“I really feel like 2016 was the year that the mask came off” One can only hope. North Carolina’s MAGAfied GOP is turning off once-faithful Republicans and turning them into once-Republicans (USAToday): Ex-Republican Phebe Roberson, 75, said she “can’t stand” former President Donald Trump and voted against him in North Carolina’s GOP primary earlier this month. She also cast a ballot against Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the incendiary Republican gubernatorial candidate who received Trump’s endorsement ahead of the primary. The right fringe, she says, has “stolen my Republican party.” She cast her primary ballot for Nikki Haley. Justin Bradford, 47, of Pinehurst, once voted a straight Republican ticket, but began moving away from the GOP a dozen years ago when he switched his registration to unaffiliated and voted for Barack Obama. Still, he said the Republican party “hadn’t really turned the corner yet.” “I really feel like 2016 was the year that the mask came off,” Bradford said. North Carolina’s fall election will be consequential not only for Joe Biden but for the state’s Democrats. The “road to the presidency” goes through North Carolina, term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper (D) tells reporters. Except for Obama’s win in 2008, Republicans have won the state’s electoral votes for nearly half a century. Then, of course, there is Michele Morrow, the NC GOP’s home-schooling candidate for superintendent of the state’s schools. She’s the Witch of the East to Robinson’s “worse than the other one” Witch of the West. Robinson advocates a total ban on abortion. Bradford…