What’s next for Republicans in North Carolina?

A recording station measured more than 20 inches of rain in Watauga County, in the mountains of northwest North Carolina. Power was knocked out for days. Rescuers are still clearing debris. There’s little telling how many more people they’ll find.

“Yeah, I grew up in Watauga,” Michael Whatley told the Beltway Brief in a Thursday morning phone call. He first volunteered for storied Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) when he was a high schooler in those mountains, but today, he’s the chairman of the state Republican Party. He was outside Charlotte when we spoke, preparing for Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s vice presidential campaign visit, but was heading back to Watauga the next day with Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian charity doing work in the area.

‘Once we get the human catastrophe kind of in frame ... then, and only then, focus on the voting aspects of it.’

“Obviously, the highest priority — the first priority — is rescue and recovery and making sure that everybody’s OK,” Whatley told the Brief.

“On the voting side,” he continued:

... we did have the state board of elections ... put some rules changes forward, and then we had the legislature yesterday passed a really good bill that is going to help make sure that there are opportunities for people to vote. You know, just putting some flexibility into the system. And we think it's a really good step. ... But it is going to be very important that we reach out to everybody and let them know how to vote, where to vote, when to vote.

... There's early voting that is going to start on [Oct.] 17. There is absentee voting that is already under way where you can request an absentee ballot, and then, of course, on Election Day. So we feel comfortable working with the North Carolina Republican Party that anybody who wants to vote will be able to vote.

That’s no easy task, however. Roads and bridges are out all over the region. Over 400 U.S. mail routes were out of service immediately after the storm, and as of Thursday afternoon, 35 still were. The types still down nearly two weeks after the storm aren’t the type you can just get up and rolling again with a few tweaks.

And as residents and first responders sift through the wreckage, Vice President Kamala Harris has been conducting a desperate media blitz, during which each appearance since Monday has included bizarre attacks on “disinformation” and against those angry about the federal response.

It’s a completely bizarre campaign line. These aren’t complaints invented at Trump HQ down in Palm Beach. Blaze News and other outlets have been on the ground for weeks, and the people we’ve been interviewing are real survivors and real rescuers — often both. Which of them is peddling misinformation, exactly, and to what end? And how will it affect people’s motivation to vote when their lives are in tatters?

“I can tell you, the people in North Carolina were very aware of the election and are going to do everything they can do to vote,” “Blaze News Tonight” host Jill Savage told the Brief after her visit to the devastation.

“The group we were with for Glenn Beck’s charity, Mercury One, said the day before they rescued a man who was stuck in his home on the mountain, and as soon as they got off the helicopter, he was asking how to vote while he was in town,” Savage said. “He wanted to get it done if he could — right away.”

“What I have heard from people on the ground is they are very angry at FEMA,” Whatley agreed. “It is very real, that they felt on the ground that the response was slow. ... And then Alejandro Mayorkas said we are out of money for hurricanes. I think that juxtaposition did not sit well with the people across the region at all. So I can see where that could have some political resonance.”

And then came Hurricane Milton, though it seems worst-case fears have been avoided for now.

“Once we get the human catastrophe in frame,” Whatley said, “we will then, and only then, focus on the voting aspects of it. And we're going to work extremely hard at the RNC along with our state parties to ensure that everybody has the opportunity to vote, and we're certainly going to encourage them to take advantage of that opportunity.”

Blaze News: After crowing about $750 for hurricane victims, Harris now claims Trump spreading 'disinformation' about FEMA money

Blaze News: Hurricane Milton ravages Tampa Bay cities as resourceful first responders help residents in need

Blaze News: DeSantis again castigates Harris for trying to politicize hurricane disaster response: 'She has no role in this process'

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The fire rises: City Journal: Get used to longshoremen and other skilled tradesmen pulling in higher wages than college grads

The short-lived longshoremen's strike has thankfully ended, but while political observers noted the divides it forced in a Republican Party talking populist, working-class talk, the strike and its conclusion exposed far more. While it was a giggle to see a wage the Wall Street Journal editorial board thought too high, how many college graduates did you hear grumbling about the wages these skilled men were demanding? Get used to it.

While Mark P. Mills and I might disagree on the dangers of AI and automation, he writes a fascinating report on the future of the American economy:

The quickly settled International Longshoremen’s Association strike takes us one more step toward the Great Inversion: a future in which people in the skilled and semi-skilled trades boast higher average wages than most college graduates. If the justification for most college degrees — only 10 percent of them in STEM fields — reduces to their boosting future earning power, then those graduates will have a problem. (Granted: a college education should be about more than just maximizing earnings.)

It has escaped no one’s attention that the settlement with the longshoremen’s union will bump up annual starting salaries to about $80,000, with mid-career salaries over $150,000. Both benchmarks are higher than those of 90 percent of college grads. The longshoremen’s victory will likely set a market norm, not just for union members, who account for just 10 percent of the workforce, but for the skilled workforce at large. The explanation is found at the intersection of technology and demography.

It’s no small irony that, while the longshoremen’s union railed against automation, it is automation that will accelerate the Great Inversion. Its wage-enhancing role arises from the inexorable logic of demographics.