Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, likely to be the only Black republican in Congress in 2021,
In the first minute of his speech, Scott blew the dog whistle by saying “Democrats called [republicans’] work [on police reform, which Democrats were not invited to participate in] a ‘token’ effort and walked out of the room during negotiations because they wanted the issue more than they wanted a solution.”
After talking about failing out of high school because he failed four classes, Scott said, “After seven years in the Senate, I know I’m not the only one in Congress who failed civics,” perhaps referring to his republican caucus mates.
Scott mentioned how he ran for the republican nomination for US Congress against the son of Strom Thurmond in 2010, failing to mention that he had the support of the then-powerful Tea Party and the Koch-funded Club for Growth.
“Our nation always bends back to fairness,” Scott averred. “We don’t give in to ‘cancel culture’ or the radical and factually baseless belief that things are worse today than they were in the 1860s or the 1960s.”
[Fact check: The United States canceled the Confederacy in the 1860s. And no one is saying things are worse now that during the period of slavery; people are protesting to not be complacent with the racism in today’s world, which republicans seem to be a-okay with.]
“President Trump created the most inclusive economy ever,” Scott claimed. “Seven million jobs, pre-COVID 19. [Fact check: including the COVID-19 era, which we cannot not ignore, the nation has lost 6.2 million jobs during the Trump Administration.]
Scott then went on to say, nonplussed, that we “paint a full picture of Donald Trump and Joe Biden” without noting that he cut off the last seven months of the “picture” of Trump’s term relating to the economy. Scott then went on to quote three things Biden said that caused stress among Black voters. Scott didn’t mention Trump’s infamous “Where’s my African-American?” statement.
Scott also touted Trump’s tax bill, which he claims didn’t benefit the top 1%, but benefited single mom’s and working families. As fact checkers have pointed out, some immediate benefit went to those classes of people, but overall, the bill benefited the wealthiest Americans, like the Trump family, who receive long term tax savings:
In 2027, the study shows, 82.8 percent of the tax cuts will flow to the top 1 percent. The top quintile actually receives 107.3 percent of the tax changes — because taxes actually increase for the folks in the lowest, second-lowest and middle quintiles.
Scott frequently harkened back on a lot of his family history, saying that his grandfather, a cotton field worker, saw his grandson get elected to both the US House and the US Senate, the first Black to do so. “Our family went from cotton to Congress in one lifetime,” he said as he asked for support for Trump-Pence “which is the best opportunity to making that dream come true”– instead of Biden and Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to be on a major party presidential ticket.