Don’t expect better results with same choices
Western North Carolina is a region defined by resilience. Mountain communities have endured floods, factory closures, rising housing costs and the slow erosion of public institutions with a steadiness that deserves admiration. None has beaten our people.
But there is one challenge the region has not met with the same determination: demanding better from the people elected to represent it.
For two decades, Western North Carolina has voted itself into decline. This is not a matter of what party you have signed up for. It is a matter of outcomes. And the outcomes in the mountains are becoming impossible to ignore. We have become a region with one party and no competition.
Today, every state legislator representing Western North Carolina is a Republican. Not one dissenting voice. Not one alternative vision. Not one lawmaker who ran on rebuilding the public institutions that once made North Carolina a national model. Not one lawmaker seriously passing laws to help our people’s welfare.
In a region struggling with healthcare deserts, underfunded schools, aging infrastructure and slow disaster recovery, voters have handed every lever of power to one party — and then wondered why nothing changes or becomes worse.
Political uniformity is not stability. It is stagnation.
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North Carolina used to lead the South. For much of the 20th century, North Carolina was the Southern exception. It invested in public education. It built world-class universities. It modernized infrastructure and expanded healthcare access. It proved that a Southern state could compete nationally by embracing pragmatic governance rather than ideological warfare.
Then the legislature — now dominated by the very regions that benefited most from those investments — systematically dismantled them. The consequences are visible everywhere in the mountains: hospitals closing or cutting essential services, teachers leaving for better pay across state lines, our children fleeing for opportunity, roads and bridges failing faster than they’re repaired, broadband expansion lagging national standards, disaster recovery slowed by politicians afraid to challenge their national party leaders. Wages lower than our neighbors.
These are not random misfortunes. They are the predictable results of policy choices. Fear has become a political strategy. Election after election, mountain voters are told to fear change, fear education, fear new ideas, fear anything labeled progress, even when those ideas have succeeded in rural regions across the country.
Instead of asking, “Will this policy improve life in my community?” voters are encouraged to ask, “Who can I punish?” “What color of folks should I blame?”
And so, elections become referendums on cultural grievances rather than the real issues affecting daily life. Culture wars don’t fix schools or hospitals. While classrooms struggle to hire teachers and rural hospitals teeter on the edge of closure, political energy is spent on symbolic fights designed to inflame emotions, not improve lives. A viral speech about bathrooms does nothing to keep a maternity ward open. A fiery debate about library books does nothing to repair a washed-out road. A promise to “own” political opponents does nothing to keep young people from leaving because they can’t support themselves.
The mountains cannot afford another decade of politics as performance art. Voting against self-interest is not a value — it’s a deadly habit. When lawmakers repeatedly vote against expanding Medicaid, against raising wages, against investing in public schools, against modernizing rural economies — and still win re-election — something deeper is happening. It is not loyalty. It is conditioning. Voters have been taught to expect less, to accept decline as inevitable, and to blame distant forces rather than the people whose names appear on their ballots..
Young people are not leaving because they dislike the mountains. They are leaving because the region refuses to invest in a future that includes them. Communities that embrace evidence-based policy thrive. Those that cling to grievance politics fall behind. Western North Carolina has chosen the latter path for 20 years.
Progress isn’t radical. Refusing it is. It is natural to want progress, to make your life better. Wanting good schools, reliable healthcare, safe roads, broadband access, a competitive economy, disaster preparedness that actually works … is not radical. What is radical is repeatedly electing leaders who reject proven solutions, that work elsewhere and then acting surprised when nothing improves.
North Carolina once knew better. It built the Research Triangle Park. It invested in public universities. It led the South in education funding. It demonstrated that prosperity is a choice. Then the legislature dismantled those investments. And Western North Carolina handed them the power to do it. Our mountains, our people deserve better.
Western North Carolina does not lack potential. It does not lack hard-working people or community spirit. What it lacks is political competition — and the willingness to demand more from those who claim to serve it. At some point, voters must own the outcome if the region continues to elect candidates who reject expertise, mock education, govern through outrage, cut essential healthcare, prioritize culture wars over community needs. Then the results belong to the voters, not the politicians.
But until voters insist on better — until we ask why every single lawmaker speaks the same, votes the same, and delivers the same failed results, we will continue to get less. Western North Carolina has the power to change its future. The question is whether we will choose to use it.
(Walter Cook lives in Franklin and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
