Nancy Mace is the latest to ignore what she once said about Donald Trump | Opinion
It’s official. With the results from New Hampshire’s primary and Rep. Nancy Mace’s endorsement of Donald Trump (a week after Sen. Tim Scott’s), former S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley is on a personal Bataan Death March. Indicators are that Haley will continue through at least South Carolina’s primary, but her campaign may essentially be walking dead by Feb. 24.
At the outset of this race, I thought I’d be juggling a busy February. There were two top S.C. Republicans vying for the presidency, each of whom had overcome enormous odds to achieve unprecedented political success. Haley became the first woman of any racial background to become governor of South Carolina. Scott was the first Black man since Reconstruction from the Deep South to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Scott’s campaign never felt real. Haley’s has entered the zombie stage.
Trump is no longer hearing the click-clack of Haley’s heels, as he had been just a few weeks ago. All he’s experienced since Iowa is what he’s experienced since late 2015 — Republican after Republican falling in line behind a man who bragged on video about sexually assaulting women, who has been found liable for sexually abusing a woman, who tried to bribe Ukraine to dig up dirt on his top political foe, who stole classified documents, including some with nuclear secrets and war plans, and refused to return them, who was paid millions by foreign governments while president, who incited a violent insurrection attempt, and who has vowed to punish political enemies and not be beholden to any law if returned to the White House.
Trump was always the front-runner. There was part of me, though, that hoped there were enough Republicans willing to buck their party to protect the country from the threat that is a second Trump presidency. Though I wanted to see neither Haley nor Scott in the White House and I knew each would attract more independents in a match-up against President Joe Biden than Trump, I’ve long understood a Haley or Scott victory would give us a fighting chance to avoid what’s increasingly looking like an inevitable calamity.
Having one of our two major political parties renominate Trump after the Jan. 6 attack is akin to making Robert. E. Lee president after the Civil War.
This democracy is far – far – from perfect. Through fits and starts, we’ve spent the past couple of centuries trying to make it better. That will be less possible if we turn it over to a man and cult-like followers whose loyalty is to him rather than to the country they proclaim to love. Case in point is Mace.
While the Capitol was being overrun, this is what Mace, who represents the First District of South Carolina, was saying: “Just evacuated my office in Cannon due to a nearby threat. Now we’re seeing protesters assaulting Capitol Police. This is wrong. This is not who we are. I’m heartbroken for our nation today.”
She also said, on Jan. 7, 2021: “everything that he’s worked for ... all of that — his entire legacy — was wiped out yesterday. We’ve got to start over.”
This is what she said while endorsing the man who incited the event that forced her to evacuate her office: “By every barometer, our lives and our nation were better under President Trump. The economy was booming, our border was locked down and our nation and her allies were safer because our adversaries feared him. Donald Trump’s record in his first term should tell every American how vital it is he be returned to office.”
I have my issues with Biden. His near-immediate acquiescence to a right-wing Israeli government gave Israel the green-light to punish all Palestinians for Hamas’ evil. The ripple effects of that decision will be felt for decades. But I know Trump will not only make the Israel-Gaza conflict worse, he’s willing to tear down our democracy for personal gain. Trump only cares about Trump. He doesn’t even care about his blindly-loyal supporters. If only they could see.