Tim Scott, Clarence Thomas, and the problem of Democrat racism
Hugo Gurdon
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Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) run for president should sharpen voter focus on Democratic racism. Scott is black and a conservative, two categories that the horrified Left believes cannot or must not overlap.
Democrats hurl the insults “racism” and “racist” at conservatives and their policies. It’s their weapon of choice in political argument, and they reach lazily for it whether they’re debating fiscal policy, medical outcomes, school admissions, or pretty much anything else. They claim racism is pervasive and is, indeed, America’s foundation stone, so the accusation always seems apt to them.
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But their own racism is at least as ugly as what you find on the Right. Unlike Right-wing racism, Left-wing racism is not confined to the fringes but has been woven into the fabric of what it means to be a mainstream Democrat. Without it, just to take one obvious example, the displacement of “equality” by “equity” would be impossible.
Black conservatives suffer most from the Left’s racism, as has been brightly highlighted again recently by the latest Democratic attempts to smear Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas has endured a career-long trashing by the Left since 1991 when then-Sen. Joe Biden presided over the “high-tech lynching” that constituted Thomas’s confirmation hearings.
Most recently, news outlets and Democrats such as Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (NY) and Sen Dick Durbin (IL) have mounted an attempted character assassination of Thomas by falsely accusing him of hiding hospitality from Harlan Crow, a real estate magnate. They also tried to taint them as fascists by feigning astonishment over Crow’s collection of memorabilia from historical tyrants, including Hitler. Crow is a passionate advocate of freedom over tyranny, no doubt a source of his lifelong friendship with Thomas, but this escapes mention in the tendentious stories and commentary of their accusers.
Hatred of Thomas is due to Democrats’ fear of him. They divide Americans into victim groups to whom they make their appeal, so it is vital that black people form a bloc, monolithic in its opinions. Thomas, a descendant of slaves, who lived a childhood of poverty in rural Georgia, is therefore regarded as a race traitor for thinking outside his group and coming to well-reasoned conservative conclusions. For this, he is branded an “Uncle Tom.”
So is Scott. In his exploratory presidential launch video, the senator cites Democrats calling him a “token” and a “prop.” They know he is a threat to their hopes of political domination because he is black, conservative, intelligent, personable, a great retail politician, and, having been born to a single mother in poverty, has a wonderful American dream story to tell.
The more black people think like Scott and Thomas, the worse it is for Democrats. If they refuse to be crammed into a class defined by orthodox Left-wing thinking and Democratic votes, where would the blue party be? More and more black people, especially men, are voting Republican. This is no surprise, or shouldn’t be, because racial minorities are disproportionately represented in the working class, and the GOP increasingly identifies with the interests of blue-collar voters. A political leader such as Scott would draw yet more black votes to the GOP.
Many millions of ordinary Americans, black or white, will also identify with Scott’s message that it is time to challenge and rid the country of the cult of victimhood championed by President Biden and the Democrats. They will rejoice at Scott’s rejection of the slander that the U.S. is an “evil country.” And they are sick of the Democrats’ “weaponizing race” to achieve power. Scott talks of America as a land of opportunity, not oppression.
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His polling numbers now are tiny — no more than rounding errors when compared to those of former President Donald Trump — but many Republicans are likely to be interested as he spreads his message of hope and opportunity for all and demonstrates their truth with the story of his own life.
Republicans would also be delighted to nominate a black man, in part because the drumbeat of Democratic accusations of racism is wearing, even though they are false. No one likes to be called racist, perhaps especially when they know it is a lie. Nominating Scott, if that were to happen, would give Republicans the satisfaction not just of having a champion fit for the White House but also of being able to fling the charge of racism back in their accusers’ faces.