Tim Scott Wasn't Surfing On A Wave Of Positivity. He Was Just Another MAGA Jerk.
Tim Scott Wasn't Surfing On A Wave Of Positivity. He Was Just Another MAGA Jerk.
The New York Times thinks his campaign was 'sunny.' We disagree.
You’re forgiven for not noticing Tim Scott’s presidential campaign, but now it’s over, much like the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s winning streak. I never thought much of Scott, an especially odious, opportunistic, morally bankrupt Republican, but I also never expected more from him just because he’s Black. It’s annoying when Democrats assume that well-off, powerful Black people will automatically care more for those less fortunate than equally privileged white people. So, no, I never appreciated the “Uncle Tim” remarks (especially from white liberals whose own family members were just as right-wing as Scott).
What I won’t accept are mainstream media narratives that cast Tim Scott as anything more than a petty creep who lacked the stature of an empty suit. Yet, the New York Times (of course) subjected us to this headline: “Tim Scott Suspends ’24 Campaign, as His Sunny Message Failed to Resonate.”
Sunny message? Scott’s campaign launch video featured him walking through Fort Sumter in South Carolina, where he directly linked the Confederacy to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Secretary of Scary Socialist State Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He didn’t mention the actual modern-day Confederates who stormed the Capitol on Donald Trump’s behalf.
“Today our country is once again being tested,” he said. “Once again, our divisions run deep, and the threat to our future is real. Joe Biden and the radical Left have chosen a culture of grievance over greatness.”
If genuinely sunny Cory Booker aired a campaign ad calling his political opponents racist traitors, the media would eagerly paint him as divisive and negative. This is probably why some Black Democrats have switched parties. They’re guaranteed better press coverage.
After the vicious terrorist attack against Israel last month, Scott prioritized cheap politics over genuine empathy. He immediately and baselessly blamed Biden, claiming he had “blood on his hands” and was “complicit” in the Hamas attack. He told his dozen or so supporters at a DC event, “His weakness invited the attack, his cash giveaways to Iran helped fund terrorism.”
Just this month, Scott peddled the racist Great Replacement Theory on Fox News and suggested that “the reason why you see this administration so committed to an insecure, unsafe, wide-open border is because it adds to their polls.”
“[Democrats] are interested in one thing: power,” he ranted. “They will manipulate people to control them. They are not interested in racial progress. They’re not talking about how we can all get along.”
He went on: “Here’s what they want: They want a monopoly in America that allows for socialism to be the finance system of our nation, that allows for their conversation around equity — give it away, not earn it.”
He slavishly defended Donald Trump — the oozing slime trail Scott was theoretically competing against in the Republican primary — condemning his indictments as “un-American” and the result of a “weaponized” Department of Justice.
Scott was also a religious extremist, who considered “homosexuality a morally wrong choice, like adultery.” He supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s anti-LGBTQ “Don’t Say Gay” bill and repeated the right-wing lie that American children were being “indoctrinated” in all the gay. He also vowed to sign the most forced-birth legislation possible as president. His recent so-called “Our Values” ad was just more repulsive, small-minded bigotry: “I'm about to say something really controversial in Joe Biden's America. If you're able-bodied, you work. If you take out a loan, you pay it back. If you commit a violent crime, you go to jail. And if you're a man, you should play sports against men. America needs more victors and less victims.”
Sure, before he got to the anti-trans garbage, he could have been inveighing against Trump. He wasn’t. These people’s brains are wondrous things.
He was basically Ted Cruz. He even had the rubbish beard for a while. If his totally real girlfriend convinced him to shave that mess, she would’ve done her duty for the nation.
I don’t doubt Scott was more superficially polite to his colleagues than known assholes Cruz or Josh Hawley, but that doesn’t mean he ran a positive campaign with a “sunny” message. No, he gave Republican primary voters the full MAGA but they weren’t interested.
The Times also describes Scott as a “rising star,” which is absurdly generous. Scott is 58. He’s closer in age to Mike Pence than Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis. He’s a year older than Glenn Youngkin. He’s no “star,” either. He’ll retire in the Senate. Please ignore these fantasies about Trump picking him as his vice president. He’s duller than Pence, and it says a lot that this is not the worst thing I could say about him.
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If Tim Scott truly believes all the idiotic maga lies he says about “open borders,” or “indoctrination,” or the rest of the tired gop routine, he’s a terrible person. If he’s simply regurgitating those lies because it’s his political path to a place in the gop, but he knows it’s all BS, he’s a terrible person.
Now Tim can settle his tab with the escort service.