Still, South Carolina, the South’s first Republican primary, has long been considered a bellwether state. With one exception, all of the state’s primary winners became candidates. The exception was Newt Gingrich in 2012, who won the primary but lost the nomination to Mitt Romney.
With President Trump holding a long lead Saturday, pundits wondered how this loud-mouthed New York bully could wrest the nomination away from the homegrown gal who was twice elected governor. I’m busy trying to figure out how it can be done. My first reaction is to remember Bill Murray from “Groundhog Day.” Murray, a television weatherman, hides his boredom as he sarcastically explains to producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) why the Punxsutawney locals are so excited about their annual groundhog festival. I can’t do it.
“Yeah, they’re idiots, Rita.”
I apologize to anyone who may be easily offended.
Suffice it to say that certain South Carolinians love Trump not because he’s really bad, but because he’s so bad. Also, and this is of no small importance, the mainstream media almost always despises him. If “fake news” doesn’t like President Trump, he “thinks” he must be doing the right thing, but four criminal cases against him will continue to weigh on Trump in the coming months. until the summer, even though it will likely keep him away from campaigning and the courts.
President Trump convinced his supporters that these were “sham lawsuits.” I recently watched a CNN interview with several “typical” South Carolina women, and at least one of them said that the moment she saw President Trump handcuffed, she jumped into the wagon. He says he jumped on it. (Handcuffs may be arousing to some women.) Trump, on the other hand, seems unable to stop his aggressive behavior, which some people find attractive. He said “black people” like him because they empathize with his plight as a person who was wrongly arrested when he had done nothing wrong. Yes, Rita, he’s an idiot.
Haley, who grew up managing the accounts for her parents’ retail clothing business, was a successful storyteller who lost her life to a spoiled and abusive misogynist. Then again, there’s nothing mysterious about a good old boy system that only pauses occasionally to let the women in edgewise. I feel comfortable saying things like this because I come from this culture and I can tell some stories.
The ironies of this very unfortunate mess are rich. Despite its polite society, South Carolina is largely a cultural desert. Relatively speaking, there are islands of sophistication in the Upcountry (Greenville-Spartanburg), Midland (Columbia), and Lowcountry (Charleston). But the rest of the state is a network of rural, economically depressed, uneducated poor people whose families generations ago were once someone. Many white people living in these areas feel alienated, excluded, and often hopeless. They have little hope but feel that immigrants are illegally entering their country and taking what is rightfully theirs.
When a big don comes to town and shakes hands at Waffle House, people suddenly feel noticed and important. This is magic. That is power.
For all her political sophistication, Haley is incapable of involving such people, even though she herself is from the small, empty Burgh of Bamberg. I can say that because my people came from Barnwell, just 32 miles down the road. road. Adding to her uniqueness, Haley is a first generation Indian American who grew up with dark skin in a southern white culture. She knows firsthand what racism feels like. Her face should be on billboards as a modern-day heroine of a quintessential American story. She should also be the next president of the United States.
And that could happen if she were the Republican nominee. Polls have repeatedly shown that she will defeat Joe Biden. Trump will lose to Biden just as he lost in 2020.
Some say Haley didn’t do enough to maintain relationships in her home state. Others say she got too excited after joining President Trump’s cabinet as US ambassador to the United Nations. One thing Trumpian white Republican men can’t stand is women who are smarter than they are and let it be known.
That, my friends, is what happened in a nutshell. The good old boys have done it again.