You have to (carefully) hand it to Nancy Mace: She knows how to create drama.
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We often talk about the House GOP’s Performance Artist Caucus, i.e., the lawmakers who seem a lot less concerned with doing their job and a lot more with being the center of attention.
Back in the day (before this nonsense started with the emergence of Tea Party Republicans, who now seem so quaint in comparison), there were perhaps only a handful of congressmen who fit that bill, and their shenanigans were fairly benign. That’s because they were usually angling to make a name for themselves to perhaps run for senator or governor one day, so they couldn’t get too crazy.
Also, social media had not yet made the entire country lose its mind.
Those were the good old times.
Nowadays, in no particular order, it’s all about owning the libs, getting on Fox News, “earning” followers, and capturing the attention of the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
And, because everybody wants a piece of that pie, the caucus has grown by leaps and bounds, and it is now as huge as a Trump boast.
In the coming year, we will periodically rank GOP lawmakers according to where they fit in the pecking order of this Performance Artist Caucus.
However, we want to put all House Republicans on notice right now that they will have to step up their games if they want to replace Rep. Nancy Mace (SC) at the top of the list.
The greatest drama queen of Congress has had quite a few weeks.
A firm believer in making her own luck, Mace has managed to create a couple of controversies that are playing extremely well with Republican voters. Who could forget when her home was “vandalized” (in the least vandalizing manner) in 2021 by either a confused Antifa supporter or another nefarious character whose handwriting shares some similarities with Mace’s?
Since then, she has always made sure to stay in the headlines. However, since the election, she has shifted into a higher gear.
First, she conjured up a crisis over which bathrooms Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), the country’s first trans member of Congress, could use.
Was this an issue McBride raised? Of course not.
“I’m not here to fight about bathrooms,” McBride stated last month when the issue arose.
Well, too bad, because Mace was… and she hasn’t stopped since, hashtags, branded t-shirts, and all.
And we really have to hand it to the Palmetto State Republican: her talent for self-promotion and drama is actually quite remarkable.
In typical GOP fashion, she manages to cast herself as the victim – even when she is trying to bully somebody like McBride.
In Mace’s case, that’s at least partially justified, as she is a survivor of sexual violence. According to her, she was raped when she was 16 and sexually assaulted two years prior.
While neither incident was reported to the police, there is no reason to doubt her, and she deserves everybody’s sympathy.
However, in particular because Mace has made her victimhood such a big part of her politics, it is also fair to criticize her for not speaking out against adjudicated and accused sexual predators like Trump or Pete Hegseth.
In other words, her outrage and victimhood are employed very strategically, for example when somebody points out that she is a bit of a hypocrite on the issue.
Then, earlier this week, she became the target of a vigorous three-to-five-second handshaking attack (two-handed, no less).
Fortunately, her injuries did not require medical attention… just some heavy tweeting and a couple of props.
You do have to hand it to Mace (carefully, of course); she is dedicated to her craft.
Therefore, any other GOP performance artists will really have to improve their games before we release our inaugural rankings next month.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
