GREENVILLE, N.C. — Republican Party activists from all over North Carolina are in Greenville this weekend for the North Carolina GOP’s annual convention, which will feature a speech from former President Donald Trump Saturday night.
It’s only the second public appearance for Trump since he left the White House in January, after losing the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.
On Friday night the party tapped several politicians including U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson — both political newcomers and conservative hardliners popular with the religious right — to give speeches on the future of the party here.
According to The East Carolinian, ECU’s student paper that covered those speeches, they focused heavily on social issues like abortion, “drag queens,” and concerns that schools might become too political when teaching students about America’s history of racism.
Robinson disparaged the idea that women who are victims of rape or incest should be allowed to have an abortion, invoking Darwinism and the theory of natural selection, The East Carolinian reported. Cawthorn said the U.S. Department of Education should be abolished, citing concerns about schools possibly teaching “critical race theory.”
Then on Saturday, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem delivered a lunchtime speech in which she praised Trump, criticized Biden and spoke about her actions during the coronavirus pandemic.
“The first time you heard my name was because the liberals were busy kicking me in the head for all the decisions I was making in South Dakota,” Noem said. “... But I want you to know something. My people are happy. And they’re happy because they’re free.”
Noem’s state experienced one of the deadliest coronavirus outbreaks in the country after she closely followed the anti-mask, anti-shutdown politics that Trump advocated while president. Her approach won her accolades from conservative media, and she is widely considered to be running for president in 2024. On Saturday she did not mention her state’s high death rate but instead focused on South Dakota’s economic indicators, many of which she said are much better than the national average.
“In South Dakota we never once closed a business the entire time,” she said, to a round of applause.
They currently have the nation’s lowest unemployment rate, Noem said, and saw fewer business closures and fewer lost wages than any other state.
South Dakota also has the third-highest COVID-19 infection rate in the country, which Noem did not mention. And for a time South Dakota had such a high death rate that, NBC reported, it was the highest anywhere on the globe.
But the real estate market in South Dakota is booming, she said, and for a while it was hard to rent a car there because, she said, so many people were visiting since they knew businesses weren’t shut down.
In addition to attacking Democratic politicians like Biden and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Noem also had harsh words for Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top medical adviser for both Trump and Biden who has become the public face of the country’s COVID-19 fight.
She then ended her speech by saying people need to be nicer and more willing to listen to people who might disagree with them.
“This country is addicted to being offended,” Noem said. “We love to be offended, don’t we? By everything everybody says. ‘Oh my gosh, we can’t believe they said that, that’s terrible.’ You know, get over yourselves. You just need to get over yourselves.”
