Hey, Did Actual POTUS Barack Obama Hurt Wannabe Tim Scott’s Feelings? Good!

Last week, Barack Obama was a guest on David Axelrod’s podcast, “The Axe Files,” where he discussed the “weaponization of woke,” race, and even offered some advice to the Republican Party, which we can safely assume they won’t accept.

During the race conversation, Axelrod brought up presidential candidate Tim Scott, the junior senator from South Carolina. He suggested that Scott’s rhetoric bore at least a superficial similarity to Obama’s.historic campaign.

“Half of it sounds a lot like what you were talking about in the speech in 2004,” Axelrod said, “and in all of our speeches from that point on, which was, ‘I am living proof that we are making progress as a country. I wouldn’t be here but for that progress.'”

I think Obama’s speeches were more complex than this, especially since the success of a few exceptional people is not reflective of true racial progress. Frederick Douglass had reached extraordinary heights for his time but he recognized that systemic racism existed and actively fought against it. He wasn’t all “hey, I attended Lincoln’s inauguration. Mission accomplished!”

Axelrod continued, “It takes a different turn at the end when he says, and I’m wondering, have you heard what he said? And what do you say? Because the end of it is sort of like, ‘yeah, it’s cool, I’m here. And so, you know, that’s part of the past, and we don’t need to worry so much about it.'”

“I haven’t spent a lot of time studying Tim Scott speeches,” Obama responded with classic shade.

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“I think there is a long history of African-American or other minority candidates within the Republican Party who will validate America and say, everything’s great, and we can all make it,” Obama said. “I mean, Nikki Haley, I think, has a similar approach … ‘Look at me. I’m an Asian Indian-American woman. And my family came here and we worked hard.’ Clarence Thomas has probably gave the same speech at some point, I guarantee in some commencement, as did Alan Keyes, the first guy that I ran against.”

Oh, this did not please Nikki Haley, who took a break from smearing trans women to tweet angrily, “Barack Obama set minorities back by singling them out as victims instead of empowering them. In America, hard work & personal responsibility matter. My parents didn’t raise me to think that I would forever be a victim. They raised me to know that I was responsible for my success.”

Right-wing media has, naturally, selectively edited Obama’s comments, so that it seems as if he believes America is irredeemable. (Obama himself gave a significant speech on race during the 2008 campaign where he broke with his former pastor Jeremiah Wright over this very issue.)

I’m including the fuller context of Obama’s remarks, which are lengthy but important to read, so there:

I’m not being cynical about Tim Scott individually. I am maybe suggesting that the rhetoric of ‘can’t we all get along?’ and those quotes you made about, you know, from my speech in 2004 about there’s a United States of America, that has to be undergirded with an honest accounting of our past and our present. And so if a Republican, who may even be sincere in saying I want us all to live together, doesn’t have a plan for how do we address crippling generational poverty that is a consequence of hundreds of years of racism in the society, and we need to do something about that. If that candidate is not willing to acknowledge that, you know, again and again, we’ve seen discrimination in everything from job practice, you know, getting a job to buying a house to how the criminal justice system operates and so that somebody who does the exact same offense, the kind of sentencing, the likelihood that they do jail time is going to be different based on their race. If somebody is not proposing — both acknowledging and proposing elements that say, no, we can’t just ignore all that and pretend as if everything’s equal and fair, we actually have to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. If they’re not doing that, then I think people are rightly skeptical.

During an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Scott said, “There’s no higher compliment than being attacked by President Obama.”

Obama’s measured remarks were hardly an “attack,” and Scott’s response is just pathetic. It might thrill the folks at the fancy golf club that didn’t even allow Black members until Obama’s first term, but it’s not something to brag about if you’re a Black man from South Carolina. Black people — even in the Palmetto State — overwhelmingly approved of Obama’s performance as president. Even when white people’s opinions were low, Black people’s remained high.

Scott shared a Fox News clip of his “friend” Trey Gowdy, who said, “I think Barack Obama thinks we’ll be forever chained to the racism of our past. Tim Scott really thinks we’re a good country that can become a GREAT country. If you like contrast, that’s a pretty stark contrast for people.”

Scott and Gowdy once co-wrote a book about the supposed “unlikely” friendship between two South Carolina conservatives. They “won’t allow racial lines to divide them. They work together, eat meals together, campaign together, and make decisions together.” See? The Black guy and the white guy who are members of the same political party and have the same crappy beliefs even EAT TOGETHER like people.

Tim Scott might claim that systemic racism isn’t an issue in America, but he otherwise insists that the Left hates him personally because he’s a Black conservative who “disrupts” their narrative. He won’t accept that liberals of all creeds and colors just don’t like right-wing toadies and total frauds.

My father, who lives in South Carolina, doesn’t like Tim Scott, and unlike me, my father likes most people, probably even you. Scott can maintain his own illusions about Barack Obama, but it would involve avoiding every Black barber shop and church in the state he represents. But I doubt that’s a problem for him.

[ABC News / CNN]

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