On Wednesday night, President Joe Biden will address Congress and reportedly unveil a $1.8 trillion plan to aid social welfare and family assistance programs that will try and do the heavy job of lifting America out of poverty.
The American Families Plan would look to invest some $200 billion in “universal prekindergarten and more than $100 billion in free community college. It would extend the expanded child tax credit through 2025 and ensure that the benefit is more accessible to low-income families by making it permanently refundable. And it would set aside $225 billion to create the country’s first national paid family and medical leave program,” Politico reports.
And because Biden isn’t done, he plans on funding this glorious plan by taxing the wealthiest Americans, which would reportedly cover the massive cost of the plan over the next 15 years.
Can you hear that noise? It is the collective ego deflation of Republicans around the country who are using their last gasping breath to call this socialism.
Well, take one guess as to who Republicans are trotting out to argue against said plan, and if you already guessed the Black guy then you are right.
Republicans are sending in their “We can’t be racist because we have a Black friend” in Tim Scott to do the thing that Black Republicans do whenever a Democrat tries to make things right.
Scott, 55, is literally the lone Black Republican senator, and he will be giving the Republicans response to President Biden’s Wednesday night address. Oh, and because this is rich, he’s also the lead “GOP negotiator as the two parties seek an accord on legislation overhauling police procedures,” the Associated Press reports.
“You figure out who your audience is, you figure out what you want to say and you try and find a way to say it well,” Scott told reporters Tuesday about his speech preparations. “And you lean into who you are.”
I wonder if Token knows that he’s a Token?
AP notes that Scott’s placement as the lead on this comes at an extremely unique time.
“Demands for social justice are reverberating even as killings of Black people by white police officers continue. Following years of nativist appeals by President Donald Trump and others, out-of-power Republicans are trying to broaden their appeal before 2022 elections that they hope will deliver them control of Congress.”
While Scott doesn’t back away from his encounters with police as a Black man—in past speeches he’s noted how he’s been pulled over multiple times while driving—he leans a bit too far to the right with the whole hardwork and pulling up of his boot straps bit for me.
“While I thank God I have not endured bodily harm, I have, however, felt the pressure applied by the scales of justice when they are slanted,” he said during a 2016 Senate speech. “I have felt the anger, the frustration, the sadness and the humiliation that comes with feeling like you’re being targeted for nothing more than being just yourself.”
If you want to know more about Scott’s political standing, just know that in 1996 he was the co-chairman of Sen. Strom Thurmond’s reelection campaign. Even Thurmond was like “who the fuck is this guy and has he heard anything about me?”
Basically Scott is who the Republicans trot out whenever they have to deal with tough issues like racism or class. As the lone Black Republican senator, Scott has allowed himself to be this guy and it’s embarrassing.
“He’s got a great personal story,” said No. 2 Senate GOP leader John Thune of South Dakota. “He’s very articulate at laying out kind of the Republican message, principles, agenda. I think he’s a great voice for our party.”
He’s very articulate for a nigra.
The saddest part is that Scott could be using his position and voice for good. He could’ve been Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) of the Republican Party. He could’ve been the Spook Who Sat By the Door and fucked things up from the inside. Instead he uses his position to be the Black voice that silences other Black voices and is justifiable proof that Republicans can’t be racist as he’s their lone Black friend.