Dee Elder grew up right here in Aiken. She is a 2001 graduate of South Aiken High School and a 2005 graduate of the College of Charleston where she received a bachelor’s degree in international business. Professionally, Ms. Elder has had a few careers including hospitality and tourism, sales, computer repair, computer networking and even owned and operated her own mobile computer repair business during the pandemic. She is now the Senior Network Engineer at USC Aiken.

She is a member of the LGBTQ+ community. She came out as transgender in 2020 and started transitioning that same year. Dee is the proud father to two wonderful girls, “Sweet Bug”, 12 and “Bean”, 6.

Politically Dee has changed quite a lot over the years. She grew up in a home that received every issue of the National Review and where William F. Buckley was revered as a true intellect. However, as she gained experience in the “real world” she came to realize that the staunch individualism espoused by the right is quite simply a childish and selfish way to view the world and that we must work together to make a country that functions for everyone. That is not to say that she has completely abandoned all the ideals of the true thoughtful and intellectual conservatism that she grew up with. She just views those ideals from a very different perspective. She still believes and will always believe that individual liberty, the right to choose for oneself, is the cornerstone of the American Experiment. She most firmly believes that those two ideals, a common responsibility towards your fellow citizens and individual liberty, are not at all mutually exclusive.

Dee remained a Republican voter for many years. Dee enthusiastically voted for George W. Bush twice. Then she became a hesitant McCain voter and then a reluctant Romney voter. However, by the time Donald Trump and his cohort arrived she knew it was time to rethink the way that she viewed the world and the way that she voted. She knew that his new brand of mindless, hateful rhetoric was not for her. This new ideology, if you can even call it that, sought to divide this country. Divide and conquer, one might say. Now that is what the Republican party has become, from top to bottom, from their Presidential nominee all the way down to the people trying to take over our local school boards, book-banning, abortion-banning, liberty-for-me-and-not-for-thee lunatics. Not all Republicans look like it and they might not all talk like it but if you sit at a table with nine red-hatted-MAGA-maniacs then you are the tenth.