October 25, 2025
Opinion: Three Policy Trends Work Against Democrats
By John Hood
RALEIGH — I don’t know for certain who will win North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race next year — and neither do you.
The likely Democratic nominee, Roy Cooper, has never lost a primary or general election. He’s won statewide office six times, four terms as attorney general and two as governor, plus a series of legislative contests in the late 1980s and 1990s. But these were state races, not federal ones. When sending senators or representatives to Washington, voters prioritize different issues and are more likely to stick with their party preferences. And Cooper’s likely Republican opponent, Michael Whatley, chairs the Republican National Committee. He’ll be well-funded. Cooper is favored at the moment, I think, but hardly a shoo-in.
Moreover, none of us knows for certain which way the midterm breezes will blow. The party holding the White House usually loses congressional and legislative seats, but not always.
Rather than speculate about Cooper and his party’s electoral prospects in the short term, then, let me describe the Democrats’ longer-term problem. It’s about policy, not politics. On at least three sets of issues of great importance to persuadable voters — economic, educational, and social — progressives have yanked the party far away from reality and common sense.
The first policy trend will be a familiar one to longtime readers of this column. In recent years, Republican-governed states have generally been cutting taxes and regulations, restraining the growth of public expenditures, and applying market mechanisms to public services. Democratic-governed states have generally pursued a rather different mix of fiscal and regulatory strategies, sometimes for ideological reasons, sometimes to placate labor unions and other interest groups.
During the same period, Republican-governed states have, on average, grown faster than Democratic-governed ones, in part because Americans are “footing with the feet” by leaving tightly regulated states for freer ones in search of employment, opportunity, and a better quality of life.
Since 2020, for example, only one of the 10 states with the fastest-growing economies, Washington, was consistently governed by a Democratic legislature. Eight (including North Carolina) had Republican majorities, with the Arizona legislature exhibiting more partisan churn. Similarly, most states with significant gains in population since 2020 are conservatively governed. Most of the states with shrinking populations are progressively governed.
Do these trends in and of themselves conclusively prove that conservative policies, typically enacted by Republican lawmakers, yield better economic results than progressive ones? No. Correlation and causation aren’t synonymous. As I have long argued, public policy is only one of many factors shaping economic outcomes.
But let’s face it: progressive Democrats in North Carolina and elsewhere have a Chicken Little problem. They’ve predicted doom for states with conservative policies and boom for states with progressive policies. They’ve been wrong.
On education, many of the same folks resisted what proved to be a steady expansion of parental choice and school competition. Again they predicted doom and were mistaken. Choice-friendly states such as Florida, Indiana, and Louisiana currently boast some of America’s top-performing public schools. According to several recent studies, states with more school competition tend to post higher test scores and other educational outcomes, not lower ones.
And on social policy, Democrats in North Carolina and elsewhere spent decades defending pervasive racial discrimination by colleges and universities in admissions and employment. Such abuses of the concept of “affirmative action” were never popular — and in the case of hiring practices, were never even arguably legal. It shouldn’t have taken litigation to restore equal protection under the law.
In all three cases, progressivism proved to be politically costly. Given more room to maneuver, Democratic politicians could have adjusted to these entirely predictable trends — championing some tax cuts and deregulatory efforts, for example, and compromising rather than resisting on school choice and equal protection. Indeed, nimble Democratic governors such as Jared Polis in Colorado and Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania have sometimes done just that, conferring political benefits not only on themselves but on their legislative allies.
Roy Cooper? Not so much.
John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).
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John, what you ignore is that by supporting Republicans you support a felon, a cheater, and a pedophile. You support a man who has tried and is trying to dismantle democracy solely to line his pockets and to assuage his ego. You support a man who prefers to ignore the rule of law. As a result, a vote for any republican, given the allegiance of many current republican representatives to Trump, has unfortunately become a vote against the principles of our great nation..
How do you lower the cost of anything by 1400 per cent????
Republicans don’t follow Trump because he’s Trump; he espouses mostly conservative principles, that’s why they follow him. His policies make a lot more sense than the libtards ones. TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME is alive and well!
Plus one better be careful about accusing politicians of being felons. Peel back the veneer protecting the Bidens , the Clinton and Obama and the crimes are endless. The ‘veneer’ btw is the Democrat-Socialist party and the propaganda machine that is the mainstream media.
One day, they will all be exposed for the criminals that they are.
I am a registered republican, you’re pretty off base The republicans don’t g today have destroyed our party. They are not fiscally conservative. They refuse to release the Epstein files and Trump is in fact a felon. Full stop being complicit and allowing our party to get ruined like this!
Ron Howard has summed up what many of us believe. Including me….
“I’m a liberal, but that doesn’t mean what a lot of you apparently think it does. Let’s break it down, shall we? Because quite frankly, I’m getting a little tired of being told what I believe and what I stand for. Spoiler alert: not every liberal is the same, though the majority of liberals I know think along roughly these same lines:
1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members. A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected. PERIOD.
2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that’s interpreted as “I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all.” This is not the case. I’m fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it’s impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes “let people die because they can’t afford healthcare” a better alternative. I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it. And no, I’m not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.
3. I believe education should be affordable. It doesn’t necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I’m mystified as to why it can’t work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.
4. I don’t believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don’t want to work. I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this. Ever. I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can’t afford to go to the doctor. Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this. Somehow believing that makes me a communist.
5. I don’t throw around “I’m willing to pay higher taxes” lightly. If I’m suggesting something that involves paying more, well, it’s because I’m fine with paying my share as long as it’s actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.
6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage. Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes. What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water. Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multibillion-dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn’t have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.
7. I am not anti-Christian. I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc. (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is – and should be – illegal). All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs. When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I’m not “offended by Christianity” — I’m offended that you’re trying to force me to live by your religion’s rules. You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia law on you? That’s how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me. Be a Christian. Do your thing. Just don’t force it on me or mine.
8. I don’t believe LGBT people should have more rights than you. I just believe they should have the *same* rights as you.
9. I don’t believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN’T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they’re supposed to be abusing, and if they’re “stealing” your job it’s because your employer is hiring illegally). I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).
10. I don’t believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc. It’s not that I want the government’s hands in everything — I just don’t trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc. are actually SAFE. Is the government devoid of shadiness? Of course not. But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they’re harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc. Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.
11. I believe our current administration is fascist. Not because I dislike them or because I can’t get over an election, but because I’ve spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities. Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.
12. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed. Which means those with privilege — white, straight, male, economic, etc. — need to start listening, even if you don’t like what you’re hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that’s causing people to be marginalized.
13. I am not interested in coming after your blessed guns, nor is anyone serving in government. What I am interested in is the enforcement of present laws and enacting new, common sense gun regulations. Got another opinion? Put it on your page, not mine.
14. I believe in so-called political correctness. I prefer to think it’s social politeness. If I call you Chuck and you say you prefer to be called Charles I’ll call you Charles. It’s the polite thing to do. Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better. When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you’re using, you now know better. So why not do better? How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person?
15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs. There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil. Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.
16. I believe that women should not be treated as a separate class of human. They should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse. Why on earth shouldn’t they be?
I think that about covers it. Bottom line is that I’m a liberal because I think we should take care of each other. That doesn’t mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money. It just means I don’t believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.”
Ron Howard