Gov. Josh Stein signs a hurricane recovery package surrounded by a bipartisan group of state lawmakers. The author says Stein would meet feverish conservative resistance if he attempted to issue budget cutting edicts similar to those handed down by President Donald Trump. (Photo: Office of the Governor)
The spectacle of politicians preaching one thing and doing another, and of criticizing others for action that they too might have taken in similar circumstances, is nothing particularly new. Sometimes, it’s just a reflection of the fact that it’s a lot easier to be an outsider in opposition than it is to be on the inside trying to govern. Other times, it’s a function of the old adage, “success has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan.”
That said, the hypocritical double standards at work on the modern political right these days in the era of Donald Trump are often enough to make your head spin.
Consider the recent “Signalgate” scandal in which Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic in a text chain that also included Director of National Intelligence Chief Tulsi Gabbard and Vice President JD Vance as they discussed a planned military operation.
As 82nd Airborne veteran Scott Peoples pointed out in a recent op-ed for NC Newsline, under many circumstances, soldiers guilty of divulging such sensitive operational plans could expect a dishonorable discharge and possible imprisonment. Unfortunately, the sound one hears thus far in response to the Trump team’s remarkable foul-up in most conservative circles is that of crickets chirping.
One can only imagine the deafening roar of complaints we’d be hearing from Fox News shouters and Republican politicians right now if it had been members of a Kamala Harris administration that had committed such an outrageous breach of national security. Demands to fire the responsible officials would be at a fever pitch, and U.S. House Republicans would probably already be scheduling presidential impeachment hearings.
And the same hypocrisy would undoubtedly play out closer to home as well. Consider the following scenario.
As has been well-documented in recent weeks, Trump, with the help of his unelected immigrant billionaire sidekick Elon Musk, has moved unilaterally to effect a massive and chaotic bloodletting of the federal government. From the attempted elimination of the U.S. Department of Education to the evisceration of several other key departments — including, amazingly enough, the National Weather Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs — Trump and Musk have moved, without legislative authorization, to end or dramatically reduce funding for a host of programs and initiatives that do not reflect their views and values.
But, of course, as is the case with the U.S. government and Trump, the state of North Carolina has long funded statewide and local programs and initiatives opposed by its current chief executive, Gov. Josh Stein.
Likely topping the list: the state’s massive private school voucher program. North Carolina Republican lawmakers have been funneling billions of public dollars to unaccountable and discriminatory private schools for years, even as they have consistently refused to adequately fund traditional public schools.
Or consider the legislature’s repeated allocation of millions of dollars to the black hole that is the state’s network of so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” — completely unaccountable propaganda shops that often masquerade as health providers and generally exist to promote and funnel money to anti-abortion advocacy.
Or how about any number of newly funded programs bestowed by GOP lawmakers on Republican Council of State members like, say, Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler?
Just imagine if Stein — who controls the state budget office, after all — tried to follow Trump’s example by issuing executive orders directing administration officials to simply cancel government programs he disliked.
Funding for school vouchers and crisis pregnancy centers: Gone. New employees at Council of State departments led by Republicans: Fired.
Suffice it so to say that Republican lawmakers and right-wing lobby groups loyal to Trump would be apoplectic.
Moves that, when taken by Dear Leader Trump, have been met with full-throated huzzahs (see, for example, North Carolina Fifth District Congresswoman Rep. Virginia Foxx’s recent embarrassing, kneejerk endorsement of Trump’s destructive and illegal scheme to eliminate the Department of Education), would attract guttural screams of outrage.
School privatization and anti-abortion groups would angrily accuse Stein of being a dictator out to steal their freedoms.
Meanwhile, GOP legislative leaders like Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and House Speaker Destin Hall would beat a path from the Legislative Building over to Berger’s son and the other Republican denizens of the state Supreme Court building faster than you can say “legislative rubber stamp.”
Of course, the big and critical difference in such a scenario from the current situation at the national level is that Gov. Stein would never take such actions. Unlike both Trump and Musk, Stein is a smart and skilled attorney and an honest and responsible leader who actually believes in constitutional government and the rule of law. While he may disagree with numerous programs funded by the state government he leads, he understands his obligation to abide by the rules and that there are limits to his power.
Would that Trump and the hypocritical political puppets he controls were of the same admirable character.
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