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Hey, John,
North Carolina’s natural world is one of the most unique and beautiful in the whole country, and a real standout has always been our unique plant life. We’ve got a number of species that are either only found in our state or only in our state and a handful of neighboring ones (plants aren’t very good at reading maps)—there’s the Fraser Fir, there are Oconee Bells, but the most unique and well-known of them all is probably the Venus Flytrap.
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Fun fact, the Venus Flytrap is our state’s official carnivorous plant—and we’re the only state in the country with an official one!
See, the Venus Flytrap is native only to the southeast of North Carolina (and a little bit of South Carolina—again, plants, maps, not really a thing) in the coastal plain near Wilmington. There’s a lot of really interesting plant and animal life down in that part of the state, but one thing that sets it apart is that the soil is actually quite nutrient-poor: it’s sandy, it’s wet, and it doesn’t have much to offer in the way of nitrogen and phosphorus, two key nutrients for plants to grow.
But nature is pretty resourceful—so instead of just withering away and dying from the lack of nutrients, the Venus Flytrap evolved a different survival strategy. It’s a carnivorous plant that traps and eats small insects and arachnids, digesting them for their nutrients in order to survive in soil that most plants just aren’t equipped for.
Eating other living things may not be what we expect from plants, but when placed under pressure from scarce resources, it’s hardly surprising that Venus Flytraps do what they have to in order to survive.
And frankly, people are the same way.
When our environments—our economies, our communities, our governments—are constrained by scarce resources, people often turn to radical action in order to survive. We’ve seen that time and time again throughout history. Sometimes that looks like revolution. Sometimes it looks like a precipitous descent into communism or fascism. Sometimes it looks like MAGA and the rise of the far right in the United States over the last few years.
People don’t feel that their government is putting sufficient investment into their communities, leading to insufficient opportunities to reach their full potential, realize the American dream, and thrive. But people don’t just lay down and accept a slow death by attrition. They lash out. They do what they think they have to. And if they feel that it’s the only option, if opportunity feels like a zero-sum game and there’s not enough to go around, they’ll vote to hurt their neighbors if they think that, in doing so, they can cannibalize their resources in order to survive.
Nutrient-poor soil creates evolutionary pressures that give rise to plants like the Venus Flytrap.
But we don’t have to go down that road. I know that things seem dire right now, and I know that we all feel a little scared about what November might hold. But I’m trying my best to present voters with a different vision for what North Carolina can be over the next four years. The GOP has been leaching nutrients from the soil, whittling away our state’s savings, cutting revenues, and withholding investment from communities that badly need it. It doesn’t have to be that way.
We can choose a different way of governing at the ballot box in four months: one that values our people and seeks to create a world where opportunity is abundant and we can all thrive alongside each other. It doesn’t take much, just a different set of priorities from the people at the helm of the ship of our state.
And we’ll only get there if we stand together. Just this morning, I saw an article in Axios about how the NCGOP is getting ready to pump an unprecedented amount of campaign funds into TV ads in some of our most competitive districts—and Democrats have to be ready to respond in kind if we’re getting to get our message out there and show voters that someone is fighting for them.
John, can I please count on you to help us stay competitive and stand up against the onslaught from the GOP’s warchest over the next four months? Statewide campaigns like mine have the power to redirect resources where we need them most and help lift up Democrats up and down the ballot, but I need your support so that we’ll have the funds needed to support Democrats from Murphy to Manteo. [[link removed]]
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We have the power to create opportunity, together. We just have to stand strong.
Take care,
Wesley Harris
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Wesley Harris is a North Carolina native and the only PhD economist in the General Assembly. First elected in 2018, he has been fighting hard for the residents of southern Mecklenburg County and working to make our state the best place in the country to live, work, and start a family. Now, Wesley is running for Treasurer to make an investment in our state's greatest asset, its people. Together, Wesley believes that we can unlock the potential of our people and build opportunity for every North Carolinian.
www.harrisfornc.com [[link removed]]
Paid for by Wesley Harris for NC
Wesley Harris for NC
P.O. Box 77764
Charlotte, NC 28271
United States
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