Opinion: ‘Loyal to Trump From Day One’

Pat McCrory, supplicant

And that settles it for me. The Roy Cooper campaign posted the above, a clip of CNN’s live feed from Trump’s appearance Saturday in Wilmington. It’s not altered or taken out of context. Cooper’s folks appended the usual insipid “This is not who we are” comment-slash-slice of wishful thinking. No, it’s clear by now that this is who we are—roughly half of us, anyway—and adding commentary to the clip dilutes its meaning. It speaks eloquently all by itself.

A quick note on the cap-wearing gentleman who may, on Tuesday, win the Presidency of the United States: Who makes an introduction like that? What kind of human being consistently refers to himself in the third person? In introducing the governor, Trump left the crowd with what seems in his mind to be the ultimate proof of Pat McCrory’s worth—unwavering loyalty to Trump. As has been said far too many times over the last 16 months, this is how dictators talk.

But we all know that anyway. Here’s what was settled for me Saturday. I no longer want to hear any variation of the question that’s perplexed Charlotteans for nearly four years: What happened to Mayor Pat? This performance Saturday did not so much answer the question as render it irrelevant. Did Governor Pat feel a twinge of regret when he signed House Bill 2 hours after its passage, knowing it would royally screw his hometown? Has he been forced since early 2013 to act as a glorified notary public for a rabid General Assembly, or did he, out of conviction or expediency, choose to be? Who cares? It no longer matters.

There’s a line here, brighter and more distinct than in any Presidential election in our lifetimes, and we’re all going to have to account for where we stood in relation to that line. On Saturday, Patrick Lloyd McCrory—North Carolina governor, seven-term Charlotte mayor, who a month ago condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the “disgusting” pussy-grabbing remarks—showed everyone precisely where he stood: on an airport tarmac in Wilmington, not just kissing an authoritarian clown’s ass but referring to him as “the best of America.” He has been weighed in the balance and found not just wanting but weightless, no longer just a failed public servant but a failed citizen.