title:  North Carolina Republicans Panic As Bathroom Law Makes Them Fear Their Political Doom
text: North Carolina Republicans should have listened when they were told there would be a backlash if they passed HB2. Now they are learning the consequences of being bigots.As soon as the anti-LGBT bill was jammed through the state legislature and signed by Governor Pat McCrory, outrage ensued.Corporations such as Paypal and Deusche Bank cancelled projects that would have meant new jobs. Entertainers cancelled concerts that would have boosted local economies. Conventions were cancelled.HB2 has become the last straw for many North Carolina voters. Ever since Republicans took control of the state government for the first time since 1896, they have let the power go to their heads by passing every wet dream piece of legislation conservatives have ever wanted.In just the last six years, Republicans have used their power to turn a state that had been traditionally moderate into one of the reddest states in the nation. The list is incredibly embarrassing, but it includes looser gun laws, highly restrictive and insulting anti-abortion laws, attempts to turn North Carolina into a declared Christian state, a war on food stamps, voter suppression laws, education funding cuts, and tax cuts for the wealthy.Perhaps no other state has been transformed as much or as fast as North Carolina, but that s exactly what happened once Republicans gained control. And North Carolina has paid a heavy price. The progress it has made since the Civil War and Jim Crow is being erased as conservatives take the state backwards.But voters are now fed up, especially since they are now facing terrible repercussions from a single law that demonstrates once and for all that Republicans are not the  small government  advocates they claim to be. Along with being ridiculed for trying to be the bedroom police, Republicans are now being slammed for trying to be the bathroom police.It also doesn t help that they passed this law on a lie by claiming that it was needed to protect women and children from being sexually assaulted in bathrooms. As it turns out, the only men who have gone into a women s restroom were actually sent in there by a conservative  Christian  group as a stunt in order to scare people when, in fact, there have been zero real instances of transgender people doing anything but using the facilities. In 17 states and over 200 cities that have transgender protections, there hasn t been a single instance of a person using the protections as a shield to excuse preying on women and children in bathrooms, a fact that even Governor McCrory was forced to acknowledge during an interview with Fox host Chris Wallace on Sunday.And now North Carolina faces the loss of billions of dollars in federal funding and perhaps more as tax dollars are spent by Republicans in their effort to defend their bigotry in court.All of this has put targets on the backs of every Republican in the state legislature and state Senate as well as Governor Pat McCrory. Voters are angry and if Republicans continue to defend HB2 they will be fired in November and replaced with lawmakers who are not insane bigots.Republicans are already beginning to panic over the prospect of losing power for another 120 years. The reality is that HB2 hurts,  GOP state Rep. Charles Jeter told Politico.  It doesn t matter that I m opposed to it or that I ve called for its repeal   because the mailer to voters [in my race] is going to say that I was a part of the Republican majority that passed the most discriminatory bill in the state. HB2 is going to have reverberations for our party no matter what we do, in November and probably beyond that. A Republican strategist surmised that the GOP could very well lose in November over the passage of HB2. The question that will be answered in November is whether the Republicans in the General Assembly overplayed their hand, after feeling empowered by impressive gains in the last three election cycles. Republicans could lose their veto-proof majority in one or both [legislative] chambers, with a cloud of uncertainty surrounding the governor s race. And one Republican even compared what could happen to Republicans in November to the devastating 2010 midterm election when conservatives successfully vilified Democrats over the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. It s like Obamacare with Obama, which so defined everything about Democrats who were in office when it passed in 2009. And you saw what happened to them in 2010. I think you always have concerns if perception boils down to one thing equaling another. In short, political doom is looming over the heads of Republicans across North Carolina and let s hope voters keep the GOP from having power for at least another 120 years. After all, it could take that long to fix what Republicans broke.Featured Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images