The paradox of Josh Stein

Bipartisan in tone, progressive at heart — here's a look at the balancing act of North Carolina's governor

I spent way too much time this week thinking about our state’s governor. It was hard not to — the guy was all over the place giving interviews.

Pretty much all of them touched on FEMA. I wrote a column for the N&O and Charlotte Observer about how Gov. Josh Stein has become a leading spokesman for the effort to forestall its demise. He’s essentially making a conservative case for keeping FEMA, arguing that it saves money and prevents administrative bloat.

You can read the column here: Gov. Stein is making the conservative case for FEMA

But just minutes after I filed the piece, I saw this message on the governor’s official X feed. It gave a very different reason for why he wants to keep FEMA: “Storms are worsening.”

That little nugget of climate activism is certainly not what Stein is saying in interviews (and it’s not true, either). But it’s what the progressive base expects to hear.

That’s the paradox. We all feel in our gut that Stein is the most liberal governor North Carolina has ever …