Operation Chaos: Republican ‘Meddling’ Legal

South Carolina conservatives are infuriating Democrats with what they call Operation Chaos. “I guess you could call it meddling,” admits Christopher Sullivan. It’s intentionally designed to disrupt the state’s Democratic primary and they’re hoping to prolong the “chaos and the disruption” as long as they can. It’s totally legal too, allowed by rules that liberals previously forced down their throats. Republicans want to give the progressives a taste of their own socialized medicine.

Grassroots support for “operation chaos”

With Republicans overcrowding the Trump Train, conservatives can use their time wisely by sabotaging the Democrats. Republicans are allowed to vote in the South Carolina Democratic primary which makes things very interesting. Christopher Sullivan with the Conservative Defense Fund would love to see everybody accuse whoever wins the South Carolina Democrat primary of having been actually elected with Republican support. That, he says, will prolong “the chaos and the disruption.” It’s how the name “operation chaos” came about.

For years, Republicans have been powerless to stop Democrats from sabotaging them. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Conservatives complain that the open primary system allowed Democrat voters to cast ballots in the primaries that “skewed the results of state races to elect more moderate Republicans.” Moderate is a code word for RINO, “Republican in name only.” These are Democrats in disguise. This time, the Republicans are preparing for revenge and Stacy Shea has a thick stack of postcards to prove it. “stop canceling out my vote,” they read. Shea is one of the organizers “encouraging GOP voters to turn out and upset the Democratic contest.”

Tea Party organizer Karen Martin told CNN, “we thought, ‘Aha! What would happen if we made a grassroots, state-wide effort to cross over and vote for one candidate in the Democratic primary?’ Would that cause enough angst among the Democrats, either elected officials or party members, to maybe come to the table and let’s talk about closed primaries?”

Operation Chaos

Which candidate to back

Joe Biden is especially unhappy. If he doesn’t get on the results board in South Carolina, he’s toast. He actually wouldn’t mind being their victim. He could use the help. He isn’t going to get it. They zeroed in on Bernie Sanders. “It had nothing to do with his ideology, or that we would rather have Bernie against Trump than Biden,” Martin clarifies. “We just want to move the numbers so that the conversation is open on the primaries.” Still, there’s no reason they can’t have a little fun too. “Just for the sake of optics, it would be great to be able to contrast the ideology of an avowed socialist versus a capitalist.” Putting Sanders head to head with President Donald Trump in the general would be a virtual cage match. State Rep. Patrick Haddon thinks “it would be ‘more fun’ to see a Sanders vs. Trump ticket in November as opposed to any of the other candidates.”

Democrats are already trying to get sneaky. South Carolina Senator Marlon Kimpson is a Biden supporter. “Somebody had to do something. There is a great effort by the officials of the Republican Party that seek to undermine the Democratic primary,” he whined. He already filed a bill last week, “that would require anyone who voted in the Democratic primary to vote in the same primary in 2024.” It’s intended “to discourage Republicans from meddling in the Democratic primary this time.”

Sanders isn’t happy about it either. He doesn’t like the idea that everyone already assumes he’s a loser. “Recent reports have made it clear that Donald Trump and the Republican establishment have always been afraid to run against Bernie Sanders going back to 2016,” Sanders’ South Carolina state campaign director Jessica Bright told CNN. “The truth is that Sen. Sanders consistently beats Trump in general election match-up polls in battleground states.”

Officially the South Carolina Republican Party is distancing themselves from the movement but at the same time, nobody at HQ gave any orders to stop either. “The state party can’t take this route, but activists can. So, I don’t think they are angry at us or wanting us to stop,” Martin asserts. Republican voter Hal Roach agrees, “I believe it to be in our long-term best interest to vote in a manner that is going to get our primaries closed. And if this is what it takes to do it — to vote where we would ordinary not — then that is what we are going to do.”

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