Well, apparently the question that was originally posed, “What exactly would it take to find some, any unity at all amongst our fellow Americans?” has no answer. One wonders if this country is irreparably doomed by the political divisions that exist.
In a close examination of the current campaign for the vacated seat on the local school board, you can see the vitriol that currently consumes politics and divides so many of our neighbors and friends. The campaign has seemingly come down to a contest between two female candidates vying for the unexpired term that was open when the last officeholder quit.
While Haley Griggs focuses on ideas and solutions to the current problems facing the school district in her campaign, she is also seemingly living rent-free in the heads of her opponent’s supporters. Evidenced by the continued smear campaign that is waged against her on the pages of Facebook. If you can’t win the battle of ideas, well I guess the alternative is to become “mean girls”.
Really, And then you have a former chairman of the school board screaming at Haley as she was participating in the Okra Strut parade while waving the sign of Griggs’ opponent. In a recent Facebook post, this same person is conjuring up conspiracy theories because Mrs. Griggs dared to mention patriots and the constitution in a post. Very classy Beth!
And the sycophants pile on.
There is even a candidate for Irmo Town Council who has chimed in on the conspiracy theory and believes the word “Patriots” to be a bad thing as well as stating that the public does not have a right to “not be told what to do”. There are screenshots on this.
Maybe the district could do a bit better on teaching the Constitution and US history. Just a little over half the students at Chapin and Dutch Fork received a “C” or higher on these subjects while Irmo comes in at 25% of the students receiving a “C” or higher. See SC Dept. of Education’s release of the SC Report Cards.
What is the purpose of these two organizations?
D5 BIPOC Parents & Stakeholders. This organization sent the first of the flyers for the other candidate; however, their only reference is a Facebook page. They do not provide any details, such as who founded the organization or who currently leads it. The page launched this summer, and the vast majority of its posts have been about this election. It was also unable to be located as a registered Political Action Committee.
Partnership for a Better South Carolina. This is an organization that paid for at least 3 separate mailers for the same candidate. Based on my research, the only entity that by this name is an LLC originally founded as Vision for a Better Lowcountry, LLC by John’s Island resident, Anthony Moffett. Why would a suspicious organization based in a town two hours away from our district think it was worth sinking thousands of dollars in creating and mailing three flyers related to our school district’s special election? Unfortunately, the South Carolina state law regarding PACs disclosing expenditures over $500 for a specific candidate was ruled unconstitutional 3-4 years ago. As a result, we may never know why this organization chose to interject itself or whose money was used to support the mailings. This is a total recall to last year’s newspaper-like mailers put out by Positive Voices of District 5 whose production and mailing were conservatively estimated at $35,000.
People are tired of these tactics and are seeing them for what they are. Desperate! This is all you got? All you have left is to go negative. This is the type of campaign that literally gives politics a dirty name.
Make no mistake here, this campaign while officially non-partisan, presents two candidates that stand on the opposite ends of the political spectrum. Haley Griggs touts conservative values and is dedicated to freedom of choice, parental autonomy and the protection of our constitutional republic.
And so it goes.
Jeff Dickson
