Photo: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times/Redux Right up until she lit the fire, some of Representative Nancy Mace’s own staff and advisers didn’t know what she was going to say on the House floor in February 2025, let alone that it would be a pivotal moment in her life. That speech now appears to be a before-and-after moment, separating Mace’s once-promising (if often bizarrely colorful) career from the seemingly irredeemable mess it has become. Flanked by a metal safe and an in-home security