It's gonna be hard for other Republicans in the governor's race to keep up with Nancy Mace.
The congresswoman's ability to connect with a not-unsubstantial bloc of primary voters is uncanny. As she showed us last week, the sky's not even the limit.
The Post and Courier's Nick Reynolds reports that, at one of the first events of her gubernatorial campaign, Mace had 'em cheering from the start.
Presented with the opportunity to ask a leading candidate for governor a serious question about South Carolina's future, one particular voter didn't quiz Mace about taxes, roads or decrepit bridges, the operation of state government or even emergency preparedness -- which, hey, 'tis the season.
No, Mace was asked if she'd ban fluoride from the water. Because, you know, Make America Deliverance Again.
And because Mace reads a room -- and sadly too much of the Republican electorate -- so well, she not only promised to flush fluoride, she also said she'd ban "chemtrails."
To the instantaneous whoops and hollers from the conspiracy-addicted people who decide elections in this state.
Top that, Alan Wilson. Try and gerrymander a better answer, Ralph Norman.
The congresswoman couldn't have made those folks any happier if she'd promised to scour the flat earth for Bigfoot. Because "chemtrails" -- once the looniest of internet conspiracy theories -- has gone mainstream.
Basically, the same people who most loudly proclaim manmade climate change a hoax nevertheless think the government controls the weather. WHICH IS LITERALLY MANMADE CLIMATE CHANGE.
But don't think about that cognitive dissonance too hard. One man actually got a brain worm thinking like that.
To best illustrate the theory behind this phenomenon, check out the evidence presented earlier this summer by the social media user "Chemtrails Lowcountry."
In a couple of videos posted on the cesspool ... uh, social media website ... formerly known as Twitter, Chemtrails Lowcountry showed the very thin trail of exhaust left by one jet while, in another part of the sky, a different plane left a very puffy cloud of exhaust.
Which is clearly proof of the government's nefarious geothermal engineering plans. Obviously.
Lest you think this scientific analysis is akin to the first cavemen's explanation of stars, or a simplistic conflation of crop-dusting with jet engine tailpipes, understand that these are experts who've "done my own research."
No, silly, that doesn't mean they've tested particulate matter in the atmosphere, or conducted control tests with atmospheric anomalies over time.
They looked it up on the internet. Duh.
Just like the folks who've done their own research and declared COVID vaccines lethal, yet have no hesitation to ingest whatever miracle weight loss drug that radio talk show hosts (with no medical expertise or FDA approval) sell them.
A French political philosopher two centuries ago said that, in a democracy, people get the government they deserve. Unfortunately, so do the rest of us.
We now live in a world where half the country's newspaper of record is no longer The New York Times, but the National Enquirer. A lot of people who vote will tell you the "alien autopsy" video is real.
Mace understands all this. She once publicly asked about the existence of "extraterrestrial biological entities" in a congressional hearing. Which was not only fascinating; it was politically brilliant (hey, I wanted to know).
And they're still talking about her on Reddit.
A lot of people today don't understand why they should pay taxes for government services like police and garbage collection, but absolutely know why it's a crime that a middling, faux-homey restaurant remodeled, or can explain how the Epstein files -- which consumed their every breath for years -- now actually don't exist.
That is just politics today, and it's hard to keep up. And nobody in the South Carolina governor's race can do it, at least not as well as Mace.
So, other candidates can say they stand with President Trump, promise to secure our borders and expand our freedom by taking it away from others. That's fine. Mace can do that, too.
But she's already promised to ban chemtrails in South Carolina skies ... just like Tennessee and Florida already did. And these days, that's more of a winning primary strategy than filing amicus briefs -- whatever those are.
Because there's something in the water these days, and it ain't fluoride.