Last Monday, Nikki Haley, the Governor of South Carolina, held a press conference to announce the identity of the state’s next U.S. Senator. Everyone already knew the identity of the state’s next ex-U.S. Senator: Jim DeMint, who is giving up his seat to become president of the Heritage Foundation. And most people already knew the name of his replacement: Tim Scott, a recently elected congressman who had quickly emerged as the consensus choice. Scott, who is forty-seven, is a former businessman, having worked in insurance and real estate, and he has strong ties to the conservative movement. He is also African-American, which is one reason why Haley said, on Monday, “It’s a historic day in South Carolina.” Only three states (Mississippi, Massachusetts, and Illinois) have ever sent African-American senators to Washington; now, South Carolina will become the fourth.
Jim Geraghty, blogging for the National Review, predicted that “Tim Scott will instantly become a major figure in the G.O.P., as the lone African-American Republican in Congress.” This seems likely—although it seems likely, too, that both his supporters and his detractors will run into difficulties when they try to talk about the link between his race and his prominence. In her introduction on Monday, Haley, who is Indian-American, wisely declined to provide a brief history of race and Republicanism. Instead, she delivered a perfectly ambiguous statement, emphasizing her own identity while deëmphasizing Scott’s:
The success of a black Republican can present an awkward situation for partisans on both sides. Republicans, generally inclined to mock the liberal fascination with race, suddenly find themselves moved to expound upon the importance of breaking racial barriers. Meanwhile, Democrats, who normally love to celebrate African-American firsts, experience an uncharacteristic onset of reticence. In a much-debated New York Times Op-Ed, the political scientist Adolph L. Reed, Jr., explained why he wasn’t celebrating. Reed, who is black, has written about himself as a member of “the left,” and he is deeply critical of the conservative movement; in his essay, he made passing reference to what he called “thinly veiled racism” among Tea Party Republicans. And he argued that while Scott’s elevation “seemed like another milestone for African-Americans,” that perception was misleading. He cautioned against “cheerleading over racial symbolism” and suggested that Scott was merely the latest in a long line of “cynical tokens” put forward by Republicans.
That last formulation—“cynical tokens”—helps explain the sense of outrage in many of the responses to Reed’s piece. A blogger known as Patterico quoted Reed and asked, “Who’s the racist again?” John Steele Gordon, at Commentary, accused Reed of calling Scott “essentially an Uncle Tom,” adding, “if he’d like to see a real racist, he needs only to look in a mirror.” And Patrick Brennan, at the National Review, detected “lazy noxious racialism” in Reed’s argument; he felt Reed was implying that “blacks who do join the G.O.P. constitute some kind of race traitors.”
The term “token” is widely used, and perceived, as an insult; Reed’s column was read as an attack on Scott, even though he was careful to direct his criticism at the Republican Party, not the Senator. And certainly it’s striking that Reed’s essay, which sought to affirm the importance of African-American political power, also had the effect of belittling an African-American politician. To call Scott a token is to imply that he is less autonomous, and therefore less respectable, than his white Republican counterparts. The odd, unspoken suggestion is that it would have been less “cynical”—more honorable, perhaps—if Haley had appointed a white conservative, instead.
In his essay, Reed also claimed that Scott’s conservative political agenda was “utterly at odds with the preferences of most black Americans.” In response, Brennan, at the National Review, found various polls purporting to show that African-Americans actually support various conservative policies. There’s no need to rely on polls and wishful thinking, though: in 2014, when South Carolina holds its special election, black voters in the state will get a chance to decide whether Scott shares their priorities or not. If they vote against him, he may well carry the state, regardless. (South Carolina is about sixty-six per cent white.) In that case, the Republican Party might find that it has diversified its congressional delegation without significantly diversifying its electorate.
That situation—the existence of black Republicans who don’t attract significant black support—isn’t necessarily evidence of extraordinary political cynicism. Equally, though, left-leaning commentators aren’t necessarily “noxious” for pointing out the difference between getting Republicans to vote for a black candidate and getting blacks to vote for a Republican candidate. If Democrats believe that racial diversity is important, shouldn’t they want the Republican caucus to be more diverse, too? Shouldn’t Scott’s appointment be cause for celebration among liberals, even if he doesn’t share their political agenda? And if Republicans want to break racial barriers, then shouldn’t Scott’s appointment remind them how far they have to go? If it makes sense for Republicans to be proud to have a black senator in their party, then wouldn’t it also make sense for them to be bothered by the relative absence of black voters?
Photograph by Alex Wong/Getty.
