McAlister: A GOP electorate full of justifiable fury

The Republican Party was in its infancy when all heck broke loose on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1856, as Democratic Reps. Preston Brooks and Lawrence Keitt of South Carolina brutally attacked anti-slavery Republican Sen. Charles Sumner with a cane, severely wounding him.

Brooks, noting Sumner’s bloody but still-alive body, vowed, “Next time I will have to kill him.”

South Carolinians reelected both attackers, birthing the state’s reputation for political blood sport.

As if to underscore the point, in 1903, another S.C. Democrat (see a pattern here?), Lt. Gov. James H. Tillman, fulfilled many a politician’s fantasy by shooting to death a newspaper editor, N.G. Gonzales of The State.

Jurors bought his self-defense argument after his lawyer read to them from the editor’s ferocious criticisms of Tillman’s character.

By those standards, South Carolina is downright boring nowadays; we haven’t seen a good editor shooting in years. We generally fight with words. Lots of words. Most of the presidential candidates come out of our primaries with nothing worse than hoarse voices, and an electorate wishing the malady had stricken earlier.

However, their words are important. The voters who fret about “Washington gridlock” only have to listen to the Democratic and Republican candidates to find out why it is so: The differences between the parties are vast and important.

It’s tough to find common ground on fundamental issues such as tax hikes or tax cuts, abortion or life, uncontrolled spending or budget cuts. When the mainstream media talk of compromise, they usually mean Republicans giving in to Democrats.

In the Democratic race, a 74-year-old socialist curmudgeon who’s a dead ringer for a Wal-Mart greeter is wreaking havoc with party bosses, even though Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have few substantive differences. Spoiler alert: The bosses will reestablish control and nominate the candidate who is not trusted by a majority of Americans.

The Republican side is messier, largely because there are no bosses to fix the race. That makes it more fun, rowdy, diverse and complicated.

Republicans fielded a slate with two candidates of Hispanic origin, another who married the daughter of a Mexican migrant worker, a woman, an African-American, several Southerners and three Yankees. That fight card looks a whole lot more like America than two white politicians with AARP cards.

Many Democrats seem angry that Obama has socialized only half the country’s economy. They want the country to Bern. Those supporting Clinton seem to be, well, tired. The only voting bloc she captured in New Hampshire was those over 65.

If you want to see real anger you’ll have to meet Republicans — any Republicans. I’m talking about wounded-tiger anger after seven years of Barack Obama redefining good and bad.

Bad: American exceptionalism. Good: American weakness. Bad: Tax cuts to stimulate the economy. Good: Deficits. Bad: Hard work and individual enterprise. Good: Wealth redistribution. Good: The word of radical Muslim countries. Bad: Israel.

Obama is America’s first far-left president, and that’s why the political version of Newton’s law kicked in early in his administration. The actions of a real leftist produced an equal and opposite reaction of the hard right. The “all government is bad” philosophy was spawned by its evil twin, “all government is good.”

The problem with extreme political philosophies is that they wind up with some of the same ideas for exactly opposite reasons. Some on both extremes are isolationists, want a smaller military and have no interest in addressing cultural issues that conservatives hold dear.

Some (not all) in both camps insist that faith should be kept private and not be used to inform public policy debate.

While these ideas are considered mainstream in much of the Democratic Party, the vast majority of S.C. Republicans are nowhere near the edge. They cherish family values, believe America must remain strong to be free and insist that people informed by faith have a duty to put their ideas on the table for consideration.

And they are angry because of what Obama has done.

Odds are that on Saturday a record GOP turnout in South Carolina will pick the party’s nominee. Republicans will forget their differences and unite to undo that which has been done to the country we love.

And newspaper editors will be safe.

This story was originally published February 15, 2016 at 1:13 AM.