Welcome to 2025 and life in the Upside Down!

By Laura Haight
President, DWGC

Published 1/15/2024

Recently,  we honored one of the finest people ever to stand behind the presidential seal: Jimmy Carter. While his presidency was a mixed bag and marred by several major national and international events including the Iran Hostage situation, his post-presidency was perfection. 

Meanwhile, in Florida, Donald Trump whined about flags flying at half mast during his inauguration (which I actually think is quite appropriate!), talked about going to war if Panama and Denmark don’t hand over parts of their countries to us; and threatened economic war against – of all places – Canada if they somehow don’t acquiesce to becoming the 51st state. Faced with four years of having to deal with this BS, Justin Trudeau resigned. 

In South Carolina, we are seeing the empowering impact of Trump’s election on our legislature. They are unbridled and unbound. 

  • The third try to get vouchers past that pesky state Supreme Court and state Constitution is poised to redirect millions of dollars from the state’s education lottery and the deserving college students who it supports to private school vouchers (for families making as much as $187,000 a year).
  • The second try to get the death penalty as a suitable penalty for a woman or girl who has an abortion is also poised for another go. As is the personhood bill, which would declare a zygot to have all the rights of a real live person. Oh, except, or course, women – who seem to have pretty much no rights at all. 
  • And a new contestant for most ridiculous bill of the year would require that schools record every teacher in every classroom throughout every day. And that those recordings be accessible to the state’s entire population of the state for review. Thank you Rep. Mike Burns! I have no words!

This last election had the unwanted impact of showing us that the majority of us are not who we think we are. That has proven true in several distinct ways especially as it relates to how we handle disasters.

One of the things I’ve learned in my nearly 40 years of working in a time-pressured, 24X7 industry relied upon by tens of thousands of readers: During the disaster, you have to think operationally. You figure out how to solve the problem. You can’t waste time worrying about who’s to blame for it. 

Clearly Republicans have not learned this as Trump and his toadies flocked to Truth, X, and other social media to blame Democrats for the disastrous fires in California. It reminded me very much of their response to Hurricane Helene – to immediately make up lies to discourage people from getting the federal help they were entitled to and to make election points off lies about the veracity of FEMA’s efforts. And, in fact, they quickly began doing that as well.

Democrats get to work while Republicans play politics without concern about the pain their own constituents are experiencing. 

Despite this, they won the election. And we cannot go forward with our fingers in our ears or blinders over our eyes. 

We need to take a hard look – from a local standpoint – at what happened here and how we change the trajectory that we are very clearly on. We cannot – as citizens who love both our country and our state, who believe in the strong two-party system that is the bedrock of our democracy, and who want to see freedom, fairness, and opportunity equally accessible to all – shy away from the clear necessity to make some changes in what we do and how we do it. 

To do that, we are discussing bringing together all the Democratic organizations in the county, neighborhood associations, and issue-aligned groups to discuss what happened in this election and to begin conversations on how we work together to change the trajectory. Can we find ways to put aside partisanship (and non-partisanship) to achieve policy goals, to awaken an understanding in our neighbors about the poor governance, the draconian and dangerous legislation, and the hate and disregard of women and minorities, the poor and the marginalized that are the hallmarks of our state Legislature?

Lots more to come as we explore the feasibility and the interest in our potential community partners.

But from my perspective right now, I see a lot of us are angry, scared, beaten down and disheartened. It is easy in that situation to throw in the towel. But let’s not succumb to that.
I recently read a Medal of Honor recipient’s account of his experience in Vietnam and his life after receiving our highest recognition. It was Sammy Lee Davis whose Medal of Honor ceremony we see in the film Forrest Gump.

With a broken back and a wounded leg, Davis saved the lives of four soldiers trapped by enemy fire and separated by a river from their platoons. David saved all four of them and, when they offered to send him home, he refused and returned to duty in Vietnam after recovering from his wounds. When asked why. He said: “Whenever I talk with people, I tell them the same thing: No matter what you’re faced with, you don’t lose until you quit trying.”

I am not ready to quit trying and I don’t think you are either.


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