“South Carolina is winning,” Governor Henry McMaster declared one year ago in his inaugural State of the State address. Just months later, the Palmetto State was hit hard by one of the deadliest public health crises of modern day.
After failing to rise to the occasion and effectively address the spread of COVID-19 in South Carolina, Governor McMaster once again delivered what can only be considered tone-deaf propaganda in the form of last week’s 2021 State of the State address.
The Governor’s speech was plagued with radical conservative talking points and political posturing, but severely lacked any actual information regarding how the state plans to adequately confront the ongoing pandemic.
In his address, Governor McMaster touted the state’s ability to “combat the virus without crippling our economy” — but that statement isn’t factual. NBC News reports that over six thousand South Carolinians have died in the past year from the virus, with another 399,843 infected as of Wednesday.
Additionally, as stated by Senator Mia McLeod in her Democratic response to the Governor’s address, over 810,000 South Carolinians have filed for unemployment in the last year. And with record-breaking cases and percent positive rates recorded each day, it would be both alarming and simply inaccurate for the Governor to consider his efforts to be successful by any standard.
With this in mind, it shouldn’t be surprising that Governor McMaster and Republican legislators have chosen to ignore their responsibility to address the continued spread of COVID-19 in favor of needlessly attacking the reproductive freedom of South Carolina women. S.1 or the “South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act” is currently the top priority of the Senate Medical Affairs Committee, despite the fact that similar bills have already been struck down by the courts in Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi.
The Governor’s decision to prioritize an unconstitutional abortion ban over the health and livelihood of South Carolinians is a gross misuse of power. While the Governor and GOP play politics with the personal lives of women, our state lacks a comprehensive, transparent, and effective recovery plan for COVID-19.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that South Carolina currently trails every other state in the nation in terms of the amount of vaccines received per capita and ranks 47th for number of vaccines administered per capita. This shortage was revealed following the Governor’s announcement that residents over the age of 70 were eligible to make their vaccine appointments which resulted in long waiting times and frustration for our state’s most vulnerable population.
South Carolina is not in good hands. While the Governor and his lackeys target the reproductive rights of women, force teachers into unsafe classroom environments, and resume the death penalty in our state’s prisons, everyday citizens are put at an increasing risk due to our leaders’ inaction.
Science tells us that the states with the strictest regulations have better outcomes, including lower rates of infection and hospitalization. These are the states that Governor McMaster believes “have gone too far,” even as the virus continues to ravage our own.
So when Governor McMaster touts that “South Carolina is truly open for business,” as he did in his inaugural address, ask yourself: at what cost?