Welcome back to the Deep Dive, where we take
your source material, your research, your reports,
your notes, and turn it into, well, immediate
expertise. And today we're really plunging into
one of the most foundational and I think most
volatile states in American history. South Carolina.
The Palmetto State. It's a state that just carries
such a heavy weight of history. I mean, everyone
knows it as the place where the Civil War began.
But then you look at the data today and you find
this land of just incredible contrast. It's a
place where. You know, these deep historical
divisions, wealth built on forced labor, a political
culture rooted in secession. Or sitting right
next to a cutting edge 21st century economy.
We're talking aerospace, massive foreign investment,
auto manufacturing. And that's really our mission
today, isn't it? To peel back those layers. Yeah.
We need to look beyond the, you know, the postcard
images of Charleston and Myrtle Beach. Exactly.
To uncover the state's really complex geography.
It's shocking colonial economics. political and
infrastructure realities. We've got a dense stack
of sources here spanning everything from geological
surveys on seismic activity all the way to 21st
century voter sentiment polls. And for anyone
trying to understand the modern American South,
South Carolina is just, it's the key. Its influence
has always been so disproportionate to its size.
Okay, so before we even get to the map, we have
to frame this historically. If there's one statistic
from your sources that just completely reframes
the entire colonial era for me. Oh, I know which
one you mean. Most people know the Lowcountry
was built on African slave labor, but the scale
of the Indian slave trade there is something
else entirely. It's absolutely essential to understanding
the colony's initial economic engine. We're talking
about the period between 1670 and 1715. Right.
During that time, the Carolina slave trade, which
was both commercial trading and just direct raids,
was the largest among all the British North American
colonies. The number is just staggering. Between
24 ,000 and 51 ,000 captive Native Americans
were exported from South Carolina in that, what,
45 -year window? To put that in context, and
it's a devastating context, that number is more
than the number of Africans imported to all the
future U .S. colonies combined in that same period.
Wow. This was a massive demographic and political
disruption. It destabilized huge tribes like
the Amici and Cherokee and established forced
labor as the central pillar of the colony's wealth
from day one. A profound foundation of violence.
And speaking of instability, let's talk about
the physical ground itself. Ah, yes. We tease
this, but it's worth repeating. South Carolina
is the single most seismically active state on
the entire East Coast. The state just seems built
on shocks, both historical and geological. And
that physical vulnerability, it really informs
our understanding of the state's infrastructure
and its planning, or lack thereof. We'll definitely
come back to that when we talk about the 1886
earthquake. Okay, let's unpack this geography.
Yeah. Culturally, people talk about the low country
and the upstate, but geologically... The state
is really defined by three distinct bands, right?
Yeah, three bands running parallel to the Atlantic,
basically slicing the state from east to west.
So let's start at the coast. Starting at the
shore, you have the huge Atlantic coastal plain
and it's surprisingly large. It makes up a full
two thirds of the state. Two thirds. Wow. Geologically,
it's pretty young material. We're talking layers
of sand, silt and clay deposited over millions
of years. This is your classic low country landscape,
the salt marshes, estuaries and the sea islands,
those crucial barrier islands. And it's in this
coastal plain that we find these, well, these
bizarre geological features your sources highlighted,
the Carolina Bays. They are so strange. They
sound like swamps, but their origin is... something
much bigger. Right. They're not just random ponds
of these low relief oval depressions. But the
weird part is their alignment. Exactly. They're
all lined up northwest to southeast. For decades,
scientists were debating what they were. Meteorite
craters was a popular theory for a while. So
what's the current thinking? How did they all
line up so perfectly? The best supported theory
now points to eolian processes. Meaning windblown.
Right. Windblown sand. During the last big glaciation,
say 75 ,000 to 6 ,000 years ago, the southeast
was much colder and drier. And you had these
massive, powerful winds that basically sculpted
these depressions from the surface. So they're
like fossilized wind patterns. That's a great
way to put it. They're a constant, strange reminder
of a completely different, almost desert -like
climate in what's now this lush, humid landscape.
Okay, moving inland, we hit the central region,
the Midlands and the Piedmont. And the landscape
just changes completely. It does. And that change
marks a massive geological boundary. You're shifting
to much older, harder rock, paleozoic, metamorphic
and igneous rocks. But the most critical feature
here, historically and economically, is the fall
line. This boundary where the hard rock of the
Piedmont meets the soft sediment of the coastal
plain. It's like the blueprint for early American
city development, isn't it? It's a perfect example
of geography driving economics. Any river flowing
from the mountains hits the fall line and suddenly
drops, creating rapids and waterfalls. And that
drop had two immediate uses. Two crucial uses
in the 18th and 19th centuries. First, it marked
the limit of navigable water. You couldn't get
a big boat any further inland. The end of the
line for trade. And second, those rapids provided
easily harnessed water power for mills. So cities
like Columbia, the state capital, popped up right
there. Exactly. Columbia was built specifically
on the fall line to exploit both transportation
up to that point and the power generated at that
point. It was the natural center for early manufacturing.
But water power gave way to other energy sources.
So what defines the Piedmont's landscape today?
Today, it's mostly defined by reforestation.
A lot of that old farmland has gone back to forest,
mostly loblolly pine for the lumber industry.
The old textile mills are either gone or repurposed.
And then finally in the northwestern corner,
you get the dramatic elevation, the Blue Ridge
region. That's the high relief upstate. It's
a small slice of the state, but it's a complete
environmental contrast. The highest point, Sassafras
Mountain, is there at just over 3 ,500 feet.
And that's part of the southern Appalachians.
Right. The whole ecoregion shifts. You get Appalachian
blue ridge forests, destinations like Caesars
Head State Park and the Chattooga River, which
is a famous whitewater rafting spot on the Georgia
border. It's where you go to escape the summer
heat. The state has these incredible natural
rivers. But as the sources note, the biggest
bodies of water are all artificial. It's actually
surprising that all of South Carolina's major
lakes are manmade. It really is. It speaks to
the scale of the 20th century water control and
hydroelectric projects, especially by Santee
Cooper. Right. The biggest is Lake Marion, a
massive 110 ,000 acres. Then you have Lake Strom
Thurmond and Lake Moultrie. These projects completely
reshaped the state's river systems and created
new inland economies. So we've seen how man -made
lakes altered the hydrology, but let's go back
to that disruption we can't control, the grind
itself. You said South Carolina is the most seismically
active state on the East Coast. Why? This is
such a crucial and often overlooked detail. Unlike
the West Coast, where quakes happen on tectonic
plate boundaries, the quakes here happen along
ancient fault lines within the North American
plate. They're called intraplate earthquakes.
And the data shows this isn't just a theoretical
threat. While they average 10 -15 small quakes
a year, the sources note a recent spike. A big
one. 74 recorded earthquakes between July 2021
and July 2022, mostly concentrated around Kershaw
County. But the real reason for the concern is
historical precedent, right? The 1886 Charleston
earthquake. That event is the benchmark for East
Coast seismic risk. It remains the largest ever
recorded in the eastern U .S., estimated somewhere
between a magnitude 7 .0 and 7 .3. And what was
the damage like? Catastrophic. Yeah. 60 people
died and 90 % of the buildings in Charleston
were damaged or just destroyed. It was felt as
far away as Boston, Cuba. So why are these East
Coast quakes so destructive, even if they're
rare? It's two things. First, the hard old crust
here allows the seismic waves to travel much,
much farther than they do out west. So it affects
a wider area. A much wider area. And second,
the infrastructure just wasn't and in many cases
still isn't built with that level of seismic
resilience in mind. If you rarely get a big one.
Building codes tend to lag. That makes a lot
of sense. Exactly. So the potential for significant
damage in a dense, historic city like Charleston,
which is built on soft sediments that amplify
shaking, remains a very serious, ever -present
threat. It's the invisible instability beneath
that beautiful facade. Okay, shifting from the
shaking ground to the volatile air, let's look
at climate. It's primarily humid subtropical,
which means those hot, sticky summers. Right.
Coastal highs are regularly in the 90s. The only
real exception is the Blue Ridge, which has a
cooler highland climate and gets a bit of snow,
maybe 7 to 12 inches a year. The state is also
clearly vulnerable to severe weather. Your sources
mention about 50 days of thunderstorm activity
a year. And around 14 tornadoes on average. But
the big annual threat, of course, is hurricane
season. June 1st to November 30th. With the peak
vulnerability being that Cape Verde season from
August to October, when the most powerful storms
tend to track toward the southeast. And what
are the storms that have really left a scar on
the state's memory? Well, three big ones stand
out. Hurricane Hazel in 1954 was a devastating
Category 4. Then famously, Hurricane Hugo in
1989 did immense damage, especially to Charleston.
I remember the pictures from Hugo. And more recently,
Florence in 2018 caused catastrophic flooding.
This repeated exposure makes the climate change
discussion far from theoretical there. Let's
get into that, because the data suggests South
Carolina is expected to suffer some of the worst
effects among the Deep South states. The EPA's
findings are pretty stark. While the average
temperature has only gone up about half a degree
to one degree Fahrenheit over the last century,
the immediate danger is on the coast. Sea level
rise. Sea level is rising one to one and a half
inches every single decade. That accelerates
erosion, increases flooding, and just compromises
all the coastal infrastructure. So the physical
vulnerability is immense, but the political response
seems stalled. Your sources talk about a 2008
report that laid out some specific goals. That
report was actually quite progressive for its
time. It recommended a voluntary goal of reducing
emissions to 5 % below 1990 levels by 2020. It
was a real roadmap. But by January 2020, South
Carolina had failed to develop a comprehensive
statewide climate plan. What happened? Well,
the state's political culture is highly conservative
and often skeptical of big environmental regulations.
The 2008 plan was voluntary, and without legal
teeth or real political will, it just stalled.
So you have a state facing this existential threat
from rising seas and stronger storms, but with
no coordinated top -down strategy to deal with
it. That's the disconnect, a clear physical reality
hitting a wall of political inaction. Okay, that
brings us to the second shockwave in South Carolina's
story. What? It's history. Let's start with the
pre -colonial foundation. The region was inhabited
for millennia. Oh, yeah. Evidence of human activity
goes back 50 ,000 years. By the time Europeans
showed up, you had sophisticated Native American
societies, the Kopitaceki, the Cherokee, the
Catawba. Their combined population was up to
20 ,000 around the year 1600. But the first European
attempts to settle were just... chaotic failures.
Utterly. The Spanish founded San Miguel de Guadalpe
in 1526 near present -day Georgetown. And this
is a key fact. It was the first European settlement
in the contiguous United States. And it lasted
how long? Eight months. It was abandoned after
disease, infighting, and a lack of supplies.
And the French Huguenots didn't fare much better.
No. They set up Charles IV on Paris Island in
1562, seeking religious freedom. But again, they
were too isolated, couldn't get supplies, and
the garrison failed. It just showed how tough
this environment was to sustain. So the successful
colonization came from the English. who named
it Carolina for King Charles I. Right, and in
1663, Charles II granted the whole province to
eight lords proprietors. The vision was incredibly
ambitious, intellectually led by Anthony Ashley
Cooper, who worked on the governing documents
with... John Locke. With the philosopher John
Locke, yeah. They wrote the Fundamental Constitutions
of Carolina, which had these high -minded ideas
about religious tolerance and planned governance.
But those philosophical ideals and the reality
of the colony diverged almost immediately. That's
the Great Paradox. English planters arrived from
Barbados in the 1670s and set up Charlestown.
And they brought the Barbados slave system with
them, which was notoriously brutal. And they
applied it to rice cultivation. Rice became the
dominant crop. It demanded massive scale and
specific agricultural knowledge that enslaved
Africans often supplied. By 1720, enslaved Africans
were the majority of the population. And this
brings us back to that devastating early economy,
the Native American slave trade. This wasn't
a side business. No, it was the foundational
source of profit. It funded the colony's entire
expansion. Between 1670 and 1715, they were capturing
or trading for Native Americans from as far away
as Pennsylvania and exporting them out of Charleston.
When we talk about 24 ,000 to 51 ,000 people
exported, we're talking about the deliberate
depopulation of the entire region. It completely
destabilized the indigenous political structure.
And it created endless conflict, which eventually
culminated in the Yamasee War of 1715. And all
that conflict and wealth led the colonists to
overthrow the proprietor's rule. Exactly. The
proprietors couldn't govern effectively from
England. So the province split into North and
South Carolina around 1712 and South Carolina
became a royal colony in 1719. And by the mid
1700s, this low country region built on rice,
indigo and slave labor. was one of the wealthiest
of all the 13 colonies. Unbelievably wealthy.
And it created this powerful, entrenched planter
aristocracy that would define the state for the
next century. When the Revolution came, that
aristocracy had to choose a side. And South Carolina
became the deadliest battleground in the South.
Absolutely central. The sources confirm it was
the site of more than 200 battles and skirmishes,
more than any other state. And it wasn't just
against the British. It was a brutal internal
civil war between loyalists and patriots. Despite
that chaos, they were quick to formalize their
new position. Very quick. First state to ratify
the Articles of Confederation, eighth to ratify
the Constitution. But the war exposed the great
vulnerability of their slave economy. How so?
Well, estimates suggest 25 ,000 slaves, which
was about 30 percent of the enslaved population,
either fled, migrated or died. The British offered
freedom to slaves who joined their side, which
just totally destabilized the plantation system.
Moving into the antebellum period, the invention
of the cotton gin solidifies slavery's importance.
By 1800, Charleston is the fifth largest city
in the country. With nearly 340 ,000 residents,
almost half of whom 146 ,000 were enslaved. And
that wealth translated directly into political
power. The state was a pure oligarchy. An oligarchy?
How? To sit in the statehouse, the law required
a man to own 500 acres of land and 10 slaves,
or 150 pounds sterling. This wasn't a representative
government. It was a club for wealthy planters.
And that belief in aristocratic control led directly
to the nullification crisis of 1832. This was
basically the dress rehearsal for secession,
wasn't it? It absolutely was. The state's political
titan, John C. Calhoun, developed the doctrine
of nullification, arguing a state could declare
a federal law unconstitutional within its borders.
And they tried it with federal tariffs. They
did. They declared the federal tariffs null and
void. They were basically daring the federal
government to intervene. And President Andrew
Jackson, an SC native himself, didn't back down.
No, he pushed Congress to pass the force bill,
authorizing military action to enforce the tariffs.
The crisis was averted, but the key takeaway
was clear. South Carolina's primary allegiance
was not to the Union, but to its own political
and economic system. Which meant slavery. Which
meant slavery. So the election of Abraham Lincoln,
an anti -slavery Republican, on November 6, 1860,
was seen as a non -negotiable threat. A hostile
act, as they called it. Exactly. They believed
the end of slavery was inevitable under a Republican
president, and they chose war. South Carolina
voted to secede on December 20, 1860, becoming
the first state to leave the Union. And so the
Civil War began in Charleston Harbor, April 12,
1861, with the shelling of Fort Sumter. But the
Union gained an early, critical foothold that
became a sort of microcosm for the future. That
was the Port Royal Experiment. Union forces occupied
Beaufort County and the Sea Islands very early
in November 1861. The white planters fled, abandoning
about 10 ,000 enslaved people. And this became
the proving ground for economic freedom. It really
did. Northern charities and federal officials
collaborated to manage the abandoned cotton farms,
but they organized the freed people to run the
farms for wages. So they were the first enslaved
people freed by the Union to earn wages. Profoundly
significant. It was a radical, if brief, model
for the economic structure of Reconstruction
that was supposed to follow. Despite that, the
war just devastated the state. Over 60 ,000 soldiers
served. 18 ,000 died. The final brutal act came
in early 1865. General Sherman's march across
South Carolina was famously destructive. He targeted
plantations and leveled the state capital, Columbia.
The state was readmitted in 1868, entering the
volatile era of Reconstruction. And Reconstruction
saw this dramatic, radical shift in power. For
a time, yes, African -Americans held a majority
in the state government. South Carolina sent
Joseph Rainey to Congress, the first black person
to serve in the U .S. House. But this progress
was violently opposed by white conservative Democrats,
the so -called Redeemers. They used organized
paramilitary groups like the Ku Klux Klan to
terrorize black and white Republican voters.
The violence got so bad that President Grant
had to intervene directly. What did he do? Under
the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, he suspended habeas
corpus in nine South Carolina counties. His administration
arrested hundreds of Klansmen, which temporarily
suppressed the violence. Once federal troops
left in 1877, the Redeemers, using groups like
the Red Shirts, quickly regained control. through
intimidation. And the final political move to
cement their power was the 1895 Constitution.
That Constitution was designed with one purpose,
to permanently disenfranchise African -Americans
and poor whites to prevent any future biracial
political coalition. And it used things like
poll taxes and literacy tests. Right. Ostensibly
race neutral mechanisms that had a devastatingly
targeted effect. By 1896, the black voting population,
which had been the majority in the state, was
reduced to just 5 ,500 registered voters. They
were rendered completely voiceless. And that
constitution also centralized power, overturning
local government and making counties mere agents
of the state legislature, a structure that really
lasted until 1975. Now, in the middle of this
dark moment, we find one of the most revealing
debates in your sources, the argument over adopting
the one drop rule. This really peels back the
hypocrisy of the era. Governor Pitchfork Ben
Tillman was leading the charge for white supremacy,
and a proposal was floated to legally define
anyone with any known African ancestry as black.
But the proposal met intense opposition from,
of all places, the white elite. From George Dionysius
Toman, Ben's own brother, his argument wasn't
about morality. It was about protecting the property
and social status of prominent white families
who knew they had distant African ancestry. He
said passing the law would affect respectable
families. Exactly. He argued it would legally
jeopardize over 100 landowning families, many
of whom fought for the Confederacy and forced
them into the legal category of black. His argument
against it was just so cynical. He claimed there
wasn't one full -blooded Caucasian in the room.
It's an incredible quote. He basically warned
that enforcing the rule would lead to endless
lawsuits, scandal and bloodshed as families tried
to protect their lineage and property. And that
pragmatic self -interest won the day. It did.
The political elite prioritized the stability
of their own class and property rights over the
ideological purity of absolute racial separation.
A really chilling insight into the calculus of
power. Okay, moving into the 20th century, South
Carolina begins this fundamental transformation.
The textile industry starts to grow, but it's
accompanied by the Great Migration. That migration
reshaped everything. Between 1910 and 1970, millions
of African Americans left the Deep South. The
result for South Carolina was profound. By 1930,
the state had a white majority population for
the first time since 1708. And after World War
II, the state consciously diversified its economy
beyond just textiles and agriculture. The modern
economy is almost unrecognizable. The GDP in
2019 was nearly $250 billion, and the state is
now defined by globally integrated industries.
aerospace, automotive manufacturing, agribusiness,
and huge tourism centers. This is where we see
the impact of massive foreign direct investment.
South Carolina has made itself a global industrial
player by attracting giants like Boeing and BMW.
The Boeing facility in Charleston, one of only
two final assembly sites for the 787 Dreamliner
in the world, and the huge BMW plant in Spartanburg
are the anchors of the modern industrial sector.
And the numbers on foreign investment are huge.
Over 1 ,900 foreign -owned firms employing almost
135 ,000 people. What's the specific appeal?
It's a carefully crafted, aggressively pro -business
environment. It's a right -to -work state with
a low 5 % corporate income tax, no state property
tax, no local income tax, and critically, no
sales tax on manufacturing equipment. So they've
made it incredibly cheap to set up shop. They've
rolled out the red carpet. But this glowing economic
picture contrasts very sharply with the state
of public infrastructure and services. This seems
to be the core paradox of the modern state. You
attract these cutting edge industries that need
a skilled workforce. But the public education
system really struggles. It struggles profoundly.
In 2014, the South Carolina Supreme Court issued
this landmark ruling that the state had failed
its constitutional duty to provide a minimally
adequate education, especially to kids in poor
rural districts. A massive indictment of the
system. It was. The ruling said the state was
legally failing its own citizens in a way that
just perpetuates. And nothing symbolizes this
failure quite like the state school bus system.
This fact is just, it's wild. South Carolina
is the only state in the nation that owns and
operates a statewide school bus system. A fleet
of over 5 ,500 buses. But here's the detail.
The average age of those buses is 15 years old.
The national average is six. Some buses are up
to 30 years old. Without modern safety features,
without air conditioning in that climate. The
aging bus fleet is the perfect physical symbol
of that centralized structure that dates back
to 1895. The legislature controls the money and
they just haven't prioritized the investment
to modernize the fleet. It's a 21st century economy
being served by 20th century infrastructure.
Precisely. But despite those K -12 challenges,
the state does have a long and diverse history
in higher education, which is clearly fueling
the modern workforce. Right. You have the College
of Charleston, which is one of the oldest in
the country, the flagship University of South
Carolina. And specialized institutions like the
Citadel, the Military College, plus two major
HBCUs, Claflin University and South Carolina
State University. That diversity in higher ed
is a lifeline for local industry. OK, let's look
at the people shaping the state today. 2020 census
showed a population of just over 5 million. Primarily
non -Hispanic, white, and African -American,
but that profile is changing rapidly because
of that global economic integration. The foreign
-born population grew faster than any other state
between 2000 and 2005. And the top origins today,
Mexico, India, Germany, that directly reflects
the recruitment for the auto and aerospace industries.
It's changing the cultural texture of the state.
Culturally, the sources highlight the enduring
legacy of the Gullah community on the Sea Islands
and the federally recognized Catawba Indian Nation.
And religiously, while it's overwhelmingly Christian,
that global connectivity has created some fascinating
pockets. For instance, in 2010, SC had the highest
per capita proportion of citizens following the
Baha 'i faith. That's amazing. It really speaks
to these unique global micro communities taking
root. But then we have to look at the general
quality of life metrics. South Carolina ranks
37th out of 50 for overall health care. The public
health numbers are definitely concerning. The
teen worth rate is high. The infant mortality
rate is stubbornly high. These are markers of
deep, persistent poverty that exists right alongside
that massive manufacturing wealth. And finally,
the political landscape, which is defined by
conservative dominance that really solidified
after the mid -90s. It's a reliably Republican
state. It's voted Republican in every presidential
election since 1980. It's the only state on the
East Coast that a Democrat has not won in the
21st century. But given the state's long history
of disenfranchisement, what does the modern data
say about voter access? The pattern continues.
A 2020 study ranks South Carolina as the seventh
hardest state for citizens to vote in. The methods
have changed, but the effect is similar, a political
structure that's resistant to maximizing voter
participation. And we should also note it retains
the death penalty, authorizing execution by electric
chair, or unusually, a firing squad. Right. Now
here's where it gets really interesting. This
is where the tension between that conservative
establishment and the evolving population becomes
impossible to ignore. We have the results of
an April 2023 Winthrop poll. And this poll reveals
the core paradox of the modern Palmetto State.
The state elects reliably conservative leaders,
but the population is far more socially flexible
than you might think. For instance, a large majority
supported legalizing medical marijuana. And significant
majority supported recreational marijuana and
sports gambling. And maybe more fundamentally,
a large majority believed the separation of church
and state was critical. Which challenges that
historical intersection of faith and politics
in the Deep South. But here's the most surprising
one. Same -sex marriage. The poll showed a large
majority of South Carolinians supported same
sex marriage. This is crucial data. It shows
that the social values of the average citizen
are rapidly outpacing the legislative priorities
of the entrenched power structure. So you have
a state with this history of political resistance
from nullification to secession and a machine
that still makes it hard to vote. Yet the citizens
themselves are now demanding major social policy
shifts. It means the economic transformation
attracting global companies and diverse people
is acting as an agent of social liberalization,
even if the politics remain static. So the political
resistance now is internal. The established system
is resisting the evolving will of its own people.
That's it. It sets the stage for a dramatic political
conflict in the coming decades. The pressure
is now coming from within the state itself. So
we've taken this deep dive from the geological
instability of the fall line and the seismic
risk on the coast through the appalling history
of the early slave trade and the aristocracy
that led to secession. We've seen how that history
laid the groundwork for structural failures,
like the struggling education system symbolized
by that 15 year old school bus fleet. And yet
this is a state that has successfully transformed
itself into a vital global manufacturing hub
for companies like Boeing and BMW. The tension.
is just so clear, a political structure that's
brilliant at prioritizing business through low
taxes and regulation, while at the same time
maintaining mechanisms that suppress voter access
and resist social change. The state is now grappling
with the consequences of its own success, a population
that is demonstrably more socially progressive
than its elected officials. Right. That failure
to address infrastructure needs, coupled with
the rising internal demand for social change,
creates a significant pressure cooker. So here's
our final. provocative thought for you to chew
on. South Carolina's history is defined by its
willingness to challenge federal authority to
protect its core system. Today, the challenge
isn't external, it's internal. The state is generating
a social mandate that directly contradicts the
legislative will of its entrenched conservative
structure. What happens when the pursuit of global
investment and the demographic shift it causes
finally forces the political elite to choose?
To choose between its rigid historical social
policies and the modernization required to serve
its increasingly diverse, progressive, and globally
connected population. That internal friction
will define the Palmetto State's identity for
the rest of the 21st century. Thank you for joining
us for this deep dive. Until next time, stay
well informed.