Nancy Mace is convinced the good folks of the First Congressional District of South Carolina are age bigots who’d rather see the U.S. economy tank than support any bipartisan deal that might make President Joe Biden look good. She believes they are extremist idiots who are more interested in being supplied with a quiver of silly political quips popular with the Fox News crowd than being a responsible representative in an age of divided government.
She has no respect for the people who sent her to Washington, D.C.
There’s no other way to read the statement she decided to tweet while delicate last-minute negotiations for a deal on the debt ceiling were playing themselves out.
“Washington is broken. Republicans got outsmarted by a President who can’t find his pants,” the congresswoman tweeted. “I’m voting NO on the debt ceiling debacle because playing the DC game isn’t worth selling out our kids and grandkids.”
The U.S. could be on the verge of the first default in our history – something that can’t be undone – which could mean a global economic catastrophe that will harm the most vulnerable among us most, and Mace decided to weigh in as though she was trying to win first place in a high school debate for a plastic trophy that will be collecting dust in a few years anyway.
Mace gets credit for sounding reasonable on issues such as abortion, where she has spoken against the Republican Party’s penchant for six-week abortion bans, which would effectively end abortion access and have put pregnant women in an increasing number of barbaric situations. She’s also spoken in favor of sensible gun control, though did not join a minority of Republicans and most Democrats on fairly recent legislation that pushed us a step in the right direction. She says she doesn’t mind bucking her party if it’s the right thing to do. And yet in this case, she’s taken the easy way out and fell in line with the hardliners of her party who are willing to blow up the entire economy just to get their way.
For those who don’t follow such shenanigans closely, you should know that when Donald Trump was in the White House, Republicans were not big on holding the debt ceiling hostage. They raised it without much of a fuss even while adding trillions of dollars to the debt and deficit, particularly through irresponsible measures such as huge tax cuts that were heavily weighted to benefit the wealthiest.
It’s a pattern that has repeated itself for several decades now. The deficit usually falls when a Democrat is president and rises when a Republican is in the White House. Republicans scream bloody murder about “our children’s future” while insisting on cuts to critical programs that help kids and the needy during Democratic administrations but are happy to bloat the deficit when they are in charge. Besides, there should be no debate over the debt ceiling because there should be no debt ceiling. It’s akin to running up the credit card balance then refusing to pay if the company doesn’t give you concessions. (A debt ceiling compromised pass through the House without Mace’s help.)
That’s the hypocrisy Mace has chosen to adopt. But for her, it’s worse. She couldn’t even just make a political argument about spending and taxes; she had to demean President Joe Biden for his age – even though she represents a part of a state that is growing older and whiter.
A President who can’t find his pants, she mocked. Hilarious.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the 60 and older population in South Carolina is the fastest growing segment and might comprise 27 percent of the state’s residents by 2030, a more than 37 percent increase since 2012.
Mace is only 45 years old. Maybe that’s why cracking wise about another person’s age seems appropriate to her. It’s a signal to the Fox News mafia that she won’t stray too far from the ranch no matter how many times she pretends to be an independent motivated by principle alone.
Issac Bailey is a McClatchy opinion writer based in Myrtle Beach.
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