‘A Lot to Be Concerned About’: Jim Clyburn on the Stakes of the 2024 Election

Black South Carolinians saved President Joe Biden’s struggling 2020 White House bid.

Now, on Saturday, in this cycle’s first sanctioned Democratic primary, the state’s Black electorate will have an opportunity to set the tone of the 2024 race and center the issues that matter most to Black communities, including the right to vote, health care, and the economy.

Last year, with Biden’s blessing, the Democratic National Convention dethroned lily-white Iowa and New Hampshire as the earliest voting states and gave the coveted slot to South Carolina. The point was to honor Black voters, who form around 60% of the Democratic electorate in the Palmetto State, as well as better reflect the diversity of the party’s national base.

The South Carolina Democratic primary arrives at a moment when Biden is facing eroding enthusiasm among Black voters. Some are upset about what they view as the president’s meager engagement. Others are alarmed by his political choices, in particular his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, where the death toll from the Israel-Hamas war is more than 26,000.

In response to these concerns, Biden in recent weeks has been showering South Carolina with attention. He and Vice President Kamala Harris have appeared in the state numerous times this month, focusing on the administration’s work on supporting historically Black schools, reining in the cost of insulin, and forgiving student loan debt for millions of borrowers.

Biden hopes that a strong result on Saturday will offer a road map for regaining Black voter support elsewhere.

To further discuss the importance of the upcoming contest, the president’s ties to Black communities, and the ongoing efforts to dilute Black votes, Capital B spoke with Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, long a kingmaker in Democratic politics. He’s represented the state’s 6th Congressional District since 1993, and it was only after his endorsement that Biden claimed his first 2020 Democratic primary win and eventually secured the party’s nomination. Clyburn was featured in a television ad for the recent launch of a pro-Biden super PAC.

Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Capital B: President Joe Biden has moved South Carolina to the top of the Democratic Party’s nominating calendar. What’s the significance of leading with the Palmetto State?

Jim Clyburn: I jokingly said after the announcement that my major sport when I was younger was baseball. I played in high school and college. The most important hitting position in baseball is the fourth position. It’s called the cleanup hitter. I said that throughout the process, South Carolina was in the fourth position: We cleaned up a lot of mess started by the early states.

At no time was that more demonstrative than in 2020, when Biden had lost three primaries coming into South Carolina. Being the cleanup hitter that we were, we course-corrected. Now, Biden’s sitting in the White House. That happened with former President Barack Obama as well. He lost in New Hampshire, but then he got South Carolina and we cleaned that up.

But Biden decided that he wanted minority voters to have a say-so early in the nomination process. That was because, in years past, you win in Iowa, you pick up some momentum, and by the time you get to the states with large minority populations, you’re overwhelmed by that momentum.

Polls show that Black voters’ trust in Biden has declined. What’s the Democratic Party doing to try to regain the trust it’s lost — and to combat misinformation?

That’s the proper way, I think, for the question to be asked: What can be done about the misinformation that seems to be out there? I’m not accusing the media of getting it wrong. But I do think that the media have been incomplete with their stories.

I’ll give you a perfect example: student loan debt relief. Biden promised to do that, and he did it. But almost every media report I see says that he didn’t. All told, he’s forgiven $132 billion in student loan debt, affecting 3.6 million people. [But] I still have people telling me that Biden didn’t keep his promise. That’s the misinformation that’s out there.

Read more: How Biden Can Reclaim Black Voters’ Support in 2024

And that’s what we — that is, us Democrats — are going to have to do a better job [of addressing]. I’m taking that up with the Congressional Black Caucus and saying to them, “We’ve got to stop being silent when this is going on.”

Former President Donald Trump has told us what he’s going to do. He’s shown us what he’s going to do. Some people are sitting around, acting like there’s nothing to be concerned about. There’s a lot to be concerned about.

How’s the party trying to communicate with younger Black voters, who might be considering sitting out the 2024 election or backing a third-party candidate?

Well, let me say to younger Black voters that my parents were Republicans. My mama and daddy were Republicans. I grew up in a Republican household. I know that it was Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican president, who cut a deal with Southern Democrats, ending Reconstruction and starting Jim Crow. All Black people back then were Republicans, and Hayes double-crossed them. The same thing [Republican leaders acting in opposition to Black Americans’ interests] is taking place today.

These guys are taking that playbook and running with it again. And every time I see someone, especially a young Black man, telling me that he’s going to vote for Trump because he’s stronger or can talk better [than Biden] — so can every other con artist. Con artists have the good gift of gab. That’s how they con people.

You have in Biden a man who stands in the pulpit of Emanuel AME church and says that white supremacy has no place here. Have you ever heard Trump say that white supremacy is wrong? No, you’ve heard him say that there are fine people on both sides. So those people who are advocating white supremacy, they’re good people. He’s telling you that to your teeth.

If you don’t do anything else, just remember what happened to the Central Park Five. Just remember what Trump tried to do to Obama — said that he wasn’t even a citizen. Remember what he said to Omarosa Manigault Newman, who worked for him, and he called that Black woman a dog.

One issue that’s flown under the radar is the major racial gerrymandering case out of South Carolina. Why should we be paying attention to this legal battle?

Once again, South Carolina plays a very critical role in this. South Carolina is where the Civil War started. More than half of the Africans who came into this country enslaved went through Charleston. South Carolina always pioneers in this sort of thing, including with racial gerrymandering.

South Carolina at one point had five members representing the state in Congress. Four of them were Black. [Their pictures] are hanging here on the wall of my office. But then South Carolina created something called a shoestring district that ran from Charleston all the way up to my home county of Sumter, and crowded all the Black folks into that one district. That was the epitome of racial gerrymandering. It’s been used since the 1870s to keep Black people out of Congress.

Read more: The Next Big Voting Rights Case to Watch

And I know what the U.S. Supreme Court is getting ready to do now. The [Republican-nominated] justices are getting ready to say, “Well, you can’t do racial gerrymandering, but you can do political gerrymandering. And what they did in South Carolina was political gerrymandering. It just so happens that a majority of Black people vote Democratic. But we aren’t ruling against you because you’re Black. We’re ruling against you because you’re Democrats.”

That’s what this court is going to do. The justices may use high-sounding phrases, or call it all kinds of things. But the decision is going to mean one thing: They’re allowing this gerrymandering to take place.

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