Palmetto Pride

South Carolina

South Carolina happens to be one of my favorite states.

I’ve traveled there several times this year. It is hard not to like the home of John C. Calhoun, Robert Barnwell Rhett, and “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman. From the Confederacy to the Red Shirts, South Carolina has a racial heritage that I could spend years exploring.

In June, the CofCC held a Confederate Flag Rally in Columbia. We drove all the way from Charlottesville, VA to show up there. I engaged a counter protester from Atlanta and had some fun singing Dixie and waving the Confederate flag on the grounds of the state capital.

A month later, we came back to South Carolina to attend a CofCC regional meeting in Greenville. Finally, as I made the trek from Charlottesville to Birmingham in August, I stopped at Cowpens National Battlefield in Gaffney to learn more about Daniel Morgan’s insurgency in the South Carolina backcountry during the American Revolution.

Next year, the Sons of Confederate Veterans is having a “secession ball” in Charleston and a reenactment of the firing on Fort Sumter to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the War Between the States. If it were not for the Jefferson Davis parade which is scheduled to be held in Montgomery, I would be making yet another trip to the Palmetto State.

Mainstreaming South Carolina

My travels to South Carolina also played an important role in changing my ideological views. At the beginning of the year, I started out with the misguided perception that there was a vast ideological chasm separating racialists from conservatives.

In South Carolina though, the distinction between racialism and conservatism blurs. There are “conservatives” in South Carolina who are pro-White, pro-Southern, pro-Confederate, aware of racial differences, and hostile to immigration, multiculturalism, affirmative action, miscegenation and political correctness.

It gradually occurred to me that there is no reason why we can’t work with these people, organize them, and radicalize them. The South Carolina CofCC has enjoyed a lot of success with getting on mainstream talk radio, building coalitions with likeminded groups, holding successful demonstrations, and making inroads into the Tea Party.

I found my mind turning back to South Carolina voting patterns and polling data. The White majority in South Carolina has always been supportive of the Confederate flag. Nearly half the Whites in South Carolina also voted in 1998 to keep the state anti-miscegenation law. I’ve also known for years that there are millions of explicit Whites in South Carolina and Alabama.

The Confederate Flag Rally in Columbia was an early demonstration of the significance of the “Red” vs. “Blue” divide. Conservatives and White Nationalists intermingled in support of the Confederate flag while being heckled at the state capital by a SWPL protester from Atlanta.

Last month, the U.S. Senate race between Alvin Greene and Jim DeMint also showed that racial polarization was alive and well in South Carolina. In the 2010 midterm elections, Alvin Greene won 80 percent of the black vote while Jim DeMint took 90 percent of the White vote.

Setbacks in South Carolina

South Carolina isn’t as far along as Alabama and Georgia. The same is true of Virginia when compared to Tennessee or Idaho and Colorado when compared to Wyoming.

The problem in South Carolina is threefold:

(1) Nikki Haley – Nimrata Randhawa Haley is the new Governor of South Carolina. This is another Bobby Jindal situation. The mainstream media is determined to spin Haley and Jindal as “the new face” of the Republican Party.

This scenario was made possible by the Mark Sanford sex scandal and a Sarah Palin endorsement (part of her “Mama Grizzlies” campaign) that propelled Haley from last place to victory in the Republican primary.

(2) Lindsey Graham – For some reason that eludes me, South Carolina sent Lindsey Graham back to the Senate in 2008, arguably the worst Senator in the Republican Caucus. We’re going to have to put up with Graham until 2014.

(3) Tim Scott – In order to prove their anti-racist bona fides, the Charleston Tea Party slobbered over the negro Tim Scott and propelled him to victory in South Carolina 1. This is just the latest reminder that the Tea Party is a diffuse phenomenon.

Some Tea Party groups are pretty good. Some are worthless. Another example would be the Boise Tea Party which got Raul Labrador elected in Idaho 2. Seeing how Walter Minnick voted for the DREAM Act in the House, his defeat was no great loss to the pro-White movement.

Advances in South Carolina

The racial situation in South Carolina is not as dire as it first looks. The demographics here are more similar to Alabama and Georgia than Vermont. If can get our act together, these victories could prove to be only temporary setbacks.

(1) Jim DeMint – South Carolina has the unusual distinction of sending Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham to the Senate. DeMint won reelection in the 2010 midterm elections and has been a reliable restrictionist on immigration.

Graham and DeMint both represent the same electorate in the Palmetto State. The obvious solution to the Lindsey Graham problem is to knock him off in the 2014 Republican primary and replace him with a candidate more in the DeMint mold.

(2) Bob Inglis – The traitor Bob Inglis from Greenville who recently voted for the DREAM Act was defeated in the Republican primary in South Carolina 4.

As with Barack Obama, the Greenville Tea Party will probably have a case of buyer’s remorse with Tim Scott by the time 2012 rolls around. The solution to the Tim Scott problem is to knock him off in the 2012 primary in the same way that Bob Inglis was defeated in 2010.

(3) John Spratt – The Democrat John Spratt who voted for the DREAM Act in the lame duck was defeated in South Carolina 5 by Mick Mulvaney. If a longtime Democratic incumbent like Spratt can be defeated in South Carolina, then so can the untested Nikki Haley.

It is worth noting the difference in the statewide returns in the 2010 midterms. Jim DeMint won in a landslide over Alvin Greene, 62 to 28, with 792,133 votes. Nikki Haley won a much closer race against Vince Sheheen, 51 to 47, with 674,576 votes.

Far from being “the new face” of the Republican Party, Nikki Haley was a weaker candidate and ran significantly behind the arch conservative Jim DeMint, who won over 100,000 more votes statewide.

This was similar to Bobby Jindal who lost the 2003 gubernatorial election in Louisiana. Jindal won the 2007 gubernatorial election with 53 percent of the vote. He wasn’t facing a real opponent in that election because Senator John Breaux decided not to run for governor that year.

The Red Revolution in South Carolina

The Red Revolution played out in South Carolina in much the same way it did in Florida. It was a Republican victory sullied by Whites holding their nose to vote for Nikki Haley and Tim Scott.

Republicans went into the 2010 midterms with 4 out of 6 House seats in South Carolina. They emerged with 5 out 6 House seats after knocking off John Spratt in South Carolina 5. Bob Inglis was replaced in South Carolina 4 and Tim Scott, the great black hope, won the general election in South Carolina 1.

Nikki Haley held the governorship now occupied by Mark Sanford. Jim DeMint crushed Alvin Greene to win reelection to the U.S. Senate.

Heading into the 2010 midterms, Republicans controlled the South Carolina House, 73 to 51. In the next legislative session, they will also control the lower chamber, 75 to 48.

Republicans control the South Carolina Senate, 27 to 19. State senators serve four years terms. They will face voters in 2012 when both chambers of the South Carolina state legislature will be up for grabs.

As things stand today, South Carolina has a homosexual Senator, an Indian governor, and two negro congressmen. It also has a really good Senator, four White congressmen, one less RINO, and a Republican dominated state legislature.

There is room for improvement here.

South Carolina and Immigration

In spite of having an Indian governor, South Carolina is widely considered to be one of the states most likely to pass the Arizona-style immigration law in 2011. Republican state lawmakers should be able to push the bill through the legislature.

Nikki Haley has already said that she would sign an Arizona-style immigration law. Her Democratic opponent Vince Sheheen also said during the campaign that he would sign the bill too.

In 2008, South Carolina passed an earlier crackdown on illegal immigration under Gov. Mark Sanford. That bill made harboring and transporting illegal aliens a state crime and forced businesses to check the immigration status of their workers.

South Carolina has been at this for a while now. There is every reason to believe Republicans will be able to build upon the existing laws now that they are in an even stronger position in the state legislature.

South Carolina, Immigration, and NumbersUSA

According to NumbersUSA, South Carolina shakes out as follows on immigration:

Among the Republicans, Senator Lindsey Graham (D+), Senator Jim DeMint (A), Rep. Joe Wilson (B+), Rep. Barrett Gresham (A), Rep. Henry Brown (B), Rep. Bob Inglis (B). Inglis was defeated in the primary and voted for the DREAM Act.

Among the Democrats, Jim Clyburn (F) and John Spratt (C-). Clyburn is returning to Congress in a Democratic leadership position. Spratt, who recently voted for the DREAM Act, was defeated by the Republican Mick Mulvaney.

Nikki Haley will sign the Arizona-style immigration law. Tim Scott claims that promoting restrictionist immigration reform will be one of his top priorities in Congress. He supports English Only, Arizona’s SB 1070, and strengthening penalties on employers of illegal aliens.

Final Thoughts

South Carolina is a state where “mainstreaming” can have a lot of success.

(1) The political spectrum on immigration has been shifted so far to the right in South Carolina that even successful non-White candidates like Nikki Haley and Tim Scott have to tow the restrictionist line.

(2) Lindsey Graham has backed off his previous full throated support for comprehensive immigration reform. A few months ago, he was on FOX News proclaiming his opposition to birthright citizenship. Graham has also said that he intends to vote against the DREAM Act.

(3) South Carolina has already passed a crackdown on illegal immigration in 2008. We should get the Arizona-style law in 2011.

(4) The traitor Bob Inglis and the longtime incumbent Democrat John Spratt were defeated in 2010.

(5) The South Carolina CofCC has enjoyed a lot of success with its approach. This hasn’t escaped the attention of Leonard Zeskind who wrote about it in the Tea Party Nationalism report.

The path ahead for pro-Whites in South Carolina is fairly clear: push the Arizona-style immigration law and other good immigration bills through the state legislature. Dispense with Tim Scott in the 2012 primaries. Get rid of Nikki Haley and Lindsey Graham in the 2014 primaries.

This is doable.

Consider the alternative.