The topic was redistricting in South Carolina, where Republicans have advanced a congressional map aimed at unseating Rep. James Clyburn, the powerful Democrat who has represented the state’s 6th Congressional District since 1993.
The South Carolina House approved the GOP-backed map, which still faces the state Senate, and the proposal would also delay the state’s congressional primaries from June to August.
Clyburn is South Carolina’s only Democrat in Congress and the state’s only black member of Congress. That fact became the entire basis of MSNOW’s argument.
The network framed the Republican map as an attack on black voting power, a threat to democracy, and part of some broader racial scheme. But the basic reality is much simpler: Republicans are targeting Clyburn because he is a Democrat, not because he is black.
Political redistricting may be aggressive. It may be self-interested. It may even be bad policy in some cases. But calling every partisan move racist is exactly how Democrats have destroyed the meaning of racism in American politics.
Race is not the motivation every time a Republican tries to defeat a Democrat. Sometimes politics is just politics.
Hellbound and Down 