U.S. presidential candidate Senator Tim Scott (Republican Party)
Brilliant political history with a single mother
“I succeeded because I did not live by blaming society”
Anti-abortion-anti-immigrant pro-typical conservatives
“I am the proof that America is the ‘Land of Opportunity’.”
Tim Scott (South Carolina, 58, photo), the representative of black American politicians and the only black senator from the opposition Republican Party, said on the 22nd at his alma mater, Charleston Southern University, announcing his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. It is said that the current situation in which he, who grew up in a single-parent family, dreams of becoming the owner of the White House is the ‘American Dream’.
His mother, a nursing assistant, worked 16 hours a day to raise her son. However, he opposes unconditional welfare for the socially underprivileged. He opposes ‘Obama Care’, which is the main point of joining the national health insurance, and argues that food support such as ‘food stamps’ should be cut off for the low-income people who participated in the strike. He also opposes the cancellation of student loans for low-income people, which is President Joe Biden’s signature policy. The purpose of criticism is that it only prevents them from becoming self-reliant by increasing their dependence on the government in the long run. He exclaims that he can say these words because he is also black, “Choose between ‘victim consciousness’ and ‘victory’.”
He is a typical conservative who supports small government, tax cuts, anti-abortion and anti-immigration. At the same time, he says, “Republicans, too, will have to decide between grumbling and greatness.” He took a strategy of targeting former President Donald Trump, the main runner of the Republican Party, while digging into minority voters, including blacks, by presenting himself as a self-made man.
Scott was born in 1965 in North Charleston, South Carolina. He majored in political science at Charleston Southern University and worked in the insurance industry after graduation before entering politics.
South Carolina is called the “Deep South” along with neighboring states such as Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. During the Civil War in the 19th century, these states operated as slavery-based haciendas. It is still notorious for being racist.
He also went through a lot of racial discrimination, but he claims that today’s success is because he did not live by blaming the social system unconditionally. Hearing that he was elected to the city council, the state legislature, the House of Representatives, and the Senate one after another in South Carolina, a conservative stronghold, he exclaims, “As long as African Americans from the South are in the Senate, America is progressing.”
In April 2021, right after President Biden’s first State of the Union address after taking office, he received attention as a speaker refuting it. He insisted to President Biden, who would reunite the divided United States during the Trump administration, that “the United States is not a racist country,” and that certain political parties should not use racism as a “political weapon.”
When a white supremacist in his 20s opened fire in a black church in Charleston in 2015, killing nine people, Scott drew the line as “a deranged male deviant.” Even when George Floyd, a black man, was killed by a white police officer in 2020, the Democrats insisted that the full-scale police reform is excessive.
Rep. Scott secured 22 million dollars (approximately 28.6 billion won) of campaign funds in three days after registering to run with the Federal Election Commission on the 19th. Billionaire Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, an American information technology company, and famous for being a source of money for the Republican Party, offered him 15 million dollars. Senate Majority Leader John Shun (South Dakota), the Republican’s “Senate No. 2”, also announced his support.
However, because of the line close to conservative white politicians, the rejection of black voters and progressives is considerable. Earlier this month, an official from the ruling Democratic Party apologized after mocking him for calling him an “Oreo cookie.” Like an Oreo cookie with white cream between black crackers, he demeaned it as ‘black on the outside but white on the inside’. At a time when black votes, which account for 12% of the 330 million Americans, are not going to him, the question is whether Scott sticks to his strategy.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.