Opinion: Burns Leads Nightmare Slate in U.S. House 3 Race
By Paul Hyde
Depending on your perspective, South Carolina’s 3rd District GOP battle is either a farce or a nightmare.
I’m leaning toward nightmare.
One prominent candidate, Mark Burns, has said in the past that parents and teachers who talk to children about LGBTQ issues should be tried for treason and, if found guilty, should be executed.
Burns, who Time magazine called “Donald Trump’s top preacher,” also suggested that Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell should be executed for considering gun control legislation.
In addition, Burns has said if elected he would seek to bring back the witch hunts of the 1950s by reviving the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee.
People found guilty of treason by that committee would be, you guessed it, executed as well, Burns said.
I’ve lived in the 3rd District for 30 years, most of my life, and I’ve never seen anything like this kind of extremist rhetoric.
What makes the Burns farce a nightmare is that former President Trump has actually endorsed Burns, turning aside from the six other candidates on the ballot for the Republican nomination.
That endorsement may count for something in the Upstate.
Burns made his strident comments less than two years ago when he was running for the 4th Congressional District seat. (Burns has been adept at running for different congressional seats.) He sought the 4th District Republican nomination twice, failing both times, but he didn’t have a Trump endorsement during those campaigns.
Burns hasn’t been emphasizing treason and execution in his current race, but he doesn’t appear to have recanted those past positions and publicly apologized for them.
One wonders how Burns, if elected, intends to work closely with South Carolina’s senior senator, Graham, when he wants the latter tried for treason and perhaps executed.
The twice-divorced Burns, whose campaign signs shout “GOD FIRST,” has admitted to falsely claiming to have earned a bachelor’s degree and falsely claiming to have served six years in the U.S. Army Reserve.
Passion for the death penalty
Another 3rd District candidate, Stewart Jones, seems to share Burns’ passion for execution. Jones, a Republican state representative from Laurens County, was a co-sponsor of legislation last year that could make a woman subject to the death penalty if she has an abortion in South Carolina.
That legislation, of course, made international headlines as one of the most extreme proposed anti-abortion measures in the nation.
The South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023 failed, of course, because the majority of the Legislature doesn’t want to put South Carolina women in front of the firing squad, a currently authorized form of execution in South Carolina.
Jones is a member of the ultra-conservative S.C. Freedom Caucus, a state legislative group that seems more interested in political theater than in actually governing.
Among his other misguided actions, Jones fought against Gov. Henry McMaster’s State of Emergency initiatives in response to COVID-19. Jones argued McMaster’s initiatives were too onerous. In fact, the opposite is true: Because state leaders let down their guard, South Carolina had the 10th highest COVID death rate in the nation in 2021, the worst year of the pandemic.
Burns and Jones, to say the least, are divisive candidates, promoting hatred and fear of the demonized other — whether the other is the LGBTQ community or women who support reproductive rights.
Dystopian writer Margaret Atwood described this authoritarian mindset: “We’re going to make things so much better, but first, we have to get rid of those people.”
Not all candidates in the 10-county 3rd District GOP race are bomb-throwers like Burns and Jones. For one, Kevin Bishop, who served as Sen. Graham’s longtime communications director, is a solid candidate who knows the ways of Washington and would be a strong partner with local and state government.
Bishop, of course, is running for Graham’s old congressional seat. It’s perhaps odd that Graham, Trump’s golf buddy, couldn’t finagle a Trump endorsement for Bishop.
Hope and decency
The 3rd District voters I know are longing for a person of character and decency to unify the district, particularly after the “traditional family values” incumbent, U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan, was accused by his wife in divorce papers of having multiple affairs. Duncan, who admitted to at least one affair and reportedly took out a gag order against his estranged wife, chose not to seek re-election.
Nikki Haley has said that politics in South Carolina is a “blood sport.”
What we need throughout South Carolina is a politics of hope and optimism, not of fear, hatred and division. Thirty-two years ago, I attended the Republican National Convention in Houston, Texas and heard one of Ronald Reagan’s last major speeches.
It was pure Reagan, forward-looking and hopeful: “I live for the future,” he said, “a country that is forever young.”
He spoke of common sense and decency, concluding with, “And whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears.”
Could we restore a Reaganite politics of hope and decency to South Carolina?
Paul Hyde is a veteran journalist and longtime resident of the Upstate