia, at televangelist Pat Robertson’s Regent University, Martin is not answering questions from media about his apparent treason against the US Constitution and the people whose rights it guarantees. But North Carolina will not forget.

We would be remiss if we omitted Mark Meadows from this list of North Carolina seditionists. Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff, was the one who brought Martin into the picture. He presided over the very worst days of the Trump administration, helping to craft the Big Lie and enlisting confederates in Trump’s plan to overthrow the US government.

Meadows participated in phone calls to Georgia election officials, encouraging them to “find” more votes for Trump. He, along with Jared Kushner lied to Senate Republicans about Trump’s intentions to leave office peacefully after the loss. He was with Trump on Jan. 6 before the president whipped his crowd into a seditionist frenzy, and afterward, when Trump’s reaction to the bringers of deaths and violence was, “We love you.”

Less idealistic than a simple seditionist, more treacherous even than bands of armed white supremacists, Meadows has become the shame of North Carolina, the worst of the insurrectionist lot.