Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.) is hard to dislike. That’s the bipartisan assessment of his colleagues in the U.S. Senate, and given the senator’s performance on the presidential campaign trail so far, it’s not difficult to see why. But among Republicans who value pugnacity as an end in itself over whatever that pugilism is supposed to achieve, Scott’s affability is no asset.
As Trump-endorsing Congressman Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) told a panel of guests on the cable news network Newsmax, Scott’s seemingly inexhaustible positivity is an undesirable throwback to a time when Republicans were likable.
“With Tim Scott, I think you have a candidate almost teleported from a different time,” Gaetz said dismissively of Scott’s recent appearance on The View. “He strikes me as the kind of Republican we ran in the 90s — like a Herbert Walker Bush or a Bob Dole.”
“The reality we live in today is that optimism is not coming to your rescue,” Gaetz continued, adding that “smiles are not a substitute for success” and “hope is not a strategy.” Indeed, the only value Scott’s candidacy seems to present from Gaetz’s perspective is that the senator’s political views depart from those held by most African-American voters, and that makes the television hosts he dislikes angry.
If you haven’t seen clips from Scott’s sit-down with The View’s hosts, you should remedy that right now. The senator turned in a polished performance, exemplifying the demeanor of the happy warrior; secure in his views and values, armed with facts and evidence in their support, adamant in his advocacy, but by no means caustic or condescending. What Scott engaged in is the lost art of persuasion. That is a skill Republicans have lately soured on, and it has done them no favors.
The prickly disposition to which Gaetz is predisposed rejects persuasion in favor of the sheer force of will, but he has wildly overestimated the relative force his camp’s will can bring to bear. The voters to whom he is pandering have wandered into a cognitive cul-de-sac. They are convinced they can muscle their interpretation of events, political philosophy, and grievances into the public consciousness. At the same time, however, they are also sure that the national political and social culture is drifting away from them at an accelerating pace. At no point do these two incongruent thoughts produce something like the logical conclusion that the methods they are applying in the effort to popularize their beliefs and policy prescriptions aren’t working.
Far be it for Republicans to select candidates who are evocative of the awful time in American history when Republicans recaptured control of the House of Representatives for the first time in a half-century and bent a popular Democratic president to their political will. The success of that project was partly a product of a new belligerence from the GOP. But the fights that Republican Party picked were not engaged in the pursuit of a backward-looking desire for retribution or fueled by a sense of injury. That Republican Party’s eyes were locked on the horizon, and it was buoyed by a jaunty and genuine belief in its inevitable ascendancy.
The message Scott promoted on The View was precisely that. He is not merely a product of America’s past but a symbol of its future — he and so many others like him are inevitable. If you honestly believed that, then you, too, would project infectious enthusiasm. If you didn’t, you might spend an unhealthy amount of time fixating upon past injustices, being provocative for provocation’s sake, and reveling in your opponents’ aggravation. There’s self-satisfaction to be found in that unproductive pursuit, but it’s not a recipe for winning elections.