I’ve known Ted Carr many years, and he is not a liar.

That charge has been leveled against him by at least one supporter of the five members of the Haywood Republican Alliance whose loyalty to the party has been called into question.

Allegations made last week by a member of the Haywood Republican Alliance that the Haywood County Republican Party recently passed a resolution charging five local Republicans with political “party disloyalty” shocked and angered many across the region and the state.

In a story that sounds like it should have come out of Moscow in 1938 or Havana in 1961 rather than Waynesville in 2017, several Haywood County citizens have allegedly been charged with political “party disloyalty.”

Two conservative activists in Haywood County have been banned from Republican Party functions under the threat of trespassing charges from state party officials.

The recent tug-of-war for control of the Haywood County Republican Party has left many conservatives cringing and embarrassed over the portrayal of petty infighting, but it has played out like a microcosm of the national political landscape.

A shake up in the Haywood County Republican Party has pitted mainstream party members against an ideological “patriot” faction.

The patriot faction recently lost its grip on the party, following a mass ousting from the party’s executive committee during this year’s annual precinct gatherings. But what drove the two branches of the local party apart and resulted in the patriots’ ousting isn’t easy to sum up.

A power struggle has embroiled the Haywood County Republican Party over the past several months, culminating in the mass overthrow of a conservative “patriot” faction by the mainstream branch of the party.

SEE ALSO: Patriot faction of Haywood GOP blindsided by ousting

The story of internal turmoil within the Haywood GOP is a familiar one. Feuding factions have been at loggerheads for several years running. But the latest commotion is more than just another chapter in the same old tug-of-war.

Eddie Cabe suspected something big was afoot in the weeks leading up to the annual precinct gathering of the Haywood County Republican Party. 

Inaugurations make for early mornings. Getting into or out of the tangle of security and Humvees blocking the streets of Washington, D.C., requires an early-to-bed, early-to-rise mentality that quickly acquaints one with the deep blue hues of dawn punctuated only by the phosphorescent orange glow of municipal street lighting.

I needed nearly a full day after the election before I could formulate a response to the election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States. 

Just before 10 p.m. on election night, as Florida and North Carolina broke for Trump and it began to dawn on everyone that all the pollsters and pundits had had it all wrong, I must have read two dozen posts on Facebook ranging in tone from delirious celebration to abject misery to complete disbelief, but I contributed nothing because I just could not believe what was unfolding.