Damage in the aftermath of yesterday’s storm
Shortly after President Trump finished yesterday’s stump speech, a freak storm wrecked the small town of Pickens, South Carolina.
Trees were uprooted, and roofs were blown away. One day later, the power has yet to be fully restored while nearly all 3,126 residents have a hand in cleaning up.
But considering the way a crowd of 50,000 welcomed Sen. Lindsey Graham to the stage yesterday, the latest forecasting suggests bad weather has only just begun for the political establishment in the Palmetto State.
“It was an odd, wild storm that only touched two counties,” explains Film Director and friend Andrew Mullinax in a Sunday afternoon phone call, “Here in Pickens County and Greenville County — where Trump’s plane landed and took off.”
Mullinax says the freak storm blew in just about an hour after Trump took off — leading his more conspiratorial mind to wonder if it was because someone modified the weather.
“It tore the whole town up,” Mullinax says while laughing at my suggestion the storm resulted from a MAGA rain dance, “There are trees down everywhere. For just a 10-minute storm, it was monstrous.”
More damage from yesterday’s storm
I called the outgoing Chair of the Pickens Republican Party, Tim Bruce, and asked for his perspective on the inclement weather event.
“The storm we had afterward?” Bruce asks in playful response, “Or the storm we had before?”
The storm before is at the forefront of conversation in Republican Pickens — the result of a massive Trump rally that nearly booed Senator Lindsey Graham into the next state.
“It was funny,” Bruce explains, “I was watching what looked like 80-year-old ladies who were standing out there in the heat, and they were just giving him down the country, booing him.”
Current Pickens GOP Chair Bob Fetterly says the reaction is more evidence of how out-of-touch Senator Graham is with the grassroots constituency he’s known to brag about.
“Graham touts very proudly that he was born in Central South Carolina, which is in Pickens County,” Fetterly explains, “But to give you an idea of how detached he really is from us, he came up to one of our members at the Trump rally and said, ‘Hey, how’s Teddy doing?’”
Fetterly explains the “Teddy” Senator Graham was looking for passed away after a hard battle with cancer in 2020.
“He had no clue,” Fetterly says.
“And then you throw on top of that, a war in Ukraine that’s very unpopular with our members, and we’re all very aware how quickly he processed Trump’s judicial nominees, but he did the same thing for Obama and Biden,” Fetterly explains, “So frankly, we’re not impressed.”
Still, however unimpressed the people of Pickens County may be, Senator Graham keeps getting elected.
Senator Lindsey Graham walks to the stage amid boos in Pickens County
Former Greenville County Chair and current State Executive Committeeman Jeff Davis says the root of the problem lies in open primaries.
“We’ve been trying to get closed primaries in the state of South Carolina for a long time,” Davis explains, “Lindsey’s been the one to kind of prevent that.”
Tim Bruce says multiple county calls to censure Graham were in 2022 met with Executive Committee criticism from the State GOP in Columbia.
Rather than censure, Bruce and others were asked to invite Senator Graham to listen to his grassroots constituents in the region.
“So, I proposed that to our executive committee,” Bruce says, “I told them, “Let’s hold off on passing any censures. Let’s give Senator Graham an opportunity to respond to these charges.’”
“We wrote a letter, we emailed it, we sent it registered mail, and then finally we had it hand-delivered to one of his offices,” explains Bruce, “But the registered mail was never taken out of his post office box. So, in other words, they refused even to take the letter. Nothing was ever answered.”
Out of touch and beyond communication, it seems Senator Graham doesn’t care for opinions in Pickens and Greenville Counties.
Jeff Davis and Yvonne Julian at the Greenville County Republican Convention in April 2023
Even though the Senator is widely reviled, Bob Fetterly says it’s an uphill battle to get Graham out of office in 2026.
“What we’re battling is the half-informed voter,” says Fetterly, “I don’t believe we have too many of them in Pickens County, but we have too many of them statewide. And it’s going to take somebody with a very well-organized grassroots campaign because my understanding is he has a 200 million war chest.”
But while the challenges of removing Senator Graham from power are well understood, Tim Bruce looks forward to the forecast.
“I think we have another storm brewing in South Carolina,” Bruce explains, “And the storm that’s brewing right now, and it hasn’t hit yet is, is the fact that State GOP Chair Drew McKissick came within about 16 votes of having to be in a runoff at the state convention.”
In fact, McKissick’s 51.8% of the vote was down by over 16% from the last election held in 2021.
“So that’s very close. That storm is brewing,” says Bruce, “And instead of listening to the grassroots portion of this party and trying to have dialogue, the grassroots is ignored completely by not only by Senator Graham but by the State Chair as well. They’re ignoring what will be the dominant part of this party in two years.”
Drew McKissick – SCRP Chairman
Jeff Davis says the numbers indicate a grassroots uprising, and the tide has turned in South Carolina.
“You see the polling numbers that Donald Trump has against DeSantis and some of the other challengers, even Tim Scott,” Davis explains, “I think the tide has turned toward Republican populism, and folks aren’t going to tolerate what’s coming out of the leadership of Drew McKissick.”
“I think Lindsey should expect that sort of reception in greater fury for the remaining couple years of his term,” Davis says.
A massive storm of grassroots Republicans is combining efforts — building into a political supercell on the not-so-distant horizon.
“What happened yesterday says to the world, ‘South Carolina’s not playing the same games that we’ve allowed to happen for so many decades up to now,’” Mullinax says, “And it was done very audibly, very publicly and on national television.”
For my friend Andrew Mullinax, the weather forecast for the Palmetto State should be read loud and clear.
“We don’t like Lindsey Graham.”
“We don’t like Lindsey Graham.”
— Andrew Mullinax via Truth Social pic.twitter.com/WgeC4gmr30
— Shawn Bradley Witzemann (@ShawnWitzemann) July 2, 2023
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