The Dictatorship
Lost Cause ideology factors into this North Carolina judge’s refusal to admit defeat
Judge Jefferson Griffina Republican who lost his November race for the North Carolina Supreme Court, has created a scene by refusing to concede the race for five months, and recently a 2001 photo has surfaced of him wearing a Confederate uniform at a fraternity party when he was a student at the University of North Carolina. Griffin insists that the photo “does not represent the person I am today.” If it’s true that he no longer supports the Lost Cause, a mythology that glorifies the Confederates that attacked the Union, then he should also give up the lost cause of election subversion.
If it’s true that he no longer supports the Lost Cause, then he should also give up the lost cause of election subversion.
Incumbent Justice Allison Riggs, the Democrat in the race, won the election by 734 votes, but by challenging 65,000 ballots that were cast in November, Griffin continues to try to whittle down the electorate after the fact to tip the race in his favor. A Friday ruling by a three-judge panel on the Republican-controlled appeals court — on which Griffin, who recused himself, sits — ruled in Griffin’s favor. The panel decided 2-1 that the 65,000 voters whose eligibility Griffin challenges should have 15 business days to prove they were eligible to vote.
But the North Carolina Supreme Court intervened Monday with a stay against the appeals court ruling. We hope it’s more than a temporary pause and that the Republican majority on the state’s highest court agrees with the judge who dissented from Friday’s appeals court ruling. That dissenting judge argued that Friday’s ruling amounts to “changing the rules by which these lawful voters took part in our electoral process after the election to discard their otherwise valid votes,” and he rightly said that “an attempt to alter the outcome of only one race among many on the ballot is directly counter to law, equity, and the Constitution.”
If the appeals court ruling is allowed to stand, then some percentage of 65,000 North Carolina voters will have seen their vote erased.
Confederates lost the Civil War, but as many historians of Reconstruction have noted, the South won the culture war. Consider that Griffin, then a college student, was proudly posing in Confederate grays 136 years after that side surrendered at Appomattox.
While the particular myths of the Lost Cause have varied over the years, the motivation stays the same: Lies about the past are told to help people in power hold on to it in the present. Historic voter turnout in North Carolina in 2008 helped send Barack Obama to the White Houseand since then the party that lost that race has been pushing the myth of “voter fraud.”
With the NC NAACP, a coalition of North Carolinians sued then-Gov. Pat McCrory to block the monster voter suppression law he signed in 2013. In federal court, we asked Republicans who claimed they were concerned about widespread voter fraud to produce evidence it existed. They could not then, and they cannot now. Voter fraud is the bogeyman they warn about to keep the Lost Cause alive today.
I do not question Griffin’s sincerity when he says he regrets wearing a Confederate uniform nearly a quarter century ago. He may also regret the Confederate flag his fraternity used to fly at its “Old South” ball. They’re symbols of another era. But they are symbols of a story that says Black Americans having political equality hurts white people. This is the story of the Lost Cause. It’s a lie.
Griffin lost. He may not like that result, but that doesn’t mean something nefarious happened.
When all the votes legally cast in North Carolina were counted last November, Griffin lost. He may not like that result, but that doesn’t mean something nefarious happened. His ongoing challenge to North Carolinians’ choice has become its own lost cause, deeply rooted in the tradition of myths that have kept some people re-enacting the Civil War for 160 years. For a court to rule in support of this challenge is to establish a precedent as dangerous as the Plessy v. Ferguson decision that propped up Jim Crow for almost 60 years.
It’s past time to hang up (literally and figuratively) the Confederate uniform and give up the belief system that drives Lost Cause thinking. North Carolina does better when more people vote. Any politician who doesn’t acknowledge that can’t be trusted to represent the will of the voters. Any judge who doesn’t believe that cannot faithfully interpret our state or federal constitution. The moral foundations of “we the people” are at stake in this attempt at election subversion. Each of us has a responsibility to stand against the lies that have kept the Lost Cause alive this long.
The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II is founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. With Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, an Assistant Director at the Center, he is the author of “White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy.”
In an explosive interview with NBC aired Sunday, President Donald Trump cut the grilling short and left the set after peppering “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker with insults.
“You’re either crooked or you’re stupid,” Trump told Welker, who kept a cool demeanor despite the president’s barrage of disparaging slurs.
Moments before he attacked her, Trump — without providing any evidence — said he believes elections in the U.S. are rigged. Then he lambasted television news networks, singling out NBC, CBS and ABC.
“They’re crooked just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked. And ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked,” Trump said.
“To be fair, I’m not crooked,” Welker shot back. “But let’s continue.”
“Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough,” the president told Welker, who is the second woman and first Black journalist to helm the network’s flagship program.
Trump added, “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”
It was not the first time Trump has berated a female journalist on the job covering his presidency.
In November 2025, he told Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey to stop talking, saying, “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.” One month later, he told ABC’s Rachel Scott she was “the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place.” Last month, he called MS NOW White House reporter Akayla Gardner “a dumb person” for pointing out that the cost of his White House ballroom project had doubled since it was first announced.
He has also repeatedly lashed out at CNN’s Kaitlan Collinscriticizing her for not smiling enough.
The wide-ranging interview, which was taped last week on a farm in Wisconsin, was interrupted by the loud sound of heavy rain on the metal roof of the barn where they met. Welker questioned Trump on his war with Iran, his “anti-weaponization” fund and the upcoming midterm elections.
On his nearly $1.8 billion fund aimed at compensating people who say they were wrongly prosecuted, including Jan. 6 Capitol rioters, Trump said “people were destroyed by dirty cops and by weaponization. Many of those people should be compensated.”
He described the people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as people who were “being ushered into the building” by law enforcement.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the fund last month and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said last week the administration would not be moving forward with the fundwhich faced bipartisan backlash.
When asked if the administration would pursue other avenues to revive it, Trump said he does not know what will ultimately happen and called Welker and her network “the fake dirty press.”
Despite campaigning on a promise to end foreign wars, Trump denied that he made such statements. He characterized the Iran war, launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28, as necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
When asked about the rising cost of living as a result of the war, specifically gas and fertilizer, Trump chastised Welker.
“Are you ready? Am I allowed to talk? You keep asking questions and you don’t listen to the answers,” he said.
“I love the farmers and the farmers love me,” Trump said, adding that prices will come down after the war.
Welker suggested to her viewers Sunday that she and the president had a cordial conversation Saturday, saying they both “acknowledged the complications” posed by the rain. “He agreed to sit down with me for another ‘Meet the Press’ interview,” she said.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
Iran said visas were denied to key members of its national soccer team ahead of the World Cupwhich a U.S. official insisted was necessary so that Iran does not try to “sneak terrorists into the United States.”
In a post on Xthe Iranian embassy in Turkey said “visas were denied to a large portion of the managerial and executive staff, technical advisers, and others” on its team.
“You have now escalated the deliberate and discriminatory treatment against Iran’s national football team to its highest level,” the embassy said, accusing the U.S. of the “worst possible form of politically biased interference in sport” and “depriving Iran’s national team of its right to play in the World Cup under normal conditions.”
Iranian officials are accusing the U.S. government of violating FIFA regulations and breaching its obligations as one of the host countries of what is widely regarded to be the biggest sporting event in the world. The diplomatic standoff between the two countries comes just days before the World Cup is set to kick off and more than three months after the U.S. and Israel waged war against Iran.
A Trump administration official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the subject told MS NOW in a statement that the visas “necessary for Iran to compete in the World Cup, including for athletes and necessary support staff, have been issued.”
The official added, however, “We will not allow the Iranian team to abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretenses.”
The statement from the Iranian Embassy in Turkey came in response to a post on X by U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack praising embassy staff for processing visas for the Iranian national team.
According to The Associated Presssome of the team’s officials have not received visas to enter the U.S., which is co-hosting the World Cup with Mexico and Canada. Games are set to begin Thursday.
Problems with getting U.S. visas had already led Iran to move its World Cup training base from the U.S. to Mexico. But Iran is still listed on the official World Cup schedule to play its first two games in Los Angeles on June 15 against New Zealand, and against Belgium six days later before heading to Seattle to face Egypt.
The Iran Football Federation’s secretary-general and its vice president were among 14 staff and officials without U.S. visas, AP said, citing Iranian state television. The federation reportedly accused the U.S. of “vindictive behavior.”
Emily Hung contributed to this report.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
A shooting near a community festival in Toledo, Ohio, wounded at least 12 people, and police said a search for the suspects was ongoing following an outbreak of gunfire that sent crowds scrambling for cover.
Two of the wounded were in critical condition, Toledo Deputy Police Chief Joe Heffernan said. He said it appeared there were at least two people firing weapons who were “probably shooting at each other.”
The Toledo Police Department said the shooting happened near the Old West End Festival, an annual gathering of live music and home tours in a historic district of the city.
The department said an active search was underway for those responsible.
“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Toledo tonight. Summer festivals should be safe spaces for families to spend time together without fear of violence,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement.
Multiple videos posted to social media showed people running over the sound of gunshots and emergency officials tending to others who appeared wounded.
Kevin Berry said he was sitting in the neighborhood arboretum listening to live music with his friends when he heard a handful of gunshots ring out.
“Everybody hit the deck,” he said.
When he looked back up, he saw a gun being tossed to the ground less than 50 feet (15 meters) away from him. Police officers who were already on-site for the festival immediately responded to the scene.
Berry, who has medical training and served in the U.S. Navy, said he walked around the area looking for potential victims who might need help.
He said he saw at least five people with gunshot wounds.
“The folks who were hit were spread out around the arboretum area,” he said.
The Old West End Festival is a two-day celebration in Toledo’s historic district that includes live music, food vendors, home tours and shopping.
Berry described it as the “kick-off to Toledo’s summer festival season.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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