President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris credited South Carolina — the first primary state won by Biden in 2020 after three previous losses — with paving their path to the White House in 2020.
The state was rewarded accordingly when the Democratic National Committee, with Biden’s support, awarded South Carolina with the honor of hosting the first Democratic presidential primary of the 2024 cycle — or at least the first with Biden on the ballot.
With less than 24 hours to go before South Carolina was set to hold its primary election, the Vice President made her third visit to the Palmetto State this year, showing her love to the city of Orangeberg — and its two historically Black institutions — and selling the electorate on the White House’s accomplishments, while taking aim at their presumptive November opponent: former President Donald Trump.
"In 2020, in the height of an historic pandemic, in the midst of so much loss and uncertainty, the people of South Carolina showed up to vote. You convinced your friends and your family members and neighbors and co-workers of the power of their vote, and the power they have when they show up to vote," Harris said. "And it is because of that work that Joe Biden is President of the United States, and I am the first woman, and first black woman, to be vice president of the United States of America."
She ran through the administration’s accomplishments, including expanded federal funding for high-speed internet access; student loan debt cancellation and payment restructuring; and funding for historically Black colleges and universities, like her alma mater Howard University. She spoke with pride about the negotiations with drug manufactures, which began this week, seeking to cap prescription medication prices for Medicare users.
But roughly half of Harris’s time was spent on the attack against the leader for the Republican presidential nomination.
"Former President Trump has made clear time and time again, his fight is not for the people — he fights for himself," Harris said. "He openly talks about his intention to weaponize the Department of Justice. He openly says that he is quote proud that he overturned Roe v. Wade, proud that he took the freedom of choice from millions of American women. For years, the former president has stoked the fires of hate and bigotry and racism and xenophobia for his own power and political gain."
Harris recited Trump’s oft-repeated quote that he would be a "dictator on day one" of his second presidential term (Trump’s comment that he would "only be a dictator on day one," and not after that, came during a Fox News town hall, and supposedly as a joke).
"Do you understand what dictators do? Dictators put journalists in jail. Dictators suspend elections. Dictators take your rights. And as the great Maya Angelou once said, when someone tells you they are, believe them the first time," Harris said, charging that Trump has alike inspired insurrectionists, like those who sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and violent extremists, like the white nationalists and neo-Nazis of the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia "Unite the Right" rally.
The Trump presidency as well, she charged, inspired new waves of socially conservative legislation, affecting abortion rights, voting rights and LGBTQ rights, arguing that "across our nation, fundamental freedoms are at stake."
The question, she posed, is whether voters want a country "of liberty, freedom and rule of law" or of "disorder, fear and hate."
Harris was preceded at the microphone by Rep. James Clyburn, the longtime South Carolina Democrat and Congressional leader, who opened up the attacks on Trump.
"Given an opportunity, he has told you what he is going to do. My advice to you is to believe him, and show up and make sure he never occupies the White House again," Clyburn said. "We’ve been fooled once, and that’s his shame. We stay at home and get fooled a second time? That is our shame, and that is not what we want for our future."