The Daily Populous Monday April 21st, 2025 morning edition
Authored by advocate.com and submitted by southpawFA

A simple question from a South Carolina voter about whether their congresswoman would hold any more town halls this year prompted a profanity-laced tirade, not from a fellow shopper but U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace. And now, the Republican lawmaker is once again painting herself as the victim while using the encounter to demean LGBTQ+ people.

Over the weekend, Mace posted a video she filmed in the skincare aisle of a South Carolina Ulta store, showing her berating a man she assumes is gay who had asked about her public schedule. The man stood at a comfortable distance and spoke in a measured tone. Mace, however, quickly escalated the interaction, invoking LGBTQ+ issues unprompted, shouting obscenities, and accusing the man of harassment. For public figures like Mace, being approached in public by a constituent isn't unusual. It’s part of the job she ran for.

“Some unhinged lunatic, a man, wearing daisy dukes, at a makeup store, got in my face today,” Mace wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday. “Dems are nuts. So I went off — and I won’t be backing down.”

The video, viewed over 2.3 million times on X alone, tells a different story.

The man asked whether Mace would be holding any more town halls. Rather than answer, Mace veered off-topic: “I voted for gay marriage twice.” When he asked what that had to do with him, she replied, “It has everything to do with you.”

“Do you think everything about me has to do with gay marriage?” he asked. “That’s your first stance when speaking with me?”

“You couldn’t have a humane conversation with me?” he said.

Mace then declared, “People on the left are absolutely f***ing crazy.” At that, the man turned to walk away — only for Mace to yell, “F**k you!”

Appearing stunned, the man turned back. “You say ‘f**k me’? You’re going to be voted out so fast this year. I can’t wait for you to f***ing—”

“I’m not,” Mace interrupted. “I won by so much.”

“You’re a disgrace to this state. That’s what you are,” he said. “I asked you a simple question, and you just go on this tirade and tell me ‘f**k you.’”

“Yeah. F**k you,” Mace repeated. “Get out of my face.”

“Get out of my face,” she said again as he was not near her.

“What’s your name?” Mace demanded again.

“You’re a nasty bitch,” the man shot back, “That’s my name.”

“You say ‘f**k me’?” he asked. “The first thing you’re going to say to me is ‘f**k me’ for asking you a question?”

“Get the f**k out of my face,” she added.

“You couldn’t take me on, baby,” Mace finished. “Stay the f**k away from me.”

The constituent in the video, Ely Murray-Quick, later identified himself on Facebook and offered his account of the encounter, along with a video from his perspective. “We took a trip to Ulta today and ran into none other than Nancy Mace — arguably one of the biggest embarrassments in modern South Carolina politics,” he wrote. Murray-Quick said, and the video shows, that he asked a simple question about future town halls and was stunned when Mace immediately grew defensive, pivoting to her record on gay marriage as if one vote could wipe away her broader anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.

“Let’s be clear: one ‘yay’ vote doesn’t undo the damage of her broader political choices,” he added, pointing to Mace’s support for bans on gender-affirming care, her failure to advocate for real protections for the LGBTQ+ community, and her vote against the Inflation Reduction Act. “To my trans friends and especially the trans employees at Ulta — people Nancy seems perfectly happy to shop near but not stand up for — I want you to know this: these people will not prevail. I will fight for your rights and dignity for as long as I’m able.”

He also clarified that while he did respond to Mace’s cursing in kind, he stood by the exchange. “I won’t apologize for speaking up or for publicly asking a politician to do her job.”

The outburst fits a broader pattern for Mace, who has increasingly adopted the combative, bullying persona modeled by far-right colleagues like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert — Republican figures known for their bigoted language toward LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups.

Mace has used her platform repeatedly to attack LGBTQ+ people while casting herself as under siege. In December, she falsely accused transgender foster care advocate James McIntyre of assaulting her with a handshake during a Capitol Hill event. He was arrested, but prosecutors dropped the case after eyewitness accounts contradicted Mace’s claims.

In March, Mace used her official congressional social media account to publicly mock a young transgender woman named Sabre, posting “Estrogen doesn’t love you” in response to Sabre’s transition photos. The result was an explosion of transphobic abuse, including doxxing attempts and death threats.

And in January, Mace and Boebert followed a cisgender woman into a Capitol restroom, mistakenly believing she was Delaware U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride, the first out transgender member of Congress. Boebert later apologized. Mace stayed silent, then tweeted her opposition to gender-neutral bathrooms.

This latest incident drew immediate backlash from LGBTQ+ advocates and civil rights organizations. Human Rights Campaign national press secretary Brandon Wolf, who has previously confronted Mace’s rhetoric, posted on X: “You, who ran to be a public figure, cussed a guy out because he asked if you’re having any more town halls this year. At some point, are you not embarrassed by your own behavior?”

Republican lawmakers nationwide have been encouraged by party leadership to avoid hosting town hall events because of scenes in which constituents have expressed outrage over what they see as a fascist takeover of the United States by Donald Trump. Few Republicans held in-person town halls during the current congressional recess, and those who did — like Mace allies Greene and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley — often faced anger over Trump’s sweeping executive actions. Greene restricted questions to written submissions and had multiple protesters arrested and shocked with a stun gun during her heavily scripted event in Georgia.

Despite her combative reputation, Mace secured reelection in November 2024, defeating Democrat Michael Moore to win a third term representing South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District. Her margin improved after GOP-led redistricting stripped Democratic-leaning precincts from the district. She celebrated her win by warning, “Anyone who dare takes a shot at me — you better not miss.”

The Advocate reached out to Mace’s office for comment on her decision to curse at a constituent, why she invoked his sexuality in response to a town hall question, and whether LGBTQ+ people in her district should expect public humiliation for engaging their representative. As of publication, her office had not responded.

travio on April 20th, 2025 at 20:12 UTC »

What a despicable person, made all the worse by her posting that video, thinking it made her look good.

moxieroxsox on April 20th, 2025 at 20:07 UTC »

She’s mentally unwell.

Designer-Contract852 on April 20th, 2025 at 20:06 UTC »

She is so weird and there is something seriously sinister and wrong with her.