Carolina Journal Radio No. 904: Comparing N.C. response to Spanish Flu and COVID-19

From Cherokee to current tack from the largest city to the smallest town and from the statehouse into the schoolhouse Carolina Journal radio your weekly news magazine discussing North Carolina's most of public-policy events and issues welcome to Carolina Journal radio why Michiko got during the next hour, Donna Martinez and I will explore some major issues affecting our state. The year 2020 is featured plenty of political turmoil national reviews Andrew McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor. He places today's troubles in historical perspective. Greensboro businessman Lewis did joy has generated controversy ever since taking the job as US Postmaster Gen. you here to joy defend his proposed post office reforms the John Locke foundation is promoting efforts to protect privacy of donors to nonprofit groups. You'll hear highlights from a recent forum on the topic and a top North Carolina political scientist offers his perspective on the impact for 2020 of intraparty conflict.

Conflict involves both Republicans and Democrats.

Those topics are just ahead.

First, Donna Martinez joins us with the Carolina Journal headline when it comes to covert, 19 compared to the Spanish flu. There's been a lot of talk about the similarities and the differences in these two pandemics but you asking a historian there likely to tell you that history often repeats itself, sometimes with just some slight variations that seems to be the case in our current situation. I next asked took a fascinating look at North Carolina's responses to the two different pandemics and she joins me now Renée Goforth is the John Locke foundation's social media manager. She also is a writer for Carolina Journal.com Renée welcome back to the show, thinking that this is such a fun piece and people can read this it Carolina Journal.com so I say that fun" because obviously the subject isn't fun pandemics, but it's really interesting what you did before we get started and talk about the. The similarities why did you get interested in even looking at this absolutely so there was a locking time at the similarities and differences in how pandemics come every 100 years, all that kind of thing. And so it piqued my interest I thought will what about North Carolina. I mean every state, particularly back then would have been a little bit different in the way that it handled these kinds of situations and I started a deep dive into historical newspaper articles reading all about it and there is just so much that I had to write something. In fact, some of those images from those long-ago newspaper pages are actually a part of this story.

That's why it's so important. Go ahead and read this piece it Carolina Journal.com headline comparing North Carolina's responses to Spanish flu and covert, 19 all right masks we know right now are under a statewide mandate from Gov. Roy Cooper about masks tells what you found when you look to back 100 years. Yes, so masks back in the day were recommended they were recommended.

The way that they are now so work about 60 days into Roy Cooper's 30 day mandate from June and every person in North Carolina is required to wear these masks when they go out and about healthy sick. What have you haystack during the Spanish flu. The recommendation was really only for people who were taking care of the sick doctors, nurses, or people who had somebody had the Spanish flu in their home and were taking care of them to where the masks they weren't meant for just going out and about and all those kinds of things and they were usually made it home and they were made from guys or butter cloth which would be called butter muslin. Now it's similar to cheesecloth and they would be four layers as opposed to kind of the guidance that we saw at the beginning of don't wear a mask for the general population and then once we got orders to wear a mask. It weighs you know it could be anything made out an old T-shirt things like that. We didn't have the similar guidance for four layers of this particular material or anything like that is kind of a free-for-all and cause a little bit of confusion as we can see interesting that hundred years ago.

They're knocking to be ordering masks online or try to get the most stylish mass but people were making them at home and he said four layers that's interesting to me to do. We know it all. If that is related to any science or medical recommendation or were they just kind of using common sense and thinking okay, the sicker I make this thing may be, the less likely I am to get infected. Yes, we don't have any information necessarily. This did come from, you know, the health organizations of the time. This was the recommendation and so we don't have any information about how they came to that conclusion, but I'm assuming that it was a mixture of as much protection as you can get and still be able to bring it exactly so these days we have been reading stories about in different cities, you will have people who are essentially snitching on others for not wearing a mask and there's been a lot of shaming particular with social media these days I'm it's kind of gone rampant was their shaming or telling on people hundred years ago. So North Carolina didn't have like I said a statewide mandate, other states in other cities did to San Francisco California is one of those examples of places where they had mandate and there was no snitching and all those kinds of things, but in North Carolina.

In particular, there were pieces that would show up in the newspaper that would criticize people who said that they didn't want to wear a mask or anything like that. You've got the piece right there on and it's on Carolina.com.

If you want to go check it out, but it's very interesting day compared to somebody not wearing a mask to somebody who wears fancy socks or silly ties or anything like that but are you today yeah ridiculous or not wearing your masking outlets. I guess people are people whether they were living in the early 1900s are in in 2027 fascinating quarantines were people put away so that they would not infect other people. So we have kind of kind of a quarantine that we all did, where everybody was recommended to stay at home all the skins things can stay quiet so quarantines typically warrants actually given out to an entire state or entire city unless it showed evidence of a particular outbreak so quarantines typically were For people who are actually sick if you were found sick you would be quarantined in your home actually quarantine officers who came and made sure that you are staying at home and all those kinds of things enforced these and if you broke a quarantines you could be threatened with now what is what in today's money would be up to thousand dollar fine, or 10 to 30 days in jail, which would start after you got better. They would just throw you and Joe are you are still sick.

Rides on top of that there was an instance and rocking him and North Carolina where they shut down the whole city after they got no quite a few cases there. They had police officers stationed outside of the city, making sure nobody came in and out. They put no placards on you know barbershop doors all these kinds of things.

It weighs very different from what were seeing now, but it was interestingly pretty strictly enforced. It sounds like during the Spanish flu that that you have local officials who were making their decisions for their particular area versus what were saying right now from Gov. Roy Cooper is in large part a one-size-fits-all mandate for everything and local officials can do something if they wanted to be stricter than what the governor has outlined but was is that difference really that stark that it was local. People back then.

It really does seem pretty hyper local of the reactions that all these things are getting and you can see that when you go back and look these historical newspapers because there were so many we have kind of consolidation of newspapers now, but there were so many hundred years ago and this was the only way for people to get their information and the amounts that they were enforcing in certain areas would be different than they were enforcing in other cities. So you've got some really stern enforcement. You get some really lax enforcement.

Actually, the quarantine officers had quite a bit of response ability on their shoulders because you could be fired or given a misdemeanor if you are doing your job, which happened a couple of times in North Carolina to those quarantine officers now in today's situation we have not only Gov. Roy Cooper, but Dr. Mandy Cohen who is the Sec. of Health and Human Services making the decisions and we now all know about the three W-2s the weight wash and where during covert, 19 did we have 3W's or something like it years ago. No advice that weighs going out then was similarly you know basic rate. So they waited tell you to know wash her hands. Stay away from crowds, all those kinds of things alerted today but maybe just not Bran's birthday go for is working for that they had some interesting things that they would do. They had something called deacons solution which they recommended you sprayed in your throat and you too much ingestion of that can be dangerous. So I would not recommend that one but washing hands is still great advice. It's a really interesting read this piece that Bernie Goforth has written a Carolina Journal.com comparing North Carolina's responses to Spanish flu and covert, 1940. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having this much more Carolina journal radio to come in just a moment tired of fake names tired of reporters with political axes to grind. What you need to be reading Carolina Journal honest, uncompromising, old-school journalism, you expect and you need even better, the monthly Carolina Journal is free to subscribers sign up at Carolina. Journal.com. You'll receive Carolina Journal newspaper in your mailbox each month. Investigations into government spending revelations about boondoggles who the powerful leaders are and what they're doing in your name and with your money. We shine the light on it all with the stories and angles. Other outlets barely cover but there's a bonus print newspapers published monthly by our daily news site gives you the latest news each and every day. Log on to Carolina. Journal.com once, twice, even three times a day. You won't be disappointed. It's fresh news if you'd like a heads up on the daily news sign up for daily email do that Carolina Journal.com Carolina Journal, rigorous, unrelenting, old-school journalism, we hold government accountable for you. Welcome back Carolina journal radio I Michiko got recent months of exposed deep fissures in American society. How should we address them.

Andrew McCarthy of national review discussed the topic during a recent online forum cosponsored by the John Locke foundation.

McCarthy placed our current political turmoil in historical perspective. The one good thing that you could say about that. If you reach for a silver lining is that we have been through this before and it's in the historical memory, at least of the old fogies like me but I grew up in the approximate 1960s and 70s, high crime and it also turns out I know this is a historical memory of a lot of people, but it was a time of a lot of domestic terrorism in the United States and it's kind of a forgotten era because we had really a generation of domestic tranquility, beginning in the early 1990s up until very recently, but for example this is always an eye-opener for people in 1972, along just that year there were 1900 bombings in the United States, 1900 were not talk about bombings like the World Trade Center attack either one or the kinds of terrorist bombings where you had organizations that were projecting power on the level of the nationstate, but we did have a very steady stream of domestic terrorism.

We did have a hard left and and largest organizations black separatist organizations all working together against not only the federal government, but the governments of the states and municipalities so this is not something we haven't seen before McCarthy looks to history to see how America will emerge from a time of turmoil.

Eventually we come out of it and we came out of it strongly.

I think there's a lot of things to be worried about in connection with this current era compared to that time. Back in the 1960s, 70s, even into the 80s.

I think the institutions, particularly the Academy were stronger than they are now were now having to deal with this under circumstances where we turn the institutions of opinion and education in our country over to the left of the last three generations, and a lot of that is the reason the rationale for what were seeing today. I think basically what's going on right now is you have a whole you have a strong cultural movement that's anti-American and that is organized around a lot of what we would regard as irrational goals. What I learned prosecuting terrorists who also have a kind of an ideology. That's fundamentalist on fire.

Is that something always speaks nothing when you're doing with young people, and on one side of the equation here.

I think you have a very strong ideological movement that is crazy, but it knows what it believes in its rapidly anti-American and on the other side of the coin, I think it's sometimes we're not sure we deserve to survive.

No were not were not as proud as we used to be. As a country of who we are what we stand for what our principles are and what I worry about is that you have something as noxious as it is fighting against people who aren't sure that their worth saving, and I think until we reach back into that spring well and realize what's great about America and why America is so essential why America is been what God's gift to the world were not to have a problem… I don't know that you turn that around in a day or on a dime. But it's gotta be turned around. That's Andrew McCarthy of national review featured speaker in an online forum cosponsored by the John Locke foundation.

Some people argue that we need stronger law enforcement.

McCarthy address that idea law is very limited in what it can do to fix the society and it's even limited in what it can do in terms of keeping order.

You know if you think about it back in May into June, right after George Floyd's killing in Minneapolis. The big argument that we were having was whether the president had the authority to dispatch troops into some of these cities that were in all people and the reason that became a serious discussion is because I think having had 30 years of record low crime, economic flourishing domestic tranquility what people forget is that that took a long time to build and to put into place and what it creates. Over time, is the presumption of the rule of law, the presumption that the law will be enforced the police as long as you have that in place, police, law enforcement, prosecutors, and the like can keep that in place for a long time, but if it's lost they're not capable of establishing it on their own. It's just that we don't have enough police and the array of people who were involved in keeping law and order.

We don't have enough of that. That you can establish what you need in the first place. In order to have the rule of law which is stability and order the federal government is especially poorly equipped to address law and order nationwide. In New York City, along we have 38,000 cops patrolled that geographically small but by population very large city.

There were only 13,000 FBI agents in the whole country and most of them don't work on violent crime matters that have federal programs that they deal with so that's a long-winded way of saying I think law enforcement is that the kind of at the end of the string and we always think of everything as being downhill or downstream from culture. I think politics is more important than law. Culture is much more important than politics and part of the problem that we have which is which is showing itself to be an enormous problem right now is that we fall into the trap of thinking things like law enforcement can address the deeper cultural problems that we have when in point of fact, when when things get as intense as they are now law enforcement can even do the job that we expected to.

McCarthy explains why our political divisions don't yield easy solutions or the big problem that I think we have is that we don't have a consensus about what we mean by what good government is a consensus about what we mean about what freedom is and how freedom and equality are actually unless you have a consensus of what they mean Erin Baron eternal tension in the reason that that's important is because while our idea of government, good government is one that protects rights that's what it existed to we have a very strong movement which has a lot more of the following in the country that I think that we often like to realized sees government as a tool to address what it perceives as structural inequalities in the society and it sees governance as a basically a power that you can that you can have at your disposal in order to make social change rather than government being something that reflects the values of the government actually operates legitimately with the consent of the governed.

That's Andrew McCarthy of national review. Speaking about today's political turmoil. He offered feature remarks during a recent online forum cosponsored by the John Locke for Carolina Journal radio in a moment. If you have freedom we got great news to share with you now. You can find the latest news, views, and research from conservative groups across North Carolina all in one place North Carolina conservative.com it's one stop shopping for North Carolina's freedom movement@northcarolinaconservative.com.

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It's that easy. So now not only will you enjoy what you buy. You also support freedom. Don't forget log on to smile.amazon.com today, something nice and help defend freedom, help support the John Mott foundation will go back Carolina Journal radio underage co-guy Greensboro businessman Lewis to joy his faced critics ever since he took over as US Postmaster Gen. during a recent hearing on Capitol Hill to joy answered those critics. I believe there was an opportunity for the Postal Service to better serve the American public and also to operate in a financially sustainable manner, Congress established the Postal Service to fulfill a public service mission to provide prompt, reliable universal postal services to the American public in an efficient and financially sustainable/our ability to fulfill that mandate in the coming years is at fundamental risk.

Changes must be made to ensure sustainability for the years and decades ahead will businessman out model established by the Congress requires us to pay all bills through our own efforts, I view it is my personal obligation. The organization in the position to fulfill that mandate.

This year the Postal Service will likely report a loss of more than $9 billion without change.

All losses will only increase in the years to come is vital that Congress enact reform legislation that addresses our own affordable retirement, Congress must allow the Postal Service to integrate retiree health benefits program with Medicare. The postal regulatory commission began a mandated review of a pricing system for years of our current system is not working urgently require the PRC to do its job and establish a more rational regulatory system at the Congress and PRC fulfill their obligations to the American public concerning the Postal Service. I am certain that much of our $80 billion in jewels of losses since 2007 could've been avoided that all operational and financial performance would not now be in such jeopardy. Postal Service was also do its part, we must adapt to the realities of our marketplace generate more revenue and control all costs. I have also had the chance to observe the many hidden strengths of the organization and appreciate our critical mission of service to the American public, despite deep, long-standing financial problems.

It was an incredible strong base to build upon in a tremendous side of the public for the Postal Service to succeed as we head into the election season I want to assure this committee and the American public that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's election mail securely and on time. Sacred duty is my number one priority between now and election day in every community in America. We continue to work to keep our employees and customers safe as we fulfill our essential role delivering medications, benefit checks and financial statements. The public the concept that has been a public outpouring of support postal employees as they perform their essential service throughout the nation.

Look for to working with you in this committee and all stakeholders to restore the financial health of the United States Postal Service and to improve the way we serve the American public. That's US Postmaster Gen. Lewis to joy. Greensboro-based businessman courtroom with Carolina Journal radio where doubling down on freedom at Carolina Journal radio were proud to bring you stories that impact your life and your wallet.

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Recent online forum help explain why form panelist Ashley Varner is VP of the freedom foundation, a labor focused group based in Washington state fair real-world consequences. If you make the wrong donation you now if you make it a nation that you think you do believe in and it's something that's important to you but someone else in this cancel culture we live in decides that they want to take out their frustrations against you and and unfortunately freedom foundation. Our employees are leadership our donors and our board members have all been the subject of harassment and intimidation because they simply either work for freedom, foundation, or they support what we do. Unfortunately there are a lot of creepy people out there and we've experienced a lot of bad Varner referenced important 60-year-old Supreme Court case involving civil rights, the NAACP versus Alabama in the decision, the justices wrote that this exposure can lead to economic reprisal, loss of employment, physical coercion, and other manifestations of public hostility and that is what the donors the board members are leadership and even just a regular employees like myself and experiencing at the hands of some union backed groups.

I'm not even going to say their name because it's to give them the notoriety, but we have a union backed front group who comes through our 990 tax forms filings and they got information on our leadership in our Lord and we've been ever since they they have sentence letters to the neighbors of our board members of our staff with their name and address telling their neighbors. These are bad, dangerous people because they work or are associated with the freedom foundation.

They have accused them of being racist and anti-woman and anti-LGBT Q and they've even had demonstrations outside of some of our board members, businesses they've gone to great lengths to even set up webpages to elicit bad customer service responses from people who have purchased something from our board members. It's really scary stuff. I've got so many examples. It's really it's scary what people will do when they can get access to your information and then create a mom. Basically that's what we have experienced Varner warn people that the threat of donor intimidation is more than just theory and has already happened. I mean they want to destroy your business, your livelihood, your professional reputation and physical intimidation. So we a former board member who owns a winery and events Hall in Washington state and this group.

I mentioned they sent emails to all of the event planners in the area accusing this person of being anti-LGBT Q and hold the event planners to boycott this event hall.

This person knows that he lost at least one same-sex wedding due to event planners being told that he's a bad person and he's the anti-same-sex weddings so that he knows that he's lost at least some business. We have a homebuilder who every time he has a site go up.

You know you put your sign up saying that you're the homebuilder building the sites and we've had groups of people protest outside the home building sites also protest outside the home building headquarters trying to drive away business. They've also sent emails to people who are home purchasers or who have previously purchased a home from this person asking if they feel like they had a bad business dealing or did they feel like they were discriminated against because of their skin color or because of their sexual orientation. The survey saying enough. Please fill this out. Let us know just to elicit bad faith and try to drive away future business. That's Ashley Varner, VP of the freedom foundation speaking recently in the John Locke foundation online for Varner talked about the misleading nature of public attacks on her group and its supporters, many of those issues we work on one issue only in the public sector unions. We have nothing to do with any of these other social issues. But there is actually not to give the page but there is a webpage devoted to dock seemed essentially every staff member of the freedom foundation and I'm on this webpages. While it has our picture, it's a personal picture that this person has gone and sought out somewhere on our own social media posted a personal picture. Our home address our birthdates and some of our biographical information. This is designed to cause fear to intimidate us to make us perhaps not want to work for freedom foundation is dangerous when you're giving up people's addresses and birthdates that invites people to try to steal our identity or come to our home.

It's very, very creepy and it's simply because we work on the other side of public sector unions than they did so Varner has taken her story to the federal government in February, the IRS held a panel discussion. Hearings whereabouts took us time came and testified about our groups are impacted by donor disclosure requirements. It was a great coalition of a lot of state and national think tanks.

I actually in my testimony. I mentioned NAACP versus Alabama and how that was required.

It was needed because of the intimidation of the open on intimidation factor that Alabama was trying to do and that it was ineffective free speech is paramount to the bedrock of our society and to keeping our freedom and so we're very glad that ministration recently changed the schedule B requirements for 501(c)(3) groups.

It was a it was an overwhelmingly I was surprised because our side often doesn't organize as well as the other side, but we had more people there to talk about why it was important to protect donor information Varner explained how intimidation tactics have affected her group.

We have the freedom foundation. Our headquarters in Olympia, Washington.

We had to take extra security percussions and are building because we had at least once a crowd tried to storm doors. They have followed our employees to their cars taken down license plate numbers. This is this is what they don't want employees, but they tried to do the same kind of damage, personal damage to reputations to businesses of the people who choose to associate with us. Knowing the kind of volatile environment we're currently living in.

It is so important. Knowing that these tactics are used to intimidate and bully people.

It's really important for state governments to take action to minimize the ability of this kind of harm and protect the private information of Americans simply want to participate in the political discourse in their own way. However they choose as private citizens. What about those who say donor privacy flies in the face of a push for more public transparency. We believe and we know that transparency is for the government. Privacy is preserved for the citizen that is something that has been a part of our cornerstone in our political discourse from the very beginning when we were writing. They, the Federalist papers understood. That's Ashley Varner, freedom foundation, speaking in a recent John Locke foundation online for she's telling the benefits of laws to protect privacy of donors to nonprofit term with North Carolina jewelry real influence. You either have it or you don't and at the John Mott foundation we have it, you'll find our guiding principles in many of the freedom forward reforms of the past decade here in North Carolina.

So while others talk or complain or name call. We provide research solutions and hope our team analyzes the pressing issues of the day jobs, healthcare, education, and more. We look for effective ways to give you more freedom, more options, more control over your life. Our goal is to transform North Carolina into a growing, thriving economic powerhouse, the envy of every other state.

Our research is how policymakers make decisions that ensure you keep more of what you are. Expand your choice of schools for your kids. Widen your job opportunities improve your access to doctors. The recipe for stability and a bright future for truth for freedom for the future of North Carolina. We are the John Locke foundation. Welcome back to Carolina journal radio on Donna Martinez in roughly 60 days or so.

We will elect a President of the United States. North Carolina is already seeing a lot of president tromp his family members and their surrogates and with Joe Biden reportedly set to begin making in person campaign stops. We will no doubt see him in our state as well. Perhaps the candidates biggest challenge, however, is to heal the rift inside their own parties. If they expect to win in November.

Dr. Andy Taylor is professor of political science at NC State University is following the presidential race everything going on there. He joins me now and welcome back to the show. Let's talk first about the challenge for Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. What dynamics do you see going on there. It was pretty divisive primary. Of course, large numbers candidates at some stage of think about 20 each goal might be some occupying the same line, but occupying the various number of lines within the party that would go quite far to the left, at least in terms of modern American politics and the kind of King of the left buddy Saunders had a tremendous amount of spool and describe and of course took the competition the nomination contest pretty fall and although Biden was able to unify the party that clearly is still ripped residue strong residue of this divisive primary budget, particularly from all not in the progressive wing so Andy can we tell anything from polling or anything at all. As we watch the set.

These races go forward. Can we tell if Joe Biden's camp believes that they have gotten the folks who are to their left into the fold and ready to actually turn out and vote. While I think those two things going on.

I think there's a tremendous amount of discontent in the progressive wing you galvanized around us on destroying the primaries to a lesser extent candidates like Elizabeth Warren and that continues in terms of policy and there is significant concern among some.

I think with having Joe Biden be the candidate but then sort of talking them in a different direction is the desire to get ready tromp and win the election and so these two sort of feelings and can conflict but from the polling that we see. It does seem as though the sort of desire to win sort of special concern is overwriting the long-term ones and perhaps is a sentiment within that wing of the party that just get rid of tromp and then possibly go to work. Home Biden if the Democrats maintain control of the house. If they win the Senate which is certainly within the realms of possibility they might look to for leadership in the on the congressional positive of government rather than them from the White House and the president Biden so you think… Concern among sums to get rid of tromp is at the moment, if you'll pardon the phrase trumping that other desire to the party fall to the left.

What will happen then when Joe Biden gets on a debate stage with Donald tromp and presumably both candidates will be asked pointed questions about what they support what they don't support is that the point at which it will get tougher Joe Biden to try to do the balancing act was to the Trump argument is that Biden reduces so the Trojan horse. All even if he said no. Consciously a Trojan horse for these progressive ideas, but he soon be too weak to really control the polity and so if he wins, in particular with Democrats also in the Senate then you know what you'll hear from him during the campaign isn't what you'll get when the when the Democrats are in office. So far, Biden, and I think this is work largely because of the pandemic and the fact that we don't have a traditional campaign is done a good job of soda so I know you on buying the old Joe that you know on the moderate and you know I'm I'm's support. For example, I support the protests about racial injustice, but I'm against the violence and the looting and in the disorder, but as you said on the device die 20s were depressed by tromp on this.

It's can be more difficult for them to make the case that speaking of president tromp. He's got his own set of challenges within the Republican Party it's it's been rather interesting to see disaffected Republicans who don't like tromp a lot of junta, never Trumper's but there are several different groups of them. Some of them now openly supporting Joe Biden for Pres. What can Donald Trump do. Can he bring in those people and and convince them that hey you may not like me but I'm better than the other guy. But maybe the margins and that's going to be part of the strategy during the fall that again you know you like me you know I'm on rough and ready, maybe even on policy matters, particularly on on on issues like trade and immigration, which really started the rift between the never Trumper's and Trump but if you elect Biden you're getting it as a sip before a Trojan horse, and on on better than the alternative. That's a case is going to be going to try to make much of the never Trumper movement is at the elite level. You look among self identified Republicans, Trump is doing pretty well know this as well as other up Republican presidential candidates have done the better than you would think but is good have to work caught I think particularly in a maintaining support the mass level amongst conservative women in suburban areas where he has seen some erosion again. I think the the idea that the Biden is a you will get Biden you actually get a buddy Saunders on IOC in the squad and you get social disorder.

He's gonna work very hard at trying to bring them back in into the polity and NY that he won significant amount of them in 2016.

A public safety message seems to be emerging, at least at this point, from the Trump campaign is that really targeted to those suburban women.

The mom's who are concerned about their kids go to a large extent, I think it's it's it's aimed them. These are people who generally Republican, but have been put off by tromp style and some of the policies and who sort of genuine concerned about some of the issues have been raised with regards to assertive equality and racial justice, but turned off by a lot of the much of the rhetoric of of study of BLM and much of what they seen. Note to Stephen on TV, but in the community sometimes so so that there were up for grabs anything there that a sick episode of pivotal a group in the campaign. Andy, what about the impact of debates in traditional times and were certainly not living in additional times are all sorts of reasons, but they have been pretty important, will they be this time whether I think everybody be more important is because is not going to be a conventional campaign and so if this really going to be a tremendous amount of focus on them. It's hard to imagine that there are going to be any things that the candidates themselves are going to do that can really generate the kind of interest device with a one be any big Trump rallies. For example, the one be any unit flying all over the country to the top to hold these events instead refocused on that they may be asked extraneous external events that may affect the campaign with a swampy control by the candidates of the device will really get the focus we are living in fascinating times. As we look at about 60 days or so before we choose who will be the leader of this country. Andy Taylor is professor of political science at NC State University any thanks for joining us extra have. That's all the time we have for the program this week. Thank you for listening on behalf of my cohost Donna Martinez hope you'll join us again next week or more, Carolina journal radio Carolina journal radio is a program of the job on to learn more about the John Locke foundation donations that support programs like Carolina journal radio send email to development John Locke.or call 1866 Jay Leno info 166554636 Carolina journal radio is the John Locke foundation Carolinas free-market think tank and Carolina broadcasting system, Inc. all opinions expressed on this program are solely those did not merely reflect the more the station.

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