The coming week will undoubtedly be a memorable one for the Republican party. On Monday, they will welcome to the presidential primary field – with apologies to Dr. Ben Carson – the most high-ranking black man ever to seek the GOP presidential nomination: Senator Tim Scott (R-SC). And later in the week, if all goes as planned, the GOP’s rising star expected to give frontrunner Donald Trump his stiffest challenge, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, will make his long-awaited entrance into the fray. Indeed, this is the week when the 2024 presidential race, which has been mostly on the down-low until now, will begin in earnest. And it is sure to be defined by the fireworks that are part and parcel of any race that includes the 45th president.
Sen. Scott (R-SC), the good-natured 57-year-old black conservative serving his third term in the upper chamber, is set to announce his presidential campaign on Monday. Scott has been a reliable ally for Trump over the years, and a link connecting Trump to black audiences. But he offers a radically different leadership style from the former president. In fact, the left-wing site The Guardian called him “the exact opposite of Donald Trump,” opining that he will be “[r]elying on a Reagan-esque optimism about the brighter days ahead.” Scott’s signature achievement is the creation of “Opportunity Zones,” part of Trump’s 2017 tax reform package, designed to beef up private investment in distressed communities across the nation. He is targeting conservative Christians as his primary base of support.
Many have speculated – and with good cause, given his slim chances of overtaking Trump – that Scott is actually positioning himself for the vice presidency. The thinking goes in some circles that a Trump-Scott ticket would quiet the shrill voices still trying to convince voters that Trump is not just a racist but an honest-to-goodness white supremacist, and would attract more independent and minority votes.
Do Scott and DeSantis Have a Chance?
Ron DeSantis (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, 44-year-old Ron DeSantis, on the heels of his landslide re-election as governor of Florida, is expected to announce his own long-awaited presidential campaign later in the week amidst declining expectations for his candidacy. He will invest heavily in the first two contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, knowing he must win or come close in both, but he has seen his support drained away by an enormous obstacle not of his own making: Trump’s renewed, scandal-driven popularity. Nevertheless, the chief executive of the state he proclaims is “where woke goes to die” has built an enormous war chest – including substantial funds left over from his gubernatorial race – built on the support of major GOP donors seeking an alternative to Trump. After allowing repeated barbs from Trump to go unanswered, DeSantis will almost certainly have to prove his ability to both take a punch and deliver one after he formally announces that he’s in.
But the enduring problem for DeSantis and the rest of the GOP field is that, with each passing revelation about another phony Trump-related scandal, outrage in the GOP base grows to new heights – to the point that many who might no longer have supported the former president will now do so on principle if nothing else. The blowback appears to have climaxed with the recent release of the Durham Report, outlining in excruciating detail a diabolical plan to kneecap Trump – engineered and protected by what Liberty Nation has termed the five-sided “iron pentagon” – the political class, media, academia, the intelligence community, and federal law enforcement.
Despite scandal fatigue which undoubtedly contributed to Trump vacating the White House, the perception of uniquely severe persecution of the man has turned him into a martyr for the cause of democracy, paradoxically attracting renewed support to him like a magnet. This has set a higher bar than ever for DeSantis, Scott, Nikki Haley – and likely Mike Pence, who is expected to enter the race eventually despite having no identifiable constituency. All of them at one time believed the party was intent on moving on from Trump, but currently find themselves as little more than ancillaries as speculation grows that Trump’s nomination is becoming inevitable.
Tim Scott (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Since the left plays the diversity/equity card whenever possible, judging not by merit but by demographics, it is also worthy of note that, in addition to Sen. Scott, another candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, Vivek Ramaswamy, is also a person of color – though being of South Asian heritage perhaps renders him insufficiently aggrieved to qualify for the left’s lengthy list of victim-survivors. And while he stands almost no chance of capturing the nomination, Ramaswamy is a successful entrepreneur who has received high marks for his dynamism and seriousness on the campaign trail as he develops into something of an anti-woke thought leader.
Yes, it seems the days of your grandfather’s Republican party, when the GOP was defined mostly by whiteness and wealth, have indeed passed. If Tim Scott does not succeed in his quest for the presidency, it won’t be based on racism – evidenced in part by black men voting for Trump in greater numbers than any Republican in recent memory. Of course, as sure as the sun rising in the east, the left will predictably react by saying a person of color would obviously not be permitted to rise to the presidential nomination in a party characterized by widespread hatred for non-white people. That argumentative narrative is pushed in perpetuity, but especially during presidential election cycles, by Democrats desperate to lock down their crucial minority vote. Whether it is a success is up to the American electorate.
But given the horrific approval numbers attached to Joe Biden like a leech as he seeks a second term, much to the dismay of a majority of party rank-and-file who wish he would bow out gracefully, Democrats had better hope they succeed with their third consecutive scorched-earth campaign revolving around the non-stop vilification of Donald Trump – or any other Republican they will surely cast in his shadow. For a growing number of voters, it appears they have little else to offer.
