'Can I Get a Little Order?'

The Devil went down to South Carolina

Give the below a close listen if you haven’t already. (One is enough.) It’s the authentic voice of someone who’s deeply misinformed about the relationship between affairs of state and faith; the ideas the United States was actually based on; the role of a public body; the subservient status of state government to federal; the difference between Paul the Apostle and Jesus; the purpose of the U.S. Supreme Court; and a whole lot of other things.

It’s also a voice that, as we speak, is being consigned to “the ash heap of history,” to use another Reaganism. A few minutes ago, the South Carolina Senate—the body Bright belongs to, the body to which he addressed his speech—voted overwhelmingly to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the State House. I’ve never liked the phrase “the wrong side of history”—it obscures the fact that people alter history through the choices they make—but I’ve seldom seen a more vivid illustration of someone who finds himself there and rages against the presumed injustice. Comments duly noted, Senator. We’re moving on.

Bright did stumble on one bit of clarity, though: “If the state’s got to get out of the business of marriage, then let’s get out of the business of marriage.” It’ll never happen, and I’m not sure it should. But I’ve heard worse ideas. It’s just especially gratifying to hear someone like him rail against the “tyranny of five judges” and, moments later, endure the tyranny of a supermajority vote by a legislature that’s decided, finally and decisively, to reject his deluded view of history.