SC Republicans have a choice this week - Trump or country?
Voters in my neck of the woods are on the verge of sending a strong message. In the Republican primary for the 7th Congressional District next week, they will either affirm bedrock democratic principles and stick with the incumbent, Rep. Tom Rice, or prove they only value democracy if they get their way, and that way means prioritizing a love of Donald Trump over love of country. There’s no other honest way to explain what’s at stake.
I’m hoping we’ll follow our neighbor Georgia’s lead. There, Republican voters overwhelmingly cast ballots for two men who stood firm against Trump’s bald-faced attempts to steal an election he has repeatedly – and falsely – accused others of having stolen. They chose incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp over David Perdue and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over U.S. House Rep. Jody Hice. Perdue and Hice were Trump-endorsed men who had helped Trump sell the lie the 2020 presidential election results are illegitimate.
Depending on the state and region, Trump’s hold over the Republican Party has either been reaffirmed or found waning during recent primaries. In the 7th Congressional District, Rice is a Republican in a red district in an off-year election that favors Republicans taking back the U.S. House and maybe the U.S. Senate. In normal years, he would have a cakewalk to re-election. But in the aftermath of the attempted insurrection by Trump devotees on Jan. 6, 2021, nothing is normal. That’s why Rice might lose to Trump-endorsed Russell Fry, an opportunistic politician who has prioritized his own career advancement above love of country. This is only a contest because Rice did the right thing in voting for Trump’s impeachment for helping incite the insurrection attempt.
In a sane world, Republicans who have long deemed themselves better patriots than anyone else would have cheered him on and all but guaranteed his re-election. But this is no sane world.
Make no mistake, this isn’t about run-of-the-mill politics or policy, not about anti-abortion or abortion rights, not about tax cuts, not about how the coastal regions Rice has been representing for the past decade should balance concerns about climate change and a thriving tourism industry. This is about choosing either Trump or our democracy. Fry and everyone else in the race would likely emulate Rice’s voting record. There isn’t a dime’s difference between the candidates’ positions. Each would be a reliable vote for whatever Republican proposal that’s put on the House floor. And everyone knows it. Fry knows it, which is why he’s been hawking his Trump endorsement as much or more than explaining why he deserves the privilege of being handed so much power.
In many ways, this reminds me of the 1998 gubernatorial race between Republican incumbent David Beasley and challenger Democrat Jim Hodges. Beasley was governor during a strong economy in a state that was growing redder by the day. But what he believed was a calling from God led him to propose the removal of the Confederate flag – a racist relic from some of this country’s darkest days – from the State House. If not for that sin, he would have cruised to re-election.
Instead, Hodges became a one-term governor and the flag remained on State House grounds until after Dylann Roof committed a massacre in a Charleston church. Beasley lost because a group of angry white voters decided to punish him for the blasphemy of speaking against the Confederate flag. We’ll soon find out if a group of angry white voters will punish Rice for being more loyal to his duties to protect this democracy than to Trump.