North Carolina: How the World’s Favorite ‘Overachieving Backwater’ Became a Geopolitical Juggernaut
North Carolina: The World’s Favorite Overachieving Backwater
By Pascal “Pax” Delacorte, International Correspondent at Large
RALEIGH—If the planet were a high-school reunion, North Carolina would be the once-overlooked kid who now shows up in a rented Tesla, quoting Latin and smelling faintly of both artisanal bourbon and litigation. From the outside, this oblong patch of the American South looks like a parochial curiosity—tobacco barns, college hoops, and a coastline the British once used as a mosquito preserve. Yet here we are, circa 2024, watching the Tar Heel State set global supply-chain tempo, re-draw geopolitical fault lines, and provide the rest of us with a master class in how to weaponize paradox.
Consider the semiconductor. Chips, not hog, now rule the state’s economy. In January, Taiwan’s TSMC confirmed a second plant near Phoenix—no, not that Phoenix, the other one in Guilford County—because North Carolina offered something neither Dresden nor Shenzhen could: cheapish land, a bourbon-soaked workforce retooled by community colleges, and legislators willing to rename counties after corporate slogans if that’s what it takes. The European Union, which has spent two decades drafting position papers on “digital sovereignty,” now imports North Carolinian microprocessors the way it once imported cotton—only this time the EU pays extra for the carbon offsets the state cheerfully resells.
The global South, always eager for a patron saint of semi-successful modernization, has adopted North Carolina as a sort of honorary cousin. Vietnamese planners tour Research Triangle Park like pilgrims, taking selfies in front of the Lenovo campus while discreetly wondering if the free Wi-Fi is bugged. Lagos traffic engineers study Charlotte’s beltway loops—proof that even the most lovingly planned orbital roads will eventually resemble a plate of spaghetti dropped on a map. Copy-paste infrastructure, meet copy-paste delusion.
Meanwhile, the United Nations keeps a nervous eye on the Outer Banks. The ribbon of barrier islands, shaped like a drunk cartographer’s doodle, is disappearing at a rate that would embarrass Venice. Each hurricane season, insurance actuaries in Zurich run new Monte Carlo simulations that resemble deleted scenes from Mad Max. The Dutch, who still think dikes are a personality trait, have offered technical assistance, but North Carolinians politely decline, preferring to insure beachfront homes with the same breezy fatalism they apply to barbecue sauce recipes. Climate refugees? Only if you count New Yorkers buying second houses on stilts.
And then there’s the politics: a perpetual swing state that can’t decide whether it’s a mint-julep aristocracy or a crypto libertarian arcade. One week the legislature bans gender-studies textbooks; the next week it legalizes betting on whether the legislature will ban something else. Brussels watches this pageant with the relief of a divorcée observing someone else’s messy custody battle. If North Carolina can remain politically ambidextrous—subsidizing both evangelical pregnancy centers and offshore wind farms—then surely the EU can keep subsidizing both Greek pensions and Polish coal mines. Schadenfreude is a dish best served with vinegar-based sauce.
Culture follows the money, naturally. K-pop producers now scout Asheville’s indie scene for authentic banjo riffs, while Bollywood choreographers borrow step-dance moves from Appalachian State’s football halftime shows. Even the BBC, which once treated American states as flyover props, has dispatched a three-person crew to document “the new Nashville that isn’t Nashville.” Their dispatches air between segments on Ukrainian drone warfare and the British housing crisis, offering viewers a soothing reminder that somewhere, people still argue about mustard versus ketchup.
So what, in the end, does North Carolina export to the wider world? Microchips, obviously. But also a template for late-capitalist reinvention: take a region once famous for exporting lung cancer, add federal subsidies and a desperate sense of historical amnesia, and presto—instant relevance. The rest of us watch, half-admiring, half-horrified, like villagers observing the local prodigy who learned to juggle chainsaws and now tours the county fair. We applaud, we wince, we secretly wonder if we’re next.
And perhaps we are. Because if North Carolina can mutate from tobacco road to tech corridor without ever quite deciding who it wants to be when it grows up, then the joke might ultimately be on the rest of the planet. We thought we were laughing at an eccentric cousin; turns out he’s the one cashing the royalty checks.
