Speaker 1: What's going on?
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And again, thank you so much for your support. So
what did you make of the the election results last night?
I have some thoughts. I have a lot of thoughts.
I probably have too many thoughts to even do in
the entire program, Lots and lots of thoughts, But I
want to start with Charlotte. The local race is here,
the mayor's race, not a surprise city council race. I
was not surprised. School board race, I was not surprised.
There's a reason I don't make predictions on election results.
Number one, I learned in twenty sixteen that the polling
cannot be trusted. I try to look at trend lines,
but even those are not entirely accurate. But more importantly,
there's very little benefit to making a prediction in my case,
like me just sitting here telling you who I think
will win in a particular race. If I'm right, I
get to say I was right. If I'm wrong, then
I just like pretend what that I never made the prediction.
Speaker 1: Nobody holds me accountable for it.
Speaker 2: I'm just like, I'm not keeping a scorecard of all
the races that I used to predict in which ones
I got right or wrong or anything like that. But
something has been very clear in Charlotte Mecklenburg for the
last fifteen years, and so no, the results last night
were not surprising. They reinforce what I have come to
believe about Charlotte. But also I saw it in Asheville,
and I said it when I was on the air
up in Asheville. It's true in Raleigh, It's true in
the big blue cities in North Carolina, but also all
around the country, which is that Republicans are permitted, Conservatives
are permitted to participate in building a city, and once
the city becomes successful, there is no room for you anymore.
You can leave. That's the message that I have gotten
from Democrats in multiple cities, and watching the national results,
it's the same pattern over and over and over again,
and Charlotte is it could very well be like the
ultimate example. It's a case study because Charlotte's growth, its
boom occurred within the last you know, fifty years, and
it was a bipartisan boom. The running joke in Charlotte
when I first started as a reporter and I would
cover city council, County Commission, school Board, so this was
starting in around two thousand and one, and there was
always a joke that there are three major parties in Charlotte,
the Democrats, the Republicans, and the Chamber of Commerce. And
you can fold center city partners into that chamber. It's
the uptown crowd, it's the business community, and these are
sort of your country club Republicans, the more moderates conservative Democrats.
Speaker 1: Right, a conservative Democrat might want to.
Speaker 2: You know, donate money to Planned Parenthood and all, but
they're not into you know, sticking the trans books in
your kid's library like that kind of stuff. Fiscally prudent
right to a large degree, these old blue dog Democrats
that don't exist any longer. They just don't because the
Democrat Party has moved so far to the left on
so many issues. There's no room for like a pro
choice Democrat, they don't exist, sorry, a pro life Democrat,
they don't exist any longer. They're not welcome. And we've
had examples of this around the country over the last
decade where a pro life Democrat tried to run and
they were just clobbered by the Democrat Party, by the
activist wing, and then by the Democrat voters in the primary.
Speaker 1: So they just aren't there any longer.
Speaker 2: So much like that example, in Charlotte, it was always well,
is this good for Charlotte? Is this the Charlotte way?
You know, the business of Charlotte is business. We built
up as a trade town then banking right, commerce was
the language, and it was the animating civic priority. It's
why you ended up with all of the big, shiny projects,
all of the stuff that we could be proud of
that would make us a world class city. Like we
joke about it, and to be fair, we've been joking
about it for twenty years. But this was a moniker
that was sought explicitly by city leaders. Here, people in
office and the business leaders were constantly hammering away at
this desire to be considered a world class city. And
in my mind, It really culminated in the announcement of
a marketing campaign that was aimed at telling the rest
of the world, you know, where Charlotte is, what Charlotte is,
and all of that. And because there were all these
stories and this was true, people who are new arrivals
may not believe this, but it is true. People used
to confuse Charlotte with Charleston, South Carolina, a much much
smaller city. So they would say Charlotte, South Carolina that
would appear in news stories frequently, Charlotte SC or we
would be confused with Charlottesville Virginia, or people thought we
were just in Virginia. And so they launched this big
marketing campaign to try to, you know, inform and educate
and mark get Charlotte North Carolina. And the unveiling of
the big marketing campaign, which then was like the logo
and the symbol was put on all of the city
communications and chamber communications and all this stuff. I mean,
it was a big event. I think it was over
at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center and they had this
big reveal and the big reveal was that they were
branding us Charlotte USA, which doesn't actually tell you that
we're in North Carolina, right, it actually is not helpful.
But for the people who wanted us to be seen
as a world class city, that's why they went with Charlotte, USA.
Even then, even in that marketing pitch, they couldn't break
out of this mindset that we have to be world class.
Speaker 1: We want to be seen as an Atlanta, as a Washington,
d C.
Speaker 2: As a New York, a Boston, whatever, And so everything
was about growth. At the time we had Democrats running
the General Assembly. They empowered cities to just involuntary, forcibly
annex all sorts of land. That's why the City of
Charlotte's boundaries are so huge. It's because they just kept
gobbling up more and more real estate and taking in
the people and the tax base and all of that.
And Republicans played their part in all of that, angering
a lot of Republican voters that did not want what
the Republicans were doing. Famous example, the original vote on
a new arena. This was in two thousand and one.
George Schenn, the owner of the Charlotte Hornets, threatening to
move the team out of Charlotte if he didn't get
a new arena. The city officials kept selling it, oh,
we need to do this or we're going to lose
the team. And finally a referendum was held, and of course,
Charlotte being Charlotte and the Chamber being the Chamber, they
threw in a whole bunch of other projects, like an
uptown stadium for the Charlotte Knights, a new Mint museum,
another museum for the Harvey Gant Center. All of those
projects got built, every single one of them. Despite the
fact that the arena bundle was rejected by voters.
Speaker 1: They voted it down and city officials, led.
Speaker 2: By Republicans did it anyway, because the Chamber was the
most powerful party.
Speaker 1: Is that still the case? I don't think so.
Speaker 2: All right, if you're listening to this show, you know
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So for years and years in Charlotte, in my opinion,
the uptown crowd, the Chamber Center, City Partners, and all
of their affiliated hangers on and nonprofits, those that were
even remotely middle of the road, conservative, fiscally prudent, they
kept feeding the alligator in the hopes that the alligator
would eat them.
Speaker 1: Last. Well, the alligator.
Speaker 2: Has feasted upon all Republicans and they are gone. That's
just the voter registration data. They're gone. Democrats when they
drew the district lines for the Charlotte City Council. This
was a big kerfuffle back in twenty twenty one, I
believe it was.
Speaker 1: One, and.
Speaker 2: They targeted District six to eliminate Tarkbakari. One of the
two Republican district reps, the last one now is Ed
Driggs District seven. He's the only Republican voice now on
the Charlotte City Council because Krista Bakari lost the election
for District six, which again was drawn in order to
try to oust Tark Bakari. That district, I would suspect
is lost now and I believe at some point, probably
within the next ten years, District seven will be lost
as well. And also, let me take a moment here
just to briefly disparage the at large system that the
Charlotte City Council refuses to scrap. The at large model
where all elected representatives, in this case four of the
eleven Charlotte City Council members four are elected at large,
meaning city wide. An at large model is designed to
suppress minority representation. That's its purpose, Okay, that is the
purpose of an at large model. And that was fine
when you had an electorate that was more evenly split
But when Republican elected officials made common cause with Democrats
for thirty years in raising taxes, building all sorts of
new projects, taking out more debt via bonds, Republican voters
became disillusioned, discouraged. They did not want to live in
a place where the taxes kept going up and up
and up and up. They wanted a lower tax, safe
community with business opportunity.
Speaker 1: They wanted to be left alone.
Speaker 2: By banding together with Democrats and the Chamber, Republicans sold
out their voters, and those voters then left. I tracked
this twenty years ago when the counties around Mecklenburg became
more Republican because they used to be Democrat. They used
to be Democrat counties back in the days of the
blue Dog Democrats, Democrat political machine, all power flowing from
the state, and so you had all of these machines
throughout the state. You literally could not get a job
if you were a Republican in North Carolina. For state
government and a lot of local governments, you had to
be a Democrat, and then you had to give some
of your paycheck over to the campaigns. That was how
the Democrats stayed in power since reconstruction. It's how they
that's how they kept black people from getting jobs as
well in those positions. But over the years, Republicans fled
out of the urban areas.
Speaker 1: They moved over into the.
Speaker 2: More rural areas where taxes were lower, government was smaller,
and you could see it happening over the last twenty years.
And this is the natural end result. We are no
different than every other city. And more services, more taxes,
more spending, drives away people that don't like those things,
and those are Republicans.
Speaker 1: The people who do like those things.
Speaker 2: Because their philosophy, their political philosophy is born of envy. Well,
they move to those places so they could take advantage
of all of the things that are being taken from
others and.
Speaker 1: Given to them. Okay, that's it's rational.
Speaker 2: And here's the bottom line. Democrats in Charlotte like the
way the city is governed.
Speaker 1: They like this.
Speaker 2: They're okay with all of it. I mean, some of
them may show up at a council meeting and talk
for two minutes, some of them may post on Facebook
about it. But in general, as you should you know,
bear witness in the election results of last night, they
like where we are they like the way we are
being led. They will complain, yes, about how it's unaffordable
to live here, but then turn around and vote for
an increase in the sales tax.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: They will put people back in charge that keep raising
their taxes. They will not stop. They do not connect
these things in their own heads. They think somebody else
is paying this. I don't know why, but they think
somebody else is paying for all this. They like this.
And what they have told you, Conservatives and Republicans, what
they have told you is that there is no room
here for you. You do not get to participate in your
local governance. You are free to work some job, pay
your taxes into a system that they will then take
money out of. But you won't get to volunteer on
city appointed committees. You won't get appointments. I have no
say in the future of your city that you helped
to build with your time, your money, your life. You
won't get a thank you for it. Maybe if you
die and you were a well known enough Republican official,
maybe you get a proclamation.
Speaker 1: But you'll be dead.
Speaker 2: Okay, That's that's what you are being offered in the
city of Charlotte. Now, I blame the past Republican leaders.
I blame the chamber, the business crowd, the uptown crowd.
And just so we're clear, you are getting eaten.
Speaker 3: Now.
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dot com. I will tell you a response I got
from a Republican who works.
Speaker 1: Up at the legislature or used to.
Speaker 2: I won't name them, it's not important, but let's just
say he had power and influence.
Speaker 1: He still does not a lawmaker. He worked for lawmakers.
Speaker 2: And after one of the elections, I think it was
in Asheville, and I said the same thing. I've said
this same speech that the same thoughts and comments that
I just made. I've said this before. And when I
posted it up on social media on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Yes it was Twitter.
Speaker 2: I posted on Twitter and on and he responded with
something and I asked him, like, so, what do you
say to Republicans now who have no opportunity to participate
in their government any longer because they don't Not in
Ashville now, not in Charlotte. You got one, you got
one district rep. And by the way, there, if you're
doing a proportional map and you got rid of the
at large seats, which Charlotte should do.
Speaker 1: All cities should do this.
Speaker 2: Over a certain population, there's no reason to have a
large seats, right, make them all district reps. And then
Republicans would actually buy a proportion right, a quote unquote
fair map, as Democrats would call it. That's not true.
They would call a fair map anything that advantages them.
But the Republicans would actually enjoy more than one seat
on the eleven seat body. Okay, And I asked them, well,
then what do you say to Republicans now that have
no ability to participate in their own governance.
Speaker 1: They helped to build the city, and.
Speaker 2: Now the city now Democrats are saying, get the hell out,
because that's that's what's happening, by the way they Democrats
are telling you. I was told that specifically by a
Democrat campaign consultant, guy campaign manager. It's not important who
he is, but he told me he will not rest
until there's not a single elected Republican left in Charlotte
Mecklimerg and he is one seat away from that. All
of the school board seats are lost to Republicans, all
of the county commissioner seats lost to Republicans, and now
all but one district, all of the eleven city council
seats lost to Republicans. So he's almost at his goal.
And then, as Pat McCrory said last night here on WBT.
When you have single party control, that's when you see
all of the corruption. And that's true because now everything
gets buried inside party politics and the party brand is
more important, and there isn't anybody else pushing back in
the meetings, in the closed sessions. There's no other diversity
of thought. And I heard a lot of lip service
being paid over the last twenty four hours to this
idea that, oh, it's important to have Republican representation and
a diverse city of thought and all that, and I say,
that's just lip service. Democrats don't actually believe that.
Speaker 1: They don't just look at the results.
Speaker 2: Right, you keep the at large system in place so
Democrats can keep running the table and they can always
have an assured majority. It's a remnant. And that's the thing.
It doesn't even really matter at this point because the
city has turned so blue. It doesn't even really matter
that at a time there used to be, you know,
Republicans that would make up two or three of the
at large city council members and now there's zero. And
you can't win. There's just no way because of the
way the at large system works. And in the past
that was always that was the play They always wanted
to try to, you know, control those seats because then
you could control the majority. But Democrats don't even need
the at large seats to have the majority anymore. They've
got six of the seven districts and that's a majority
on the council, so you don't even need the at
large anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what I was saying, but it's a Oh.
Speaker 2: The guy who worked up in Raleigh at the legislature,
and I said, what do you tell these Republicans? And
he said, there are other cities to build. That's the
only answer that I've ever gotten. That's it is move, leave.
Speaker 3: Do.
Speaker 2: What democrats want is for you to build up a
city and then make it so attractive that Democrats flock
to it from all over the country. And when they
take it over, then you have to move and you've
got to now build another city. I guess that's the
only model.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: This is from Loopy. I have lived in my community
for forty five years, have watched Charlotte get bluer each year.
Last night's elections was the end for me. I am
a seventy six year old widow, a proud Republican who
has little or no representation in the city or the county.
I pay four thousand dollars in property taxes each year.
The schools are awful, and the street in front of
my house is falling apart. There are fewer police and
traffic is unmanageable. I can live better and more cheaply
somewhere else and not be ignored because of my politics.
Goodbye Charlotte.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm not a black pill kind of a guy, but
I'm a realist and I look around and it seems
pretty clear that this is what people want. This is
what Democrats are satisfied with the way their city is
being governed, and that means no Republican voices in that government.
Speaker 1: So there you go.
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make memories that'll last a lifetime. Let's go over to
the phone lines. A bunch of people holding. Let's start
with Randall. Welcome to the show, Randall. Randall, Hello, Yeah, okay,
all right, we're gonna put you on hold, and there
you go, Jerry, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Hey Pete, So my call is perfectly timed. So where
where do we go? I'm kind of heartbroken because Wegmans
is going to be within a mile of my house.
I've been waiting for, hoping and praying for Wegmans. I'd
be walking away from a two and a half percent
mortgage rate and I don't I'm I'm a tail end boomer.
So I hate to say it, but being near like
reasonably good medical care, you know, is becoming more of
an issue. Where do we go? Where do we go?
Speaker 4: Where do we well?
Speaker 2: I'm not telling you, I'm not saying you have to go.
I'm just telling you. I'm just saying you need to
recognize that the trade off.
Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've seen I've seen this coming. I mean, I've
seen this coming, and it's that's what I mean. It's
I've only been here twelve years. In twelve years, this
whole city has just become like every other blue city,
and it's you know, anybody's saying, nos, it's only going
to get worse. But I've been struggling with like, like
where do where do we go? Where do I go, right.
Speaker 1: So that's what I was asking it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: I was giving you an answer, which is the the
decision on where to go or if to go.
Speaker 1: That's that's going.
Speaker 2: To be an individual decision based on things that you
just mentioned.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So life is trade offs. There are no solutions. It's
all just trade offs. So if you think that you know,
you've got a good mortgage, you've got a Wegman's coming
in that you really want, and you want to be
close to medical facilities, and all of that is worth
the trade off of, you know, the higher cost of
taxes and the lack of representation in your local government,
then stay.
Speaker 1: That's all. I mean that that that but that's the
trade off, right, And.
Speaker 3: I understand that. I I the the scariest thing for me,
I mean personally is being property taxed out of my house,
which I know is coming. It's the herd. The other
hard part of the equation is that anywhere else that
kind of has I had been in consideration. You know,
everywhere else is getting so the real estate's getting so
high because everybody's leaving and moving there. You know, it's
just kind of this vicious circle. I get it. I
mean that's a good way to phrase it, or to
kind of think about it as trade offs. And I
understand that the hardest part is like where else is
there to go? Where in another ten years, this won't
happen again.
Speaker 2: Well, from what I understand, there is no guarantee it's
not going to happen again. This is apparently the natural
cycle of all things that unguarded stores of value gets
set upon by parasites. So, Jerry, I appreciate the call.
I mean, like there's I'm not telling every single person
at an individual level to move. I'm not saying that,
but that is what people are doing. Do we know
if Randall is back, did you try to pick them up?
Speaker 4: No? You did not.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to go to ray then. Hello, Raye.
Speaker 4: Hello, I'll be quick. Can you hear me?
Speaker 1: Yes, sir.
Speaker 4: I was just talking to someone on the radio a
while back about people moving from New York down here
to North Carolina, and they will they have seen their
city destroyed, and they'll move down here and they'll enjoy
the fruits of like what the Republicans have built up late,
like in Charlotte for a while, and then when they
ruin that city, they'll move on to another one. Republicans
built up. I think that's what you were saying, like
that just keeps happening. And I also heard that John
Hancocks say years ago he said that he believed ultimately,
I think that we're gonna we're going down the same
pathway as the Roman Empire. And I don't I don't
think that'll happen because we have a constitution that protects
us against that happening. In the in the text, the
terms of we're able to keep building these cities and
having them destroyed, and you know that assures that the
utopia or the good things we need in cities and
such are not It's not a destination, it's a journey
that keeps changing. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you've said a couple of things I
don't agree with. I don't know about i'd use the
word utopia. But look all of this stuff, all cities, countries,
like a bar or a restaurant, they all have cycles, right,
They all go through decay, growth, rebirth, all of the okay, okay,
raise gone. They all go through cycles like that. And
this is the cycle that Charlotte is in. And I
am allowed to I'm allowed to mourn the loss of
the Charlotte that I knew.
Speaker 1: I'm allowed to do that. We were allowed to do that,
the Charlotte that.
Speaker 2: Was full of this excitement, a boomtown, you know, all
of the growth that we were seeing like this is
this is amazing. Charlotte's going to be this awesome city
and everything, and now to see it and to be
shut out of any kind of influence in coming up
with solutions, and to just see more and more of
the same old you know, left wing solutions quote unquote
that get pitched to me and it's just more of
the same and you're going to get more of the
same results. I'm allowed to mourn that loss, and I
do whenever I see these city council results and they
just keep going down this same trajectory, you know, And
that's what we saw last night. So no, I was
not surprised at the election results last night. All right,
that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
for listening. I could not do the show without your
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