EDITORIAL: The Ignoramus Ticket wants to cripple NC schools

How much longer must we put up with these fools, these pretenders, these ridiculous candidates for high and important offices who flout their practiced ignorance of the responsibilities of the very seas they wish to attain?

I’m asking! How much longer?

I’m speaking specifically about Lt. Gov Mark Robinson, who is the Republican nominee for NC governor, and Michelle Morrow, who somehow arose from the depths of QAnon to defeat incumbent NC Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt in the Republican primary earlier this year. But these qualifications could apply to any number of candidates this year who just want to watch everything burn.

Everyone in North Carolina should be ashamed that Robinson and Morrow have risen to such heights, and we should all be alarmed by the specter of them attaining their goals.

Robinson’s sins against decency, justice and the actual law — he’s most recently been accused of falsifying paperwork for his wife’s nonprofit — are well documented. We’re used to his culture war hot takes, like he’s the heel at a wrestling match. But last week the current lieutenant governor of NC decided to say something about policy that gives a clue to the depths of his ignorance as to how government works.

At a private event, Robinson promised that, once elected, he would reject federal funding for our public schools… on principle? Robinson is one of those who thinks we should abolish the federal Dept. of Education. Project 2025 shit.

Like a lot of conservatives who don’t understand money, Robinson failed to address the immediate consequences of this move: a $1.67 billion hole in the education budget , which itself accounts for more than a third of the state’s total expenditures every year — we’re talking teacher’s salaries, early childhood education, sports teams, gas for the buses… it’s expensive to educate children, and remember, too, that the system is underfunded by almost $800 million anyway.

If turning down free money from the government — for the children! — sounds stupid, get a load of Michelle Morrow, who wants to be in charge of public schools in our state. She defeated an entrenched incumbent despite the fact that she has never interacted with the public school system — her own kids are homeschooled — save for a failed 2022 campaign for Wake County School Board during which she referred to her own cousins, both of whom have disabilities, as “mentally retarded.”

“I know we don’t use that term very often anymore,” she added.

And yes, she’s the candidate who called for former President Barack Obama’s public execution, and was also at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Hard to believe it has come to this, but here we are.

And I need to know: How much longer must we endure these fools, watch the media play it straight when interviewing these reactionaries, pretend that they’re not intent on destroying something vital to our state and upon which more than 1.5 million students and their families rely?

Because I’ve had enough. Haven’t you?