sOur Carolina seems to have a penchant for rebellion. Not only did the state militia fire the first shots at Fort Sumter that launched the Civil War, the former separatist center played a huge role in Donald Trump’s rise and fall, including the recent insurrection attempt on the U.S. Capitol.
Various political agents in this state, past or present, contributed to the January 6 march and the tragic events that followed. Separately, Southern Carolinians have been overrepresented in efforts to defend the president’s behavior. Politics has always been a bloody sport here, but the recent siege, a modern version of barbarians at the gate, was, as they say, the next level. The same is true of subsequent efforts to minimize it.
This does not mean that the local people mentioned here are responsible for what finally happened. But there is a cautionary tale for everyone involved: when people play dirty – and Trump has always played for real – people can get hurt. The crowd’s venal and relentless attack on the Capitol will be recorded as one of the most horrifying and frightening events in our nation’s history. Anyone who played a part in this, most importantly Trump himself, must accept some responsibility for what happened.
The most unexpected was the news that Adam Piper, executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association and longtime former aide to South Carolina attorney general Alan Wilson, took responsibility for the January 5 automatic calls that encouraged supporters of Trump to attend the rally in Washington and then march to the capital. Wilson condemned the calls, which were paid for by the RAGA fundraising arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund. RAGA condemned the ensuing violence and Piper resigned.
The main organizer of the rally at Ellipse, however, was the fundraiser Caroline Wren. Although Wren is not a South Carolina native, she served as finance director for Republican Senator Lindsey Graham in 2014, raised money for Governor Henry McMaster in 2018 and is close to the Trump family. Graham, to our enduring perplexity, was almost devout in his loyalty to Trump, despite having accurately described him in 2015 as a “xenophobe, racist, religious fanatic” who “would be a total, complete and total disaster” as president .
Truer words. Still, often, for the past four years, Trump and Graham have played golf together frequently. Perhaps this explains why Graham is leading the fight against Trump’s second impeachment and has refused, until the bitter end, to hold a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee to consider Judge Merrick Garland, Biden’s nominee for Attorney General of the States. United.
As this strange world continues to spin, South Carolina also produces four of the five lawyers that Trump initially hired to defend him at the impeachment trial. To his credit – and proof that not everyone here has the uprising in his bones – all five recently abandoned Trump because of his favorite legal strategy. They were willing to discuss the issue of constitutionality, but not, as Trump wanted, to support the false claim that he really won the election.
Finally, the Republican Party of South Carolina recently censored one of its own, Congressman Tom Rice, for voting for Trump’s impeachment, citing his “total failure” in response to the Capitol siege. That’s right: Rice was censored for doing the right thing. Punishment is swift for those who dare to betray the party and the man who controls the base of the Republican Party.
But I can’t help wondering if the Democrats haven’t seen this impeachment back a bit either. My bet is that Trump may be eagerly anticipating his approaching judgment. Banned from social media and not loved by Palm Beach, he may well hope to be the center of attention again.
A show starring Himself with coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is the subject of your peculiar dreams. Then, almost certainly, the newly martyred Trump will be back on the stage, holding rallies in large venues, including some familiar places across the South and especially here, where his true believers apparently do not tire.
It has always seemed strange to me (and certainly to millions of others) that such a small state – whose cemeteries, I must mention, are full of my ancestors that go back hundreds of years – has so much influence in such a large and diverse country. Strange, but not accidental. After leaving an all-male political rally in Columbia several decades ago, Richard Nixon told Pat Buchanan, who recounted the story, that there was nothing in that room but cigar smoke, sweat and anger. “This is the future of this party, right here in the South,” said Nixon.
He was right and did the job for him, like almost every Republican presidential candidate since. Trump was the full bloom of Nixon’s prediction and South Carolina is still spreading anger, adding yet another layer of shame to a state that, like a dog tied to a tree, knows no difference.