Wandering Panda

Want to know why Republicans lost? Sure, the economy is tough and some people blackpilled and the normies want normal, but really it was by and large shitty candidates on the GOP side. No where was this more apparent than the soul of the South: South Carolina Full disclosure, I don't know shit about fuck, and I've only ever golfed with one person in this story, but here goes. In a sea of shitty candidates like John James who needed a gerrymandered district to win his first race ever, to Vivek fucking Ramaswamy, Darlene Graham stands out as the worst of the bunch, and her defeat was the most humiliating of the major races. But she didn't do it alone. Sure, she had basically no political experience, didn't know where Taiwan was, and is only known because her gay brother was a Senator who did not have the guts to survive until an off cycle election... but there was more. Enter Ralph Norman. Norman is an uber wealthy son of a local real estate magnate, and was elected as a congressman for SC5. SC5 is the fastest developing, and changing, districts in the state, and maybe in the country. York county, a suburb of Charlotte, NC, is filled with million dollar homes of people not wanting to live in deep blue Charlotte. They are also, by and large, transplants. Northerners. Yankees. They are conservative (mostly), but what they are not is beholden to the old social order. They do not follow men like Ralph Norman because their daddies knew his daddy and his daddy gave them a deal on some land in 1974. But Ralph Norman thinks his dukedom is still going strong. So he didn't think anything of it when he partnered with a Chicago democrat with a starwars name and a Canadian solar panel company, to manufacture solar panels in his district, or when he secured them a FILOT (fees in lieu of taxes) deal. He honestly didn't think anyone would notice or care when he pressured the local zoning board to include solar panel manufacturing (which uses some of the most toxic chemicals imaginable) as a "light industrial" activity (usually warehouses), and then had them build the factory a long putt at Augusta from two schools. But people did find out, and the new Yankees were not impressed that Ralph Norman's daddy was rich. He got hammered in a Gubernatorial primary, and hammered in a Senate primary, and his political career is largely finished. But he didn't go down alone. He encouraged conservatives to write his name in for Senate instead of voting for Darlene Graham. He spoke out against her, and yes, she is incredibly stupid and a terrible candidate without a fraction of the political charm and savvy of her dead brother, but it was Norman who put the nail in the coffin. Graham lost all important York County, (which voted for GOP House winner in SC5). Republicans won every statewide race and may have lost only one house seat. It is still a red state. Graham got almost 100,000 less votes than the sum of all seven GOP House races. 100,000 people were willing to vote for a Republican in the house, not Darlene Graham for Senate. 100,000 more votes wins that Senate seat...and that isn't counting the people who stayed home. Maybe the GOP was sacrificing the imbeciles. Maybe it was hands off, and South Carolina really can't do better than a nepo baby, someone's sister, and Nancy Mace. Maybe conservatives really believe they have better things to do than go into politics. But normie people vote for people... and if we don't start nominating better people, we are doomed.