GOP Sen. Tim Scott used his headlining slot Monday on the Republican National Convention’s first night to deliver a powerful address sounding optimistic notes about the country’s potential while slamming Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on everything from his record on race to his vision for America.
In one of the most stinging lines of the night, the South Carolina senator declared: “Make no mistake: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want a cultural revolution. A fundamentally different America.”
Scott warned that if a Biden-Harris ticket is successful, they will “turn our country into a socialist utopia.”
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The line echoed other speakers who hammered the message at the opening of the party’s four-day convention — spread across the original site of Charlotte, a grand auditorium near the White House and elsewhere in a blend of live and pre-taped remarks — that “radical” Democrats would take the country in a dangerous direction.
But Scott, as the only Black Republican senator, also has emerged as a key voice on race issues on Capitol Hill, especially in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody.
“This isn’t how I pictured tonight, but our country is experiencing something none of us envisioned,” Scott said. “From a global pandemic, to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, 2020 has tested our nation in ways we haven’t seen for decades.”
“While this election is Donald Trump and Joe Biden…It is not solely about Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” Scott continued. “It’s about the promise of America. It’s about you and me…our challenges and heartbreaks, hopes and dreams.”
In a swipe at cancel culture, he added: “Do we want a society that breeds success, or a culture that cancels everything it even slightly disagrees with?”
Scott, at several points, struck an uplifting tone, using his own life story as a lesson on the potential of every American.
“I am living my mother’s American Dream,” Scott said, noting that he was 7 years old when his parents divorced, and lived in a two-bedroom house sharing a room and a bed with his mother and his brother. “My mom worked 16 hours a day to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. She knew that if we could find the opportunity, bigger things would come.”
Scott said thought he had to use “football to succeed in life,” and said his focus on academics “faded away.”
“I failed my freshman year of high school – four subjects…Spanish, English, world geography, and civics,” Scott recalled.
