By Alexandra DeSanctis
Monday, July 02, 2018
Though today’s Republican party is viewed increasingly
through the lens of the seemingly rudderless Donald Trump and his populist
adherents, many on the right are disenchanted with this vision, and they’re
ready for a change.
Unsettled conservatives would do well to turn to South
Carolina senator Tim Scott, a man who has illustrated in just a few short years
that he has both the desire and the capacity to rebrand conservatism for a new
age.
When Scott entered the U.S. Senate in 2013, he was the
first African-American senator from the South since Reconstruction — and, like
those earlier senators, a Republican. While he has consistently refused to use
his race as a trump card or to score cheap political points, he never shies
away from the reality of his upbringing. And there is no question that his
story uniquely situates him to step forward as a conservative leader in a time
of bitter political division.
Over the course of a day I spent with the senator — on
Capitol Hill and in Anacostia, a neighborhood in Washington, D.C. — a picture
of Scott as a vocal, visionary leader came into focus. He’s the man of the
hour, though he might not know it.
If he does know, he certainly won’t admit it. This
spring, he and his best friend in Washington, congressman Trey Gowdy (R.,
S.C.), co-authored a memoir on bipartisanship, Unified: How Our Unlikely Friendship Gives Us Hope for a Divided
Country. One section of Gowdy’s acknowledgements is addressed to Scott’s
mother, Frances:
This book was supposed to be about
your son Tim and your family. It was supposed to be about your hard work, your
faith, and your determination that
your children would turn out as well as they did. But you raised a son too
modest to write a book about himself. Maybe one day we can convince him to do
that.
When I mention this snippet to Scott, he chuckles
ruefully and shakes his head, as if to say, “I didn’t want him to write that,
either.” Truth is, Scott never intended to take up the self-glorifying business
of politics. He wanted to be a minister.
I put this to Scott as we sit in his office on Capitol
Hill, the senator’s feet propped up on a table and clad in a pair of hot-pink
socks speckled with blue polka dots. When you read Unified, I suggest, it becomes fairly obvious that Scott has never
quite shaken the desire to go into the ministry. “I almost teared up right
there,” he admits. “When I became a Christian in 1983, my first thought was to
go to seminary.” But when he visited the seminary, he got the feeling that
serving as a clergyman wasn’t in the cards for him.
Not ready to accept the message his gut was sending him,
he tried again a little later, preaching a sermon at his church in South
Carolina. Afterwards, his pastor told him that he had a gift for reaching
people, but that he believed God had called him to politics instead. “I was
like, ‘You just don’t want me to play a part in your church! That’s a lie!’ I
was deflated. I was dejected. And here I sit as a United States senator because
he was right.”
Still, even after the doors of ministry were closed to
him, Scott wasn’t sure that national politics would be an option. “I had never
been to Washington before I got elected to Congress,” he tells me. “I am a
reluctant warrior, though I am a joyful warrior. I am thankful that it worked
out the way that it has.”
***
As we head to an event at which Scott is scheduled to
speak later in the day, I ask if he’s glad that he can sit back and breathe a
little for the first time since coming to Washington. This is the first
election cycle since he arrived in Congress in which he does not face
reelection. After winning in South Carolina’s first congressional district in
the tea-party wave of 2010, he ran for the House again in 2012. That December,
the then–governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, announced that she would
appoint Scott to fill the U.S. Senate vacancy left by Jim DeMint’s retirement.
He officially took his seat on January 2, 2013. In 2014, Scott won a special
election to finish DeMint’s term, and in 2016 he ran yet again, that time for his
own full term.
But this year, Scott can finally focus full-time on his
legislative agenda — at least in theory. He’s not quite sure he’ll be able to
take advantage of it. “My friends will find a way to fill my free time, I’m
sure,” he tells me with a grin. “They’ll put me on the road.”
It isn’t difficult to understand why Republican
politicians would be desperate to have Scott stump for them. It’s also the
first election cycle since Donald Trump swept into the presidency, and with the
talk of an impending “blue wave,” Scott is the perfect figure to reconcile the
splits among Republicans and present a congenial face to moderate voters. If
his bipartisan legislative work on Capitol Hill can be taken as an indication,
he even has the ability to appeal to Democrats.
Part of his growing influence stems from his balanced
approach to the divisiveness within the GOP and between the two parties since
2016. Scott has been much less critical of the president than have, say, his
colleagues Jeff Flake and John McCain (both Republicans from Arizona). But he
has not been a pushover, either. As he sees it, he has found a prudent balance
in deciding when to speak and when to keep silent.
“The best advice is not to speak every time there’s
something to be critical of, especially if you don’t speak every time there’s
something to be positive about,” he tells me as we’re driving up to the
Capitol. “But if you find something that is jugular, speak up. I think you
should pick and choose your battles, so to speak.”
Easier said than done. But so far, Scott has done well.
He hasn’t earned a reputation as an anti-Trump firebrand on the right, but few
months ago, he censured Trump for referring to several Latin-American and
African nations as “sh**hole countries.” His most scathing critique of the
president followed the white-supremacist march in Charlottesville last August —
which resulted in the death of a young woman — when Trump repeatedly insisted
that there had been good people on both sides of the violence.
“I’m not going to defend the indefensible. I’m not here
to do that,” Scott said in an interview at the time. “[Trump’s] comments on
Monday were strong. His comments on Tuesday started erasing the comments that
were strong. What we want to see from our president is clarity and moral
authority. And that moral authority is compromised when Tuesday happens.
There’s no question about that.”
Directly after these remarks, White House press secretary
Sarah Huckabee Sanders asked Scott if he would meet with the president, and he
agreed. While Scott tells me that he and Trump failed to reach a resolution,
some good did result.
“We did not see eye to eye on the racial rhetoric or the
divisive rhetoric,” Scott says. “But he said, ‘Give me something that I can
champion that can help people stuck in distressed communities.’ I offered my
opportunity-zone legislation, and he said yes. The next day, he was on Air Force
One talking about the prospects of the Investing in Opportunity Act, and
because of his support . . . we were able to get it across the finish line.”
As a result of the president’s backing for Scott’s
signature legislation — which encourages long-term investment in distressed
communities by offering tax relief to investors — Republican leadership
incorporated it into the tax-reform bill that passed Congress at the end of
last year. This was a huge victory for Scott, whose focus on opportunity and
entrepreneurship is embodied perfectly by this bill, perhaps the most
consequential legislation he’s effected since joining the Senate.
Predictably, his efforts were overshadowed by left-wing
nastiness — not a new experience for the Republican senator. When legislators gathered
at the White House celebration, Scott stood close to the president for a
photograph and addressed the audience. Moments later, a HuffPost blogger, Andy Ostroy, tweeted: “What a shocker . . .
there’s ONE black person there and sure enough they have him standing right
next to the mic like a manipulated prop. Way to go @SenatorTimScott.”
With his typical sangfroid, Scott replied later via
Twitter: “Uh probably because I helped write the bill for the past year, have
multiple provisions included, got multiple Senators on board over the last week
and have worked on tax reform my entire time in Congress. But if you’d rather
just see my skin color, pls feel free.”
In many ways, Scott’s deft handling of these dustups has
proven him both a conservative stalwart and a capable representative for
Americans baffled by intensifying polarization. Perhaps more important, and
often as a result of his life experience, Scott has demonstrated an uncommon
ability to make conservative values appealing to people who have never given
the movement a second look.
***
During the era of Donald Trump, Scott’s willingness to
criticize the president — coupled with his emphasis on a constructive politics
rather than one of racial division — has put him on the radar of many at home
in South Carolina and in the nation’s capital. But his ability to sell a
solidly conservative agenda with an authentic bipartisan spirit makes him a
much more promising politician than his relatively low profile would suggest.
In the summer of 2016, for example, as a debate over
police violence and shootings of African-American men ravaged the country,
Scott gave a deeply personal speech on the Senate floor. As he does to this
day, Scott preferred to stay out of the limelight, but at this national turning
point, he related several stories of having been targeted by police since
becoming a lawmaker.
As recently as 2015, Scott said, he had been stopped by a
Capitol police officer, even though he was wearing his member’s pin. “The
officer looked at me, full of attitude, and said: ‘The pin, I know. You, I
don’t. Show me your ID,’” the senator explained. “I’ll tell you, I was thinking
to myself, either he thinks I’m committing a crime — impersonating a member of
Congress — or what?”
It wasn’t the first time a Capitol officer had stopped
him to make a similar inquiry. What’s more, during just one year as an elected
official, Scott was stopped seven times by law enforcement while driving. The
vast majority of those encounters, he said, were the result of “nothing more
than driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood, or some other reason just as
trivial.”
It was a landmark moment for the senator. Not only did he
praise police officers and note that improper use of violence was rare —
echoing the Right’s general line — but he also echoed the concerns of many on
the left. For Republicans inclined to dismiss complaints about unequal racial
treatment, Scott’s stories were a force to be reckoned with. That day on the
floor, Scott showed himself an able communicator, a measured conservative, and
a man capable of teaching the Right and reaching the Left by being honest about
his life, recognizing that his race mattered while avoiding the toxic,
fatalistic conclusions of those who peddle identity politics.
When he came to Washington in 2011, anyone watching Scott
closely might have predicted that he’d turn out this way. Though he was pushed
by his colleagues to run for freshman-class president, he opted for the much
less glamorous job of representative to the Elected Leadership Committee (ELC),
which makes most major decisions for the House Republican caucus. When I ask
why he decided on this role, his answer is characteristic.
“The strategy of being helpful is better than the
strategy of being seen. For me, being freshman-class president would’ve been cool, but being a part of the ELC was
strategically helpful to forming the relationships that today I depend on,” he
replies, listing colleagues with whom he formed relationships on the ELC. “Had
I gone a different route, I think I would’ve been maybe a little more popular
temporarily, but less effective.”
Understanding this blend of pragmatism and service is
essential to understanding Scott as the Republican of the moment. It was
evident, too, in his choice not to join the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).
“I work with CBC members on initiatives that I think will have a pronounced
impact in the black community, when I agree,” he says of that decision.
“But I’ve always been kind of a mix between old rock
group Journey and Motown. I kind of like to mix it all up,” Scott adds,
chuckling. “It’s kind of who I am: ‘Don’t Stop Believing.’ I mean, truly. I got
a little Air Supply in me, too.”
For Scott, skin color and political party will always
take a back seat to principle. “I am more conservative than I am Republican,”
he tells me. As much as possible, he prefers finding areas where Left and Right
can agree — his opportunity-zones legislation was co-sponsored by Cory Booker
(D., N.J.), for example. But even so, and over the last two years in
particular, the senator has taken to frequently denouncing the identity
politics of the left, and he calls tribalism one of our greatest national-security
threats.
Scott’s perspective is deeply shaped by the fact that he
was raised by a single mother who worked several jobs to keep her two children
fed, clothed, and in school. “From seven to 14 I drifted, flunked out of high
school as a freshman, failing world geography, and civics, and Spanish, and
English,” he tells me. “I did a pretty good job of failing out because I
figured, I’ll just drift. I found my way back because I got a strong mentor, a
guy who helped me understand that there was unlimited potential within, and a
mother who continued to pray for me.”
When we spend the afternoon in Anacostia touring new
local businesses, Scott enjoys a much warmer reception than any Republican
could rightly hope for in such a solidly left-wing area, and one so desperately
in need of assistance. In this dilapidated neighborhood, Scott showed his
willingness to interact with the people he so often mentions, people he
believes are capable of success if the culture and the government don’t stand
in their way.
As his Opportunity Agenda illustrates, Scott is convinced
that fundamentally conservative solutions, not government programs, will help
people climb out of poverty — and in many cases, he seems to have managed to
sell them on that idea, too. It doesn’t hurt that he appears even more
comfortable at this backyard fish fry than when he speaks on the floor of the
Senate.
Much of his success stems from his upbringing — he
understands the plight of the people with whom he speaks in places such as
Anacostia, and they notice his sincerity. At a local multipurpose space for
small-business owners, a community member says to the senator, “This building
stands for everything that you talk about. It talks about building up young
people who come from where you come from, who had childhoods fighting to get
somewhere and get the American dream.”
That’s exactly how Scott sees his work, too. “I take my
personal experience, and I try to feed it into legislative priorities,” he
tells the group, “so that people who grew up just like I did have the benefit
of the resources that changed my life.”
Later, Scott tells me that previous meetings with these
small-business owners informed his opportunity-zones legislation. In Anacostia,
Scott proved that his practical strategy works, and that Democratic politicians
and constituents who instinctively distrust conservatism still respect his
approach, and even much of his work.
I ask Scott if he’s had a hard time overcoming resentment
against Republicans in communities such as this one. “I think what happens
initially is they’re shocked that I’m coming to the community at all,” he tells
me. “They’re not always receptive initially, but that’s why the rapport and
credibility are really important. We, on the conservative side of the aisle,
have to go the extra mile at times. When you do, what happens is you find that
the wave good fortune opens up for you, and you have a lot of space — a lot of
flexibility — to do good.”
***
On our way out the door for an event on the opioid
epidemic, Scott makes sure to grab a copy of his speech from a staffer. But at
the event, he immediately abandons the podium, microphone, and his papers, and
moves into the middle of the audience to rattle off statistics about opioid
deaths and interlace them with the story of a friend who battled addiction. In
Anacostia, too, he sprang up from his chair when he addressed the group,
standing in the middle of the circle and making eye contact with each person as
he spoke.
This, again, is Scott as clergyman, a politician with the
heart of a minister. “I thought perhaps that the Good Lord would be able to use
the passion that I have for making a difference in a place where ministering would not be the primary
call,” he explains, “but where sharing the same love and compassion for people,
with a long view — which is what leads me to be a conservative — would be
necessary.”
When I ask if he expects to find his way into the
ministry after he retires, he pauses. “One day I do see myself, as I exit
politics, spending time looking for ways to promote and encourage the human
soul,” Scott says, “whether in an organized part of the faith movement or just
as a spokesperson for the eternal values that have made a difference in all of
human history.”
Until then — and to the credit of a conservative movement
in need of rejuvenation — Scott seems to be succeeding at that right where he
is.
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