Sunday, January 31, 2021

GOP Censures?

An article in today's AikenStandard is titled "South Carolina GOP censures Rep. Rice for impeachment vote."  My thoughts follow, beginning with a comment on Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders, you see, is my Senator.  Well, not exactly the one I can vote for, or against, at election time, but the one I relate to well.  You see, Bernie regularly gets press that shows his opinion on whatever, and those opinions generally mirror opinions I might have.  Like I said, Bernie Sanders is my Senator.

Add to Bernie, SC Representative Rice for providing his thinking on his vote in support of what many feel is an obvious need for a second impeachment of former President Donald Trump.  And what did that get him?

Well, the GOP in my state voted to censure Representative Rice for that vote.  Right or wrong, that’s what they did.  Which makes me wonder if the current batch of state legislators remember our one-time Senator Strom Thurmond.  Strom was a Democrat, initially, as were national politicians from most southern states at the time.  Strom left that Democratic Party, first becoming an independent of note in national politics and eventually emigrating all the way to the Republican Party.  This, it seems, was just the start of a similar relocation of politicians from most of our southern states.  What was known as the “Solid Democratic South” continued as a solid group with the one difference.  They became, and remain, solidly Republican.

My opinion is, you see, if any censure is to be made of anyone in this matter, it is a censure of those members who voted the current party line on this issue—the vote for censure that indicated little actual thought was given by any one of our legislators to anything.

Thank you, Representative Rice.  When our current SC Governor moves for reelection, I hope you might consider running yourself.  It would be refreshing, to say the least, to have a Governor who thinks for himself when issues needed for South Carolina are given consideration.  Sometime that old “Party Line” just won’t do!


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