Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), photo at left, disrupted a CNN panel on Thursday, August 15, 2024, by deliberately mispronouncing Kamala Harris’s name (see story here).
She knows better, having come to Congress 3½ years ago from a public relations background (read bio here). She’s just being a jerk.
She’s a mean and nasty person. That’s just the way she is. All of her marriages and personal relationships failed, her entire staff quit, and her own chief of staff ran against her (see story here).
If she’s trying to copy Trump’s sharp-elbows style, that may not be a wise political strategy. George Will, a political journalist since the Nixon days, says it’s growing stale with voters (see story here).
My own First Rule of Politics is, “Never piss somebody off unless you gain something from it.” Mace’s behavior violates this rule. Gratuitously disrespecting someone is not only pointless, but counterproductive. She may be hurting Trump more than helping him.
It reminds me of what George Will wrote years ago about big lies and little lies. He pointed out that Hitler got away with big lies because people couldn’t believe he was lying (see Wikipedia here), then said Nixon tells lies “so petty and demeaning you wondered why he stoops to it.”
I’m left wondering why Mace stoops to this. It probably satisfies some visceral need of hers.