Our View: Want private primaries? GOP can pay.

As the rest of us were busy planning our Fourth of July celebrations, the South Carolina Republican Party last month decided to honor America’s 250-year commitment to democratic self-rule in its own special way: By trying to take away your right to vote in the primary of your choice.

Really. No kidding.

Of course, the party didn’t put it that way. Because of, ummm, optics. Or perception. Or whatever the political types are calling it these days when the bad thing they’re doing actually looks every bit as bad as it is.

So make no mistake: If you’re an independent-minded South Carolina voter who participates in whichever party primary your favorite candidates happen to be running in, the state GOP wants you to sit down and shut up.

And now, it’s suing the state of South Carolina to make sure you do. Why? Well, that depends on who you ask. And whose elephant is being gored.

Speaking for the 601 Republican delegates who voted on June 27 to sue over the state’s historic law allowing properly registered voters to participate in the primary of their choice, state GOP Chair Drew McKissick would have you believe it’s because Democrats are sabotaging Republican primaries.

“[It’s] like allowing Carolina or Clemson fans to choose which players the other team will put on the field,” McKissick told reporters in May.

Hogwash. That might be a tad more convincing if the Republican Party didn’t currently hold every statewide constitutional office, enjoy supermajorities in both legislative chambers, control all five seats on the S.C. Supreme Court and command an 8-1 advantage in the state’s federal delegation, including both U.S. senators.

Some sabotage.

But if “subversive” Democrats aren’t really the problem, what is?

Good question. And as the rest of the lawsuit makes clear, the answer is precisely what you think — power.

Because state Republican leaders are not just asking a court to let party insiders decide who gets to vote. They want to decide who gets to run, too — mostly, they say, to keep party-switching Democrats from running as Republicans.

People like, you know, the late Strom Thurmond. Or former Gov. David Beasley. Or that longtime former New York Democrat, Donald Trump.

But no need to worry about that, McKissick said last week. See, under the rules they’re asking the court to impose, local party bosses would be free to make exceptions for people they like. Arbitrarily. Capriciously. On a whim.

Like that was the comforting part.

Now, to be clear: If the GOP wants to pay for the privilege of conducting its own primaries under its own rules with its own money, good for it. That’s as American as fireworks and cookouts and patriotic speeches in the park. And we’re for it.

But as long as Republicans expect state taxpayers to keep footing the bill for their primaries — and they do — they need to show a decent respect for the opinions of all South Carolinians.

And that’s a self-evident truth we could all stand to think about a little more often as the nation begins its 251st year of freedom.