State Representative Jenny Horne, a Republican who drew attention last summer with an impassioned speech urging the Confederate flag’s removal, said in an interview that she admired Mr. Trump’s outsider campaign and that he was among the candidates she might support on Saturday.
“Nothing he’s said is offensive to me,” said Ms. Horne, who is running for Congress this year. “The Trump phenomenon is a byproduct of many years of establishment candidates who, No. 1, don’t tell the American people the truth and, No. 2, are totally disconnected from what Americans really care about.”
.. “Now, you can look at our senators, look at our governor, and see how much we’ve come along as a state,” said Mr. Torres, 29, a native of Mount Pleasant. Still, he acknowledged, “Looking outside of the big cities, it’s Trump supporters.”
South Carolina’s Legacy, Exploited by Trump
First, the poll found that 70 percent of likely Trump voters believe that the flag should still be flying over the state capitol. And a plurality of Mr. Trump’s supporters wish that the South had won the Civil War.
.. Eighty percent support his proposal for banning Muslims from entering the country; 62 percent approve of creating a database on Muslims; 40 percent like the idea of shutting down all mosques in the country.
.. The South Carolina primary this time has focused heavily on fear-mongering against people of color, Muslims and immigrants in general. But Senator Ted Cruz lobbed a racially freighted attack on Senator Marco Rubio, with a new mailing that merges Mr. Rubio’s face with that of President Obama.
Against ‘Humanism’
Used as an alternative to feminism or any other civil-rights movement—used, broadly, as a justification for convening an all-white film-festival jury in the year 2016—it suggests that those movements are somehow petty or point-missing. That they ignore the beautiful human forest for its trees. That they insist on strife and manufacture drama and, all in all, have no chill. I am for nice, easy balance.
.. In all that, the deployment of “humanism” effectively forestalls conversation about gender or race or power or privilege or any of the other things that, especially right now, desperately need talking about. What do you say to someone who refuses to acknowledge divisions? To someone who seems to see social movements that fight systemic injustices as awkwardly thirsty?
.. Humanism, certainly, embodied all that as a historical movement. But that was centuries ago. Today,most commonly, the term functions as an abbreviation of “secular humanism,” or the espousal of cultural values that have been disentangled from belief in the supernatural. It suggests the primacy of social norms over religious ones. “Humanism” suggests, essentially, “atheism that isn’t jerky about it.”
We Have a Serious Problem
“This is not possible,” Trump snarled. “You know I’m a draft dodger, right? Only Cheney got more deferments than I did. The closest I’ve ever come to fatal combat was when I ran into Rosie O’Donnell in a men’s room. So here I am, a known draft dodger, and I go on TV and question the courage of a genuine American war hero, John McCain, and, instead of drumming me out of the race so I can get back to my empire, my numbers have gone up again?”
.. “Let’s review,” Trump said. “I said that Megyn Kelly was menstruating. I insulted Carly Fiorina’s face. I did a routine about Ben Carson’s belt that should have provoked a psychiatric intervention. I proposed internment camps for the Muslims already here, and then I said that we should bar all other Muslims from entering the country. And you’re telling me that my numbers are what?”
“The highest ever,” Jeff said, dropping behind a club chair as a platinum blow-dryer shot past him.
Trump wandered over to the window. “We have a serious problem,” he said, almost not eating the pizza. “I might win.”