THE DEAD-ENDER

South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has called for the Confederate flag to be removed from the Capitol grounds in South Carolina. Walmart has announced that it will no longer sell Confederate flag merchandise. The Republican speaker of the Mississippi House now says that Confederate emblem in the state's flag should be removed.

Change is coming fast. But then there's South Carolina state senator Lee Bright:

Some Spartanburg County lawmakers support removing the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse grounds, but state Sen. Lee Bright, R-Spartanburg, characterized the movement to remove it and other Confederate monuments as a “Stalinist Purge.”

Yes, a "Stalinist purge."

More, from The Washington Post:

Lee Bright, a South Carolina state senator with a Confederate flag framed above his office sofa, saw his inbox ping with hundreds of e-mails calling for the flag to come down from the statehouse grounds. He said the rebel symbol was threatened by a “war of political correctness” run amok.

“It’s a lot of hateful e-mails about the South,” Bright said. “If they have such contempt for it, they’re welcome to stay where they are. Just because a mass murderer has a symbol on his automobile -- there are folks that have killed in the name throughout history. We won’t take things out of context just because of an atrocity.

“The Klan used to burn crosses, but nobody thinks of that as a hate symbol. I am very proud of the history of South Carolina. I don’t think any reasonable person would make an argument for slavery, but the men who defended the South were just trying to protect their homes.”

Bright got 16% of the vote in the 2014 Republican U.S. Senate primary, finishing a distant second to incumbent Lindsey Graham.

As I noted in 2013, he's a piece of work:

Bright introduced a bill in 2010 that would exempt firearms made in South Carolina from federal gun laws -- and then reintroduced it after the Sandy Hook massacre. He wants to exempt virtually all adult residents of the state from new federal gun laws because these people are deemed to be members of a state militia....

Bright, who has been named a "Taxpayer Hero" by the Club for Growth, once introduced legislation to study the notion that South Carolina should create its own currency. He likes this sort of thing, and makes extremely funny jokes on the subject:

During the 2010 session, Bright sponsored legislation passed by the state Senate that in addition to affirming South Carolina's Second-, Ninth- and 10th-amendment rights, also targeted federal health care legislation by saying state residents are not subject to any law that interferes with patients' rights to choose their own health care provider or pay for medical services directly.

"If at first you don't secede, try again," Bright said with a laugh after the legislation passed last year.

He invited people reading his campaign Web site to sign a fetal personhood pledge. He's on the board of directors of the Palmetto Family Council, which opposes "militant homosexual advocacy." Oh, and he was the South Carolina chairman of Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign.

That guy will vote no. We'll see how many vote yes. South Carolina's Post and Courier is asking all state legislators how they'll vote; so far, a significant majority of legislators, of both parties, say they'll vote yes. Eight legislators, all Republicans, promise to vote no. Keep checking that link for updated totals.

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UPDATE, WEDNESDAY: I did not realize that Lee Bright is South Carolina co-chair of the Ted Cruz presidential campaign.