On Wednesday, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) wore a gigantic red “A” on a white shirt as she walked through a House office building. She stopped to speak to reporters after a closed-door meeting among the GOP to figure out who would be the next Speaker of the House. (Mace was one of just eight Republicans, and the only woman, who voted last week to oust former speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.)
For the uninitiated, Mace thinks very highly of herself and loves to appear on the Sunday shows to tout herself as a voice of reason in the Republican party—for example, she claims to be a “moderate” on abortion, despite supporting bans and voting for restrictions. Her actions often belie her self-mythology, and the latest example is her joining the block of far-right members of the Freedom Caucus to vote out McCarthy.
When reporters asked Mace what her shirt meant, she said it’s her “scarlet letter.” She continued, “I’m wearing the scarlet letter after the week that I just had, last week, being a woman up here and being demonized for my vote and for my voice.” And she kept going! “I’m here to let the rest of the world know and the country know: I’m on the side of the people. I’m not on the side of the establishment. And I’m going to do the right thing every single time, no matter the consequences, because I don’t answer to anybody in D.C.; I don’t answer to anyone in Washington. I only answer to the people.”
Here’s a clip of her looking very self-satisfied.
The concept of a scarlet letter, meant to refer to the stigma that happens after some sort of misdeed, comes from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter, in which the protagonist, Hester Prynne, believes her husband is dead and has a baby with another man. Her Puritan community thenforces her to face a public shaming and wear the letter A for “adultery” for the rest of her life.
Mace says she’s being “demonized” for “doing the right thing,” but I can think of a few other scenarios where that A is appropriate. Here are things for which Mace could and/or should be outcast:
- Abortion Stigmatizer
- Attention-Seeking behavior
- Another Woman who refuses to leave the Republican party she seems to hate so much.
- Absurd Faux Ignorance of allegations that a top candidate for speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), ignored claims of sexual abuse.
- Appalling Hypocrisy to call an abortion restriction “an asshole amendment,” only to later vote for it.
- Asinine Pleas for Republicans not to “be assholes to women” when the party is hellbent on banning abortion, and Mace is complicit in it.
- Arguments that state lawmakers used a “stark racial gerrymander” to draw Mace’s seat to suppress the power of Black voters.
- Absolute Failure to defend her “moderate” abortion stance to a talk show host.
- Astounding Horniness at an Evangelical prayer breakfast hosted by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.).
- Anemic Support for rape and incest exceptions to abortion bans because she herself was raped.
- Aggravating Defense of ousting McCarthy for not bringing votes on birth control access when you know your party doesn’t support it
- Abysmal Vote against a 2021 bill to condemn hate crimes against Asian Americans which increased during the height of the covid pandemic.
- Awful Letter giving credence to President Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud.
Those are just off the top of my head. I bet there are more things it could stand for!