{"id":6833,"date":"2026-08-18T09:08:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T09:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=6833"},"modified":"2026-08-18T09:08:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T09:08:22","slug":"democrats-south-carolina-presidential-primary-scheme-is-a-last-ditch-effort-to-hold-off-the-dsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=6833","title":{"rendered":"Democrats’ South Carolina presidential-primary scheme is a last-ditch effort to hold off the DSA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Don\u2019t believe the Democratic National Committee\u2019s official storyline: The DNC\u2019s decision to make South Carolina the first Democratic presidential primary in 2028 isn\u2019t about introducing more racial diversity into the early contests.<\/p>\n

Read more Exclusive | Hayden Panettiere suffered from \u2018really severe\u2019 health issues in months leading up to death: \u2018Hard for her to move her legs\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually about keeping power in the hands of the party establishment \u2014 the people who backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, and who are likely to wind up supporting Kamala Harris in 2028.<\/p>\n

The fix is in.<\/p>\n

South Carolina was the establishment\u2019s firewall against Bernie Sanders\u2019 left-wing insurgency twice over.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2016, Sanders nearly beat Hillary Clinton in the first caucus, in Iowa, and went on to defeat her in the New Hampshire primary.<\/p>\n

Four years later, there was a brief moment when Sanders looked like the frontrunner \u2014 until he got clobbered by Joe Biden in South Carolina.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that the black voters who make South Carolina\u2019s primaries more racially diverse than the contests in Iowa or New Hampshire are also less politically radical.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s easy for the DNC to say it\u2019s not trying to choke off support for the socialist wing of the party; it\u2019s just giving black voters more of a say.<\/p>\n

The Democratic Socialists of America, the left fringe of the party, is disproportionately white \u2014 even its New York City chapter is 60% white, according to DSA\u2019s own membership polling.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s astonishing, considering NYC itself is only 34% white.<\/p>\n

This racial split between the Democrats\u2019 most ideologically intense faction and the party\u2019s elite, which only holds on to power thanks to black voters\u2019 loyalty, is a fault line with the potential to reshape American politics.<\/p>\n

South Carolina doesn\u2019t just lean toward establishment Democrats, it backs them overwhelmingly \u2014 nearly three-quarters of the state\u2019s Dem primary voters chose Clinton over Sanders in \u201916, while Biden beat Sanders there in \u201920 by a ratio of more than two-to-one.<\/p>\n

A candidate like Harris or her fellow Californian Gavin Newsom fits that profile, and Harris\u2019 unbeatable name recognition \u2014 as a former VP and 2024 nominee \u2014 and race-and-sex diversity qualifications likely give her an edge.<\/p>\n

DSA members won\u2019t stay home and let another Republican succeed Donald Trump, rather than turn out to vote for Harris or Newsom \u2014 but if the establishment candidate goes on to lose in November \u201928, the party will be ripe for a revolution.<\/p>\n

Will black voters who have so far resisted Sanders-style socialism be just as content with a DSA-led party as they have been with the Democrats\u2019 old guard?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, with Republican states growing while blue states like California shed population and businesses, the Democrats face a terminal problem in the Electoral College and in the US House of Representatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Hayden Panettiere\u2019s ex-fianc\u00e9 Wladimir Klitschko laments actress\u2019 death after obtaining custody of their daughter<\/a><\/p>\n

With each decennial census, Republicans stand to gain House seats and electoral votes.<\/p>\n

But Democrats can offset the GOP\u2019s growth advantages if they start flipping southern states back into the blue column.<\/p>\n

Georgia is the test case: The state has prospered under Republican leadership, but that prosperity has fueled the growth of Atlanta, and has turned many of the city\u2019s suburbs blue.<\/p>\n

Virginia, of course, has already become a purple state, if not a reliably Democratic one.<\/p>\n

And while Washington, DC, is a unique influence as the center of the federal government, the growth of the Old Dominion\u2019s deep-blue DC suburbs \u2014 which keep extending further into Virginia\u2019s interior \u2014 is not so different from the effect Atlanta is having on Georgia.<\/p>\n

North Carolina is another weak link in the Republican Party\u2019s southern wall.<\/p>\n

So despite backing recent losers \u2014 Hillary Clinton a decade ago, Biden and Harris both in the last election \u2014 the Democratic establishment thinks it\u2019s hit upon a strategy both for keeping control of the party and wresting the South away from Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s confident the DSA will fall in with the party line: After all, the elite Democrats are more allergic to the socialist\u00a0label<\/em>\u00a0than they are to socialistic policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They can give DSA much of what it wants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet a plan is one thing \u2014 the reality is there\u2019s a knife fight for control of the Democratic Party, and these pieces won\u2019t fit together easily.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

And while the Democrats\u2019 emerging opportunities are in the South, the party\u2019s ideologically ascendant faction is the least suited to capitalize on them.<\/p>\n

That gives Republicans a chance to stop both the Democrats\u2019 socialism and their racial spoils system.<\/p>\n

To do it the GOP will have to campaign for the South like it\u2019s a battleground region \u2014 and slow, even if it can\u2019t immediately reverse, the drift of America\u2019s cities to the left.<\/p>\n

Republicans need the South and<\/em> the Rust Belt \u2014 the combination that led to victory in 2016 and 2024.<\/p>\n

If the GOP can\u2019t compete in cities, even those in flourishing red states, the party is on the road to extinction.<\/p>\n

Read more Ravens Super Bowl winner O.J. Brigance dead at 56 after ALS battle<\/a><\/p>\n

Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fix is in: The Democratic establishment thinks it\u2019s hit upon a strategy both for keeping control of the party out of the DSA’s hands and wresting the South away from Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daniel-mccarthy","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nDemocrats' South Carolina presidential-primary scheme is a last-ditch effort to hold off the DSA - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=6833\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Democrats' South Carolina presidential-primary scheme is a last-ditch effort to hold off the DSA - 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