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Joe's burden Primary win reveals more about the changing face of America
The Guardian Weekly
|February 09, 2024
Surprise! Joe Biden won the Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina with a high-90s percentage that would make even Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-un blush.
But there was a wider narrative last Saturday about representation, the changing face of the US and a rebuke to the white identity politics of Donald Trump.
Biden, 81, last year tore up the tradition, which took hold with Jimmy Carter in 1976, of Iowa and New Hampshire going first in picking the Democratic candidate for president. At his behest, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) rearranged the electoral calendar so that South Carolina would have first say in shaping the race this time.
Still, anyone who spent parts of last month freezing in Iowa and New Hampshire after the Republican primary was reminded how demographically unrepresentative those states are. Both are about 90% white.
In South Carolina, however, one in four residents are Black. The state is more in keeping with a rainbow nation where Republicans appear to be in denial that white Christians are no longer the majority.
This story is from the February 09, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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