National Republicans
Stories about Politics
My memoir – The Trail of the Serpent – is going to be published next Tuesday, on October 22nd. The title comes from a line by Irish poet Thomas Moore: “Some flow’rets of Eden ye still inherit, but the trail of the Serpent is over them all.” Telling stories I follow the trail of the…
Read MoreA Scary Time
Republicans usually are better than Democrats at closing out elections, because they’re better at scaring voters. This year, what Republicans will do if they win should scare voters. As they do every election, Trump and MAGA are stoking fears about non-existent crime waves and fictitious immigrant invasions. And now there’s “tax-paid sex-change operations for prison…
Read MoreTaboo
As a boy growing up in Virginia my grandmother told me, Be polite…to dowager aunts, grandmothers, rudeness was taboo. Courtesy was an old southern habit. In college I sat down in the bleachers to watch a football game – students poured whiskey into paper cups, guzzled, faces flushed screamed, cheered – but politeness still held.…
Read MoreRise and Fall
As Hurricane Helene ravaged the mountains, my wife and I were thousands of miles away, on a two-week trip to Turkey and Greece. We followed news of the devastation as we toured historic sites in Istanbul, Gallipoli, Ephesus, Rhodes, Crete, Athens, Mycenae and Delphi. We walked on the stones of ancient empires that rose and…
Read MoreTwo Roads…
From Walter Mondale to Obama Democrat politicians preached the same gospel: Government was the way to solve problems – the way they saw it the more money and power government held in its hands the more problems they’d solve. The way Republicans saw it was different: Government didn’t solve problems – it made them worse.…
Read MoreKeep Your Fingers Crossed…
At the end of the Vance–Walz debate I thought, I wish those two were the ones running for president. Their debate was like a flashback to an earlier time – both men threw punches, got punched, but did it in a courteous way. Without meanness. An old niceness we haven’t seen for a while in…
Read MoreGuest Blog by Palmer Sugg
In 1984, Carter hired me to work for the Helms campaign. While my primary assignment was to travel with the candidate, Carter occasionally sent me to speak for the campaign. In September of 1984, he dispatched me to the campus of NCSU for a Q&A with Fraternity Leaders. He didn’t bother to tell me that…
Read MoreScandals
Bob Windsor owned a small newspaper The Landmark – all in for Jesse Helms back in 1984 he called Jim Hunt a ‘Sissy, prissy and effeminate.’ The first line in his newspaper article claimed Hunt was gay. It was a smear. Pure and simple. Not a word of truth in it. Jesse denounced the smear.…
Read MoreEntertaining…
Haitians ‘eating cats’ – a rumor born on the internet. Trump heard it. Repeated it. Kamala Harris wore pearl earrings at the debate – another rumor was born: They weren’t earrings they were disguised earpieces. Harris was cheating. Trump heard that rumor too. Repeated it. At a rally Trump quipped, ‘She’s already talking about bringing…
Read MoreVance’s Plan
Vance’s Plan I read Hillbilly Elegy years ago. Liked it lot. So I’ve been watching J.D. Vance. The other day he did an interview. About the Ukraine war. Trump, Vance said, would sit down with the Russians and Ukrainians and tell them to work out a peaceful settlement, end the war. Vance went on to…
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