The Json.Load, JSONDecodeError: Expecting Value: Line 1 Column 1 (Char 0)

To resolve the jsondecodeerror: expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0) -

json.loads() takes a JSON encoded string, not a filename. You want to use json.load() (no s) instead and pass in an open file object:
with open('/Users/JoshuaHawley/clean1.txt') as json file:
    data = json.load(jsonfile)

The open() command produces a file object that json.load() can then read from, to produce the decoded Python object for you. The with statement ensures that the file is closed again when done. The alternative is to read the data yourself and then pass it into json.loads().