Nancy Mace cursing a constituent shows shallowness, not strength | Opinion
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace is far too immature to be South Carolina governor. Nothing could be clearer.
That doesn’t mean I’m a fan of any of her potential opponents for the seat, including state Attorney General Alan Wilson whose office should be scrutinized for how it handled a 2023 shooting in Horry County. That also doesn’t mean I’ve been impressed by Gov. Henry McMaster, whose tenure in the Governor’s Mansion I will remember most for his decision to crank up the state’s murder machinery after the death penalty had been dormant for several years.
We don’t yet have an official slate of candidates. But Mace is maybe the most prominent of would-be candidates — if only because she creates headlines by doing and saying inane things.
Some former Mace staff members have heavily criticized the First Congressional District representative, but she’s a master of gaining attention, which seems to be her primary talent and goal. Legislating and leading seem secondary, if they are concerns for her at all.
In recent months, she’s made her mark by repeatedly demonizing transgender people. That is when she isn’t taking credit for legislation that’s helped fund projects in Charleston even though she voted against it.
Her latest camera-grabbing moment came during Easter weekend. A constituent asked her a pretty tame question. When will she host a town hall, he wanted to know. He wasn’t a Mace fan, but the question was relevant. Republicans being asked tough questions by angry constituents in town halls around the country have repeatedly gone viral, so much that Republicans have been counseled to stop hosting them, or design them in ways that make those moments less likely.
Mace could have simply said she was going to host another one soon, or that she didn’t think town halls were necessary, and gone about her day. That would have been a mature response, something Mace doesn’t seem capable of pulling off. Instead, she talked about the dozen town halls she held last year and that she voted for gay marriage twice. How either of those things was relevant remains a mystery — though Mace later took to social media to mock the man for the length of the shorts he was wearing.
Even so, she still had the choice of just walking away. She didn’t take it.
She cursed the man. He cursed her in return. The pair then spent a good bit of time lobbing verbal insults at each other all while standing in an aisle at an Ulta Beauty store.
The words petty and unbecoming come to mind, though they don’t do the scene justice. Mace seems to believe such encounters make her look strong for not “backing down,” a signature claim of hers. But it only made her look small, weak.
I usually disagree with the civility police, for they often make substance subservient to style, even if unintentionally. But in Mace’s case, there is no substance, just an ugly hollowness, which is why her cursing a constituent further illustrated a political shallowness that has come to define her. She’s the queen of vacuousness.
There’s little reason to believe she’ll challenge the Trump administration’s plans to undercut South Carolina’s auto manufacturing industry, including BMW in Spartanburg. As governor, she’d likely do what many “leaders” in the state have done, and that is say nothing.
Mace would probably be too busy trying to ferret out five young trans athletes who sought waivers to play in South Carolina high school sports in recent years than in protecting the auto industry or in pushing the state to take steps that will better prepare it to compete in a 21st century global economy.
Or she’ll be too focused on pretending to look tough by lobbing a string of epithets after being asked a reasonable question.
These are uncertain times economically and democratically. They call for leaders who want to lead more than they want to be on TV no matter the cost. The only thing certain about Mace is that she will prioritize her own naked ambition above all else. South Carolina can’t afford that.