A year into her congressional career, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace isn’t quite as doctrinaire as most of her GOP colleagues. There’s no doubt that the South Carolinian is a conservative who very rarely votes with Democrats — no one would think to call Mace a “moderate” — but she’s broken with her party’s orthodoxy on a handful of occasions.
The day after the Jan. 6 attack, for example, the idiosyncratic congresswoman said Donald Trump’s legacy had been “wiped out“ by his role in the insurrectionist riot. She soon after complained, “We have allowed QAnon conspiracy theorists to lead us.” Months later, Mace also voted with the majority to enforce a subpoena against Steve Bannon.
Perhaps most notably, after Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert directed anti-Muslim rhetoric at a Democratic colleague, Mace denounced the Coloradan’s bigoted smear. This sparked a feud with Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom Mace called a “bats— clown” by way of Twitter emojis.
The right-wing Georgian took her concerns to Trump directly, as if he were the grown-up teacher who’d help mediate a conflict among fighting children.
It had a lasting effect: This week, the former president announced his support for Mace’s GOP primary rival. Trump called the incumbent congresswoman “absolutely terrible,” adding that Mace’s “remarks and attitude have been devastating for her community, and not at all representative of the Republican Party to which she has been very disloyal.”
It’s not surprising that Mace, facing the prospect of losing her seat after just one term, is scrambling to improve her position ahead of her primary race in June. What is surprising is how the South Carolinian is trying to save her career. The State newspaper in Columbia reported yesterday:
One day after former President Donald Trump endorsed one of her Republican primary challengers, South Carolina U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace stood outside Trump Tower in New York City to make her case. In a video posted to Twitter Thursday morning, Mace defended her political credibility, touted her ties to Trump and questioned Republican Katie Arrington’s ability to deliver for Republicans, even after Arrington secured Trump’s endorsement.
Just to be clear, when the report noted that Mace stood outside Trump Tower in New York, it’s being quite literal: The congresswoman went to Manhattan, stood across the street from the Trump Organization’s home, and filmed a video of herself for social media.
New York City is, for the record, nearly 800 miles away from her Charleston district.
But every bit as important as the setting was the message: Mace gushed for nearly two minutes about her love and affection for Trump’s political genius. She boasted about having worked for Trump’s 2016 campaign, bragged about her support for his 2020 re-election bid, and celebrated the former president as a giant of the modern age. It was a pitiful display. Trump criticized her on Wednesday, so Mace went to Trump Tower on Thursday to effectively pledge her fidelity to the former president. Is this the sort of thing the congresswoman has to do to save her career in red state? Perhaps. But a little self-respect goes a long way. We don’t see Rep. Liz Cheney groveling in front of Trump Tower, pleading for support after the former president endorsed her primary challenger. The moral of the story is that Mace and her team believe the key to success in Republican politics in 2022 is abandoning dignity and abasing oneself on a New York City sidewalk. We’ll find out in four months whether this was strategically the right call.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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