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In recent election cycles, Charleston County has emerged as one of the most reliable Democrat strongholds in South Carolina – a blue island in a red state no Democrat has carried at the presidential level since 1976.
It’s been nearly twenty years since a Democrat won any statewide office in South Carolina – and that official, former superintendent of education Jim Rex, has since bolted the party.
Nonetheless, Charleston County has been reliably left-of-center for several decades. Its voters overwhelmingly backed former U.S. president Joe Biden in 2020 with 56% of the vote – and supported Kamala Harris last fall with 52% of the vote. And when it comes to local politics… Democrats run the show (for better or worse).
There are signs this blue monolith is cracking, though. Congresswoman Nancy Mace – a Republican with a mile-wide independent streak – carried Charleston County last fall with 56% of the vote. And with the state party continuing to double down on its twin pillars of “woke” and “waste” – is it any wonder a tectonic shift is underway?
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Last weekend, Charleston County Democrats voted in a new slate of leaders – by the narrowest of margins. New party chairman Thomas Dixon defeated county auditor Peter Tecklenburg by just three votes, ushering in a new era of über-woke at the party.
“The big tent is now open and I want to welcome you all to the fight of your lives,” Dixon told supporters.
Wait… the big tent?
Despite his rhetoric of inclusiveness, Dixon is sadly the definitional divisive woke progressive. In a recent interview with Voyage ATL, the self-styled man of the cloth – originally from Chicago, Illinois – touted his “unbiased, experience-based perspective” before arguing that teaching the pledge of allegiance to school children was “wrong” because America has “never been a nation with ‘liberty and justice for all.'”
“It plants the seeds of privilege in the hearts of little white children who will grow up to see ‘liberty and justice’ work in their favor while little black children will grow up frustrated, realizing they’ve been lied to by their nation and that ‘liberty and justice’ in America is NOT for all… in the nation that their ancestors actually built,” Dixon said.
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That’s precisely the sort of divisiveness that led to U.S. president Donald Trump receiving up to 16% of the black vote in 2024 – double what he got during the previous presidential election.
On economic issues, Dixon is a disciple of socialist U.S. senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont – endorsing his presidential candidacy and embracing his redistributive wealth agenda. Dixon also supports slavery reparations, which according to him are owed to black families for years of “systemic racism.”
“These people over here don’t deserve to have what we have,” Dixon told government-subsidized NPR last June.
Following two unsuccessful campaigns for elected office, Dixon is now at the helm of arguably the most important local Democrat party in the Palmetto State – which has many of its members concerned for its future.
“The nut jobs have fully grabbed the wheel,” one source who attended the recent election told us. “Charleston is one of the few places we can win, (and) now that’s in jeopardy. These people live in an alternate reality and are doubling down on losing.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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