Living with Tim Scott's Bad Choices

Up till now, the secret to Tim Scott's success has been knowing what side his bread is buttered on.  And that side is not the side he grew up on, but that of the well-heeled capitalists who have found the perfect African-American republican.  Little white haired southern ladies love him, and all those rich old white guys know he will fight for them, from the right to bear arms to the right to run roughshod over the environment.

Scott isn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but unlike the republican candidate for president, he takes instruction well.  He believes in the republican dream, because it has worked for him.  So he can't see why it can't work for any black man in America.  All you have to do is work hard and suck up to the right... well, the right.  He jumped on the Tea Party bandwagon and it took him right to Washington, and then he sidled up to Nikki Haley, and sure enough, it took him out of the House of Representatives and into the Senate.

He was fortunate in that he did not have big intellectual shoes to fill in the Senate.  Jim duh-Mint may not have had anything going on as far as critical thinking skills, but like Tim, he knew where the power lay, and he learned the words to their song.  DeMint and Scott can recite the lines to the Tea Party Manifesto and they believe every word of it.  Because fortune has, as the Reagan bunch promised in 1980, trickled down to them.

Like, DeMint, Scott talks a good story about his hardscrabble childhood, and for Tim it really was;  no Andy Griffith's Mayberry for Tim Scott.  And as with so many who have worked hard and succeeded, they believe that those who don't succeed have no one to blame but themselves and the government.  In their minds, the government that gave DeMint and Scott an awfully good wage and benefits package is preventing the poor from finding success by helping them survive.

Scott doesn't come out too often and say that the poor should be dropped on their heads and left to fend for themselves.  Instead, he has succeeded by using the right-wing trick of attacking those who are trying to help.  Make Obama the bad guy and nobody will see those members of Congress who have been blocking any attempt to move the country forward.  Blame the president for Guantanamo Bay while Scott helped prevent any reasonable solution from finding its way into the debate.  And of course, make his constituents afraid and angry.

Remember ebola?  Tim Scott was front and center demanding that the government ban travel from affected countries.  No so much in the lead when it came to research and aid.  And, as with every other message from Scott regarding any problem anywhere in the country, he blamed the Obama administration for the government's response, whatever it would be.

Now, with the Zika virus, Scott and his hare-brained right-wing colleagues offer up a bill to provide funds for research.  Really???  Check it out.  Carefully.  Because when right-wing politicians tell you the government is going to help, it is really is time to lock up your valuables.  Because first of all, that bill would waive the Clean Water Act to allow for spraying -- when your kids get sick from the chemicals Scott will blame the president, by the time cancer rates have risen he will be on some private corporate payroll.  And here is the capper:  sandwiched in the middle of his description of the bill are the words:  "Offset this spending."  What he fails to mention is that Zika spending will be offset by ebola funds.

Pretty slick, and certainly not dreamed up in Tim Scott's small brain.  He is merely barfing up republican talking points.  The way our current republican presidential nominee has been forced from time to time to regurgitate words dictated by his republican colleagues.

And while politicians like Senate colleague Lindsey Graham who are more secure in their own shoes are speaking out against the diseased mind of Donald Trump, Tim Scott is all in.  He will support Trump in spite of racist attacks and unconstitutional proposals, because Tim Scott can't say no to the republican party.  That is where his bread has been buttered, and he hasn't noticed that when buttered bread lands on the floor, it always lands face down.

This is a really good time for South Carolinians to take a look at Scott's Democratic opponent, Thomas Dixon.

  

Video thanks to Elaine Cooper

Dixon understands what we need from our government because, as he says,

"I was part of the problem for a long time.  I was the person who was so wrapped around me and caught up in me that whatever hurt anybody else didn't matter to me. 

But one day I woke up."

 Dixon woke up.  And that is why today he fights for human rights.  The right to be safe from gun violence.  The right to earn a living wage.  The right to love whom you choose.  A woman's right to make her own reproductive choices, privately.  The right of veterans and seniors to live in security.  The right to healthcare for all.

Tim Scott may have had it rough when he was young.  But he was bought out with promises of success, and every time he votes against those who need his help he realizes that success.  So he is not going to wake up.

And that is why we need to support Thomas Dixon for Senate.  His supporters don't have deep pockets like those of Tim Scott, but that is exactly why we need him to represent us.  And we may not have a fortune, but we can send him our small donations, and we can vote just as well as the well-heeled.

So please spread the word about Thomas Dixon, and help elect him to the Senate in November.  Tim Scott, like Jim DeMint, will do just fine in the private sector.  And we will do just fine with him gone, and Thomas Dixon taking that seat.

Thomas Dixon

for

U.S. Senate