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Tim Scott's first campaign ad is an (unintentional) ode to Republican hypocrisy [1]

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Date: 2023-05-20

Sen. Tim Scott dog whistles to the congregation

On Friday, Tim Scott filed the necessary paperwork with the FEC to start a presidential campaign. On Monday, he will officially announce his participation in the quadrennial mud-wrestling event, also known as the Republican presidential primary. This weekend, he released his first campaign ad. It was an indictment of Republicans and their character deficits — not that Scott intended it to be.

One prominent Twitter user (140.2 million followers — although he owns the site and controls the code, so can we be sure there’s no chicanery?) thought Scott’s ad was just splendid.

I am sure Scott thought Elon Musk’s attaboy was just what the doctor ordered. However, given Musk’s recent embrace of fantasy and fascism, the disinterested viewer might view the Twitter boss’s encomium as a reason to look under the hood of the Senator’s campaign-launch ad. So let us do so.

Scott starts by denigrating those who raise children in America today.

“Today’s kids are growing up in a culture where everyone is a victim.”

Who is Scott blaming for this sorry state of affairs? He does not say. However, I imagine he means parents. Further, I am sure his subtext is liberal parents. MAGA parents listening to this childless man’s analysis of today's youth will not think he is referring to them.

These self-congratulatory patriots have American flags in the yard and a Bible somewhere while they bring their children to church — or would do so if they had time.

Scott knows the consumers of his platitudes will also blame schools, Democratic politicians, and woke corporations. This disparagement raises the question, who are the biggest self-identified victims in America? The answer is conservatives.

It starts with Trump. He cannot utter two sentences without one being, “I am a victim.” While the other identifies who is victimizing him.

The GOP’s second loudest whiner, MT Greene, is equally quick to claim she is the victim of dark malevolence. In her case, her go-to is a Black man — specifically, Jamaal Bowman — whom she profiled after they had a verbal spat on the Capitol stairs. She complained , “He was aggressive; his physical mannerisms were aggressive. I am concerned about it. I feel threatened by him.”

Note: Greene is familiar with aggressive physical mannerisms. She once thought it sporting to chase down and yell at David Hogg, a 17-year-old witness to the Parkland school massacre. Hogg reported he “absolutely” felt it was a threat when Greene said in the video that she carried a gun — but told himself, “If they shoot me, they prove my point.”

He also said, belying Scott's excoriation of today’s youth, “I was told growing up, it’s just better not to respond to bullies and just walk away.”

Back to Scott. He continued,

“We have to start teaching the necessity of individual responsibility”

Given Scott’s previous remarks on the route to prosperity for the poor, he is no doubt warming up for an attack on the social safety net. In 2016, he declared he would tackle poverty by developing “solutions using the conservative principles of limited government and free enterprise, coupled with compassion.”

“Limited government” is code for “no more money for the needy and unfortunate.” “Free enterprise” means whatever the solution is, it had better increase corporate profits. And “compassion” is a Bushism, meaning we will hug you while we do nothing to help you.

Once again, while Scott thinks he is talking about liberals, he alludes to conservatives. Republicans shun teaching responsibility by banning comprehensive sex ed. Their gun absolutism is all about individual rights, not individual responsibility. Their assault on vaccines, masks, and other COVID abatement measures was a message to the base, do what makes you feel good - personal accountability is for suckers.

The conservative belief that people should do what their God tells them is an abnegation of individual responsibility. Evangelicals are particularly bad. Their faith that salvation comes by developing their relationship with Jesus — and that what believers do, good or bad, to their fellow humans is irrelevant to their post-mortem prospects — is antithetical to responsibility.

Scott continues,

“If you are able-bodied, you work. If you take out a loan, you pay it back. If you commit a violent crime, you go to jail. Can I get an “amen”?

Scott doubles down on the conservative chestnut that most people on welfare are shiftless bastards habituated to idleness by an addiction to handouts and free stuff. Republicans always believe the worst in other people. Why? My money is on projection and unrelenting propaganda.

The ‘pay back a loan’ shtick is an attack on student loan forgiveness. I would ask Scott where he stands on the serial loan-reneger and habitual bankrupt, Donald Trump. And how does he feel about the billions showered on the financial industry who blew off their financial commitments? Commitments bankers could assume because of decades of ill-considered Republican deregulation favoring their big-money donors.

Why does Scott single out violent crime as jail-worthy? For two reasons. One, he wants the audience to think of young men (Blackish) mugging old ladies (definitely white) and rioters (unless they are secessionists). Two, he offers a “get out of jail free” card to election fixers, classified document thieves, business frauds, insurance abusers, and tax cheats. In other words, Trump, his family, fellow travelers, and the white-collar, corporate criminal class in toto.

Scott ends, as so many who bask in their sanctimony do, by asking for an amen. But I doubt he will get one from Jesus or any Christians who adhere to the Son of God’s request that the fortunate make it their responsibility to look after the less fortunate.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/20/2170468/-Tim-Scott-s-first-campaign-ad-is-an-unintentional-ode-to-Republican-hypocrisy

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