Somewhat lost in the ongoing Trumping of our nation is the curious case of North Carolina, where our sitting governor is treating this last election like a game of musical chairs.
Republicans across the land are shouting down dissent by insisting that Americans who did not vote for Trump — who at last count outweighed the ones who did by some 1.7 million votes — just shut up and eat the results of the election, which their candidate won.
But in North Carolina, Gov. Pat McCrory took his loss in much the same manner as a dictator, refusing to cede the election that he now trails by almost 7,000 votes and searching, desperately, for a ghost in the machine.
He’s blamed untrained poll workers. He’s blamed the media. He’s blamed voter fraud — not the kind that the state’s (illegal) voter ID bill would have addressed, the other kind. He’s blamed the LGBTQ community and its allies for refusing to negotiate on human rights. It’s like a child throwing a tantrum, or a con man who’s reached the end of the line.
Listeners to the emergency state Board of Elections meeting on Sunday were treated to 90 minutes of cautious, droning legalese followed by a ham-fisted attempt to lump Durham County — where challenger Roy Cooper won by almost 60 points and 90,000 votes — with Bladen County, where McCrory is challenging a couple hundred absentee ballots and leaving the door open for a criminal investigation.
This was all in an effort to have the state BOE assert jurisdiction over the counties where McCrory didn’t like the results, a road that could lead the General Assembly, in its infinite wisdom, to end up trashing the entire election and simply name the next governor itself.
And of all the twisted storylines that have emerged from the 2016 election, this has got to be the most un-American of them all.
The rest of the hearing has been kicked over to Tuesday morning, with the results coming after we go to press. But we have already heard enough.
Instead of attempting a coup by the state legislature, instead of negating an entire election, we have another idea.
It’s time to let it go, Governor. Time to join Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and, yes, Hillary Rodham Clinton with all the other carcasses in the pile.
It’s over.
And be thankful you didn’t make it even worse than it already is.
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