Guest column by Duke Buckner: For good of 6th District, Biden and Clyburn must go
My name is Duke Buckner, and I am the Republican Party's nominee for U.S. Congress in South Carolina's Sixth Congressional District. I'm writing to discuss the crisis facing our nation and this district.
The last several weeks have revealed that America does not have a functioning president and has not had one for at least two years. Throughout that time, the White House, the mainstream media and the Democratic Party have lied to us. Whoever is making policy for our nation, directing our military and holding the nuclear football is not the person elected in 2020. This is not just a political crisis for Democrats, it is an existential crisis for America.
It would be hard to imagine this crisis occurring at a worse time. Our nation is in economic turmoil; our schools are failing; our young children are being sexualized; our schools are failing to teach math and reading while at the same time manipulating children into gender confusion; our open borders are bringing in record illegal immigration; in the Middle East, Israel is fighting for its existence; and in Europe, NATO is engaging with a nuclear-armed Russia. Our nation and our world are aflame while the president's office is effectively vacant.
Rep. Jim Clyburn has played an important role in furthering our crisis. He has also not been fully forthcoming with the American people, including those in his district. Let's take a moment to look at the facts and then you decide.
In 2020, it was already apparent that Joe Biden was experiencing cognitive decline. Ignoring concerns, Rep. Clyburn single-handedly saved Joe Biden's failing campaign by endorsing Biden just before the 2020 South Carolina primary.
We know now that once elected, President Biden's mental abilities swiftly declined. By 2022, according to NBC News' Chuck Todd, Biden no longer seemed able to handle presidential duties. New York Magazine's Olivia Nuzzi paints a bleak picture of President Biden's mental capacity in early 2024 when his open mouth and blank stares showed a man who wasn't "really there." Moreover, CNN recently reported that Biden has not been a functioning president for at least nine months, with his last full Cabinet meeting conducted in October 2023.
After the June 27 Trump-Biden debate, NBC News interviewed Dr. Tom Pitts, a Democratic neurologist who regularly treats patients with Parkinson's disease. He stated that Biden's affliction was so obvious that, if one of his students saw the debate footage and failed to diagnose Parkinson's, that student would flunk out of medical school. Indeed, President Biden's dementia is so obvious that The Daily Show's Jon Stewart savagely ridiculed the president and those who propped him up.
Dementia is a degenerative affliction. The best that can be done is to use medications to mask the symptoms for a few hours.
We can all feel sorry for President Biden's affliction. What we cannot do is tolerate him as president, nor can we tolerate those who lied about and hid his incapacity.
Speaking the truth about a problem in the White House requires courage, honesty and love of country. Rep. Clyburn has failed on every metric. He has cravenly chosen to place party over country, to embrace dishonesty over truth and to embrace politics over service to the Sixth District.
Immediately after the June 27 Biden-Trump debate, when all could see President Biden's catastrophic cognitive decline, Rep. Clyburn bizarrely dismissed the problem with a baseball metaphor. Biden's horrific performance, he said, was nothing more than a "first strike."
Three days later, Rep. Clyburn ludicrously claimed that Biden had suffered from "preparation overload" and recommended that Biden stay in office and continue to run for the presidency. Or, as Rep. Clyburn has since put it, "We are ridin' with Biden!"
Most recently, Rep. Clyburn claimed that Biden's dismal performance at the debate wasn't because Biden has obvious dementia but was, instead, because Biden was "still working to overcome the stuttering of his childhood" - a stutter that has never once appeared during Biden's half-century in the public eye.
Instead of calling upon Biden to take a cognitive exam administered by a neurologist to definitively answer for America the degree of Biden's dementia, Rep. Clyburn made the outrageous claim that Biden's mental acuity is "the same" today as it was "four years ago." Rep. Clyburn's brazen dishonesty is stunning.
There is no one better placed to demand that President Biden resign or Kamala Harris invoke the 25th Amendment than Rep. Jim Clyburn. However, he hasn't done it. Were he to demand President Biden's immediate replacement for the good of the country, it would be a loud and powerful voice, nearly impossible to resist.
Many in the Democratic Party, showing intellectual honesty and courage, have called for President Biden to resign. Rep. Clyburn is not among them. That is why Rep. Clyburn must go.
When we needed Rep. Clyburn to protect our nation and the Sixth District, he protected President Biden. When we needed Rep. Clyburn to be honest, he misled the American people to protect the Democratic Party's interests.
Let me make two promises to the people in the Sixth District. First, if you elect me to succeed Rep. Clyburn, I promise that I will always be honest with you. I will never lie to you for political gain or to shield my political party. Second, and most importantly, I will always place the Sixth District's needs first. I will never forget, nor will I ever neglect the Sixth District's residents amidst the swirl of national politics.
For the good of the nation and the Sixth District, President Biden and Rep. Jim Clyburn must go.
Duke Buckner is a candidate for the 6th Congressional District of South Carolina.