North Carolina has a serious problem. Its GOP has controlled the state since 2010, despite having a Democratic Governor for 8 years, who was made powerless by the legislature (General Assembly).

The GOP that swept the state in 2010 was Tea Party. But the top three GOP candidates in 2024—for governor, for attorney general, for state superintendent—are radical extremists. Not just MAGA, but QAnon batshit crazy.

Chris Seward of the Raleigh News & Observer wrote:

The woman who would take charge of K-12 education in this state has addressed her noxious trail of online posts — including calls to, you know, kill people — by not addressing them.

Ask the Republican nominee for state superintendent of public instruction, Michele Morrow, whether and, if so, why she would write such things and she seems irked that it should matter.

For instance, when confronted by a CNN reporter following a recent Wake County GOP event, Morrow deflected repeated questions about social media posts such as the one suggesting the execution of Barack Obama by firing squad on pay-per-view TV.

“Have a good night,” she said….

Meanwhile, Morrow is fueling her campaign with rhetoric that accused the state’s public schools of teaching “political and sexual and racially explicit stuff that’s poisoning our children’s minds and keeping them from getting a good education.”

Uh, maybe it’s only us, but calls to shoot people with whom you disagree seems a lot more harmful to our young children than teaching them that slavery was a bad thing.

Then again, CNN did ambush Morrow with a microphone and a camera.

Maybe in a friendlier environment, say, on the March 25 podcast of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, she finally could explain herself and put this issue to rest once and for all?

She did, however, describe her Democratic opponent, former Guilford County Schools Superintendent Maurice “Mo” Green, as “the farthest left, extreme candidate they (Democrats) have ever thought about putting out for superintendent.”

She warned gravely: “Our state will be unrecognizable” if Green is elected.

Surely, the state GOP establishment has issues with Morrow’s over-the-edge pronouncements and provocations?

House Speaker Tim Moore, soon to take a seat in Congress in a gerrymandered district, addressed Morrow’s controversies with what probably will become a boilerplate response.

“I certainly wouldn’t have made those comments,” Moore said Wednesday.

Moore added that he plans to “support all the Republican nominees for office, and voters have to make up their own mind on what you think is a good choice for that office.”

Describing himself as a “good loyal, fellow Republican,” Moore said, “I’m going to vote for the Republican nominees for office.”

Translation: Yes, it’s a bad thing to endorse killing people. But if a Republican does it, Moore will support him or her for the good of the team.

That’s obviously the case as well with the state’s most powerful Republican, Senate leader Phil Berger. Berger earlier endorsed the GOP nominee for governor, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has posted or spoken out loud a veritable smorgasbord of offensive references to Jews, Muslims, Black people and the LGBTQ community.

“I just think he’s got a good head on his shoulders,” Berger said in November.

In fact, Robinson and Morrow have attracted so much attention that another GOP candidate vying for statewide office, Dan Bishop, has gone relatively unnoticed in his bid for attorney general.

Bishop, a sitting member of Congress, voted against certifying Joe Biden’s victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania. Bishop also opposed the debt-ceiling and budget deals former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made with Democrats.

Before that, as a member of the General Assembly, Bishop sponsored HB 2, the “bathroom bill” that required transgender people to use public bathrooms matching the gender on their birth certificates. The bill, which also banned local anti-discrimination ordinances, cost the state’s economy an estimated $525 million in revenue from canceled business projects and sports and entertainments events before lawmakers partially repealed it.

Now he could become the head of the state’s Department of Justice.

What all of this means is that the norms have shifted in the Republican Party.

With the likes of Robinson, Bishop and Morrow on the Nov. 5 ballot, the GOP nominee for state superintendent may be right about at least one thing: Our state could be “unrecognizable” … not if they lose, but if they win.

We’ve got 99 problems in North Carolina, and Michele Morrow is only one of them.