Pat McCrory just got slam-dunked by the ACC. His teammates are starting to switch sides. Tamara Barringer was the first legislator to undergo a deathbed conversion. More will surely follow.

But a long-time veteran of the legislative sausage-making machine doesn’t expect much from the Jones Street crowd:

“The latest HB2 shame on North Carolina will be apocalyptic for Republican legislative leaders, but they won’t act.

“They don’t care what the NCAA thinks, because nobody from the NCAA lives in a doublewide in their rural legislative districts or attends one of the local snake-handling tent revivals. The Greensboro Coliseum isn’t in the districts of Phil Berger or Tim Moore, so why should they care? The NBA is black. Entertainers are gay. That’s the apparent attitude of Berger and Moore.

“In a state of 10 million people, Berger got elected last time by 40,000 of them. Moore got 15,000 votes and only needed 1 because he had no opponent. Less than one half of one percent of the state’s population elected these guys. They are not statewide leaders. These are small-time, isolated bumpkins who have their heads so buried in the red clay of their districts’ dirt roads that they are incapable of leading a large sophisticated state.

“So, expect no action from these heroes, even though the state’s actual thought leaders are unanimous in their screams to fix the HB2 disgrace.

“There’s a bright side: the GOP brain trust’s inflexibility on HB2 will speed their demise and hasten their replacement with leaders who care about more than the dusty, dark corners of the backwoods where bigots fear enlightenment, tolerance and good sense.”