This is not about national politics. It’s about insanity right here at home. But in defense of South Carolina, it’s insanity that people are trying to stir up from the outside.
Of course, we all know that South Carolinians have always had their own mental problems in the realm of politics. Looking back, Tillmanism stands as a good example. An even better one is the matter of starting the Civil War. And no, we haven’t completely put such problems behind us. So we really, really don’t need loonies from outside trying to involve us in their nonsense.
This is occasioned by my receipt a couple of days back of this text:
Hi, this is Annie with American Action Fund.
Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers, but State Rep. Micah Caskey voted with the Democrats to elect Murrell Smith as Speaker of the South Carolina State House instead of a conservative Speaker candidate.
2 more years of Murrell Smith as Speaker means that Democrats will continue to chair powerful subcommittees and that key conservative legislation like closing the primaries, income tax repeal, and medical freedom are dead on arrival.
Please call Rep. Micah Caskey at xxx-xxx-xxxx and let him know you’re disappointed in his vote and demand he votes for a conservative Speaker in the future.
You probably don’t really see just how crazy that is until you know a few more of those old-fashioned things called “facts” as they bear on this matter of the re-election of the speaker.
Yes, I know facts are out of fashion in the Trump era, but Micah’s kind of like me in that he has little means of fighting back beyond, you know, the truth. I guess he and I are kind of retro in that way.
Shortly after I received that attack, I received this from Micah:
This is your State Rep. Micah Caskey.
You may have received a text message earlier today from an out-of-state, dark-money group critical of me and my support for our conservative Republican Speaker of the House.
The facts are pretty simple: of 88 Republicans, 71 of us voted to re-elect Speaker Smith. Our Speaker is a lifelong conservative who has proposed a strong conservative agenda for our next session.
The text message you received was from the so-called “Freedom” Caucus who seem hellbent on lying and misleading voters.
If you ever have any questions about my votes, please call me directly at xxx-xxx-xxxx. I’m always happy to chat with you directly about my conservative voting record.
Merry Christmas to you and your family!
STOP to end.
(A quick note: You’ll notice that I Xed out the phone number from both texts. I had originally not planned to do that, since the outside nuts were just giving the same number Micah himself shared with his constituents. But he was sharing that because he is fully willing to talk to anyone to whom he has an obligation to answer. The group attacking him wants him to be overwhelmed by angry people who have zero legitimate claim on his time. I’m not going to help them with that. Micah will get more than enough response from his constituents. If you’re a constituent and for some reason didn’t get his text, check with me.)
So as you see, the out-of-state group not for “conservative Republicans,” but for a small fringe group (by this measure, 17 out of 88, although some of those may have had other reasons for opposing Murrell Smith), generally called the “Freedom Caucus.”
Why would these people think the actual “conservative Republicans” (whose lives the “Freedom Caucus” does everything it can to make miserable) would cave in and go along with the crazies?
Well, did you see what happened last year? An even smaller percentage of nutballs in the U.S. House managed to intimidate the rest of the GOP caucus into dumping their speaker. These people have been feeling their oats, especially since Trumpism’s big win in November. So why, by their way of “thinking,” should South Carolina be any different?
And the Freedom Caucus has no reason to love Micah Caskey. He constantly criticises, goads, mocks, and otherwise harasses that bunch on his Twitter feed. His feed, for instance, was the first place I saw the news that the leader of the Freedom Caucus was, according to the feds, to face criminal charges.
But it goes beyond Micah. He is but one of 71 GOP House members to support Smith. Consequently, I later saw similar texts received by friends who are not residents of Micah’s district.
Anyway, the good news is that the GOP caucus — which has controlled the S.C. House since 1995, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, no matter what you or I or anyone else says or does — is still able to resist the worst forces in our national politics, at least on the matter of whom they want as their leader.
We don’t get many reasons to cheer South Carolina for lagging behind the rest of the country. But this is one very good excuse to do so. I will enjoy it while I can…
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By the way, the Freedom Caucus, just yesterday, suspended Rep. May from their clubhouse. Here’s what Micah had to say about that:
Apparently, the outside group’s efforts to intimidate him are not working.