Remember that time in senior year of high school when you wore pajamas to class because you thought it made you quirky and nonconformist? It showed you were original without being too weird. It got you attention.
You were cool with that attention — yet, like most people, you probably moved on once you graduated and went into the real world or college. If you went to a liberal arts school, maybe you did it a few times freshman year — but if you really wanted to be nonconformist, you would have had to dress up. Whatever the case, you’ve probably gotten over the urge.
I say “probably” because Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, apparently hasn’t.
Her place of employ is the U.S. Capitol, and she was headed there to cast her vote on President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” Given the nature of the affair, and how it went down in the Senate, lawmakers can expect to be in session for quite some time.
So Mace decided to get quirky and travel up to D.C. from South Carolina in her PJs, ostensibly to make some point about being there for the long haul. While she didn’t go out on the floor looking like that, she made sure to let everyone know how nonconformist she was by posting videos on social media — with her dog, Liberty, because of course she did.
In case you missed the escapade on Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning, documented in painstaking detail on X, here she is starting off from Charleston, South Carolina, on “One Big Beautiful Girl’s Road Trip.” (Not the only cringeworthy thing you’re about to witness, I must warn you.)
One Big Beautiful Girl’s Road Trip.
Destination: D.C for the Big Beautiful Bill. pic.twitter.com/on1kkuGMxk
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) July 2, 2025
And here she is shortly past midnight in Lumberton, North Carolina, getting herself a few cans of Red Bull with her pupper.
????Pit stop outside of Lumberton, NC.
We are Mace-ing our way there! pic.twitter.com/NZ5bh3E0m0
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) July 2, 2025
And here she is a little over an hour later, apparently having got some staffer to put AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” over the footage — assumedly because D.C. is a town of facile clout-chasing attention seekers, not at all like Mace.
If D.C. had a theme song … pic.twitter.com/xMENHNlG8O
— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) July 2, 2025
And here she is at Waffle House.
Waffle House order.
Smothered, tapped, diced, peppered! pic.twitter.com/uOQzC5vMSp
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) July 2, 2025
Good morning from Virginia!
D.C. could learn a thing or two from a Waffle House waitress. pic.twitter.com/MOHw7LwN20
— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) July 2, 2025
You get the idea. There’s a lot more where that came from, I regret to report, but here’s video proof that she didn’t pull a Fetterman and show up on the floor in her Saturday night pizza-and-Netflix-binging outfit. (The dog stayed in the entourage, though. Here’s hoping it pooped on Eric Swalwell’s desk.)
Headed to the House floor. pic.twitter.com/F9fjN5Agm1
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) July 3, 2025
The reaction to this, which is not Mace’s first attention-posting rodeo, was not exactly positive.
As Collin Rugg of Trending Politics put it: “What a clown.”
NEW: Rep. Nancy Mace shows up to vote for the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ wearing pajamas.
“Come hell or high water, we were showing up to vote on the Big, Beautiful Bill today.”
Mace wanted to make sure everyone saw her pajamas during her journey to DC from South Carolina.
What a… pic.twitter.com/qdbMPZBGWu
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 2, 2025
Rugg was hardly alone here. I won’t bore you with more posts and replies, but this was the general tenor of the response on social media — not exactly promising, in other words.
I am, generally speaking, more tolerant of Mace’s attention-grabbing antics than other conservatives are, in the same way that I am generally tolerant of Chuck Schumer’s camera-pouncing schtick as well. Politicians are not indie bands; they don’t get credit for obscurity. Nobody ever says, “You probably wouldn’t have heard of my favorite member of Congress.”
However, the fact that I have to excuse someone by bringing up the attention-seeking tomfoolery of one Charles Ellis Schumer indicates that this is indeed an issue for Mace. Add into this the fact that Schumer is somehow better in this department than she is, and that as a GOP member who has at least shown some degree of prominence and promise, I root for Mace to not embarrass herself — which is a pretty low bar she routinely fails to clear — and you may begin to see why this is worthy of calling out for its prima facie asininity.
I cannot possibly catalogue Mace’s career of extralegislative self-promotion in brief, except to say that this is an elected official who made headlines roughly two years ago for giving a speech in which she joked about how she had to skip sex to be there. Sex with a man she was not married to, yet. A fact which she impressed on the audience at the beginning of remarks she delivered at a prayer breakfast.
Nancy Mace at Tim Scott’s prayer breakfast:
“I woke up this morning at 7, Patrick my fiancé tried to pull me by my waist in bed and I was like ‘no baby we don’t have time for that this morning’ I gotta get to the prayer breakfast… He can wait. I’ll see him later tonight.” pic.twitter.com/LzAJ5M84P1
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 27, 2023
What is one inclined to Team GOP supposed to do: Give her credit for not joking that he was backstage, ready to go as soon as she stepped away from the podium? I don’t necessarily expect that the people we elect to go to Washington will behave like Eagle Scouts who matriculated at BYU, but I’d at least appreciate it if they don’t troll for attention by sharing the intimate details of their decidedly un-Christian behavior at a Christian event. That’d be superb.
And, unlike other lawmakers who engage in this kind of ridiculousness (looking at you — but not just you — Jasmine Crockett), Mace has a path to higher office if she wants it.
When she was first elected to Congress in 2020, she was seen as one of the rising stars of the Republican Party in a state where it dominates electoral politics. She still is, which makes you think she’d comport herself like she was ready for success. But, no: At age 47, Mace is still the offbeat drama kid in your senior class who needs you to know just how zany she is. She’s not dressing for the job she wants, figuratively speaking. Literally speaking, she’s not even dressing for the job she has, but for a sleepover at best.
She’s partaken in these antics in the House. As for the Senate or the governorship of the Palmetto State, perhaps we ought to expect a bit more substance and a bit less social media oversharing before she graduates from Lower Chamber High.
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