AMERICA, A REDEMPTION STORY

An aspirational pep rally of a book, courtesy of South Carolina’s junior senator.

Though Scott “grew up in poverty in a single-parent household,” he overcame numerous obstacles to make it to Congress—and, as he claims throughout, the U.S. is the best country on the planet. That’s about the long and short of this sort-of memoir, sort-of Trumpian manifesto, which has some curious bifurcations. Near the beginning, the author writes, “I don’t for one second believe the false narrative of a racist, divided America that has been spun by big media.” Later in the text, he notes, “as a conservative black man in public office, I experience racism on every level.” Mostly, it’s the liberal media that serve up that racism, since they expect Scott to decry this racist, divided country; never mind the crowds of people waving Confederate flags at Trump rallies or besieging the U.S. Capitol. To his credit, the author at least picked up on the dog whistle when, after the White supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, Trump said there were good people on all sides. Scott stated publicly that by praising White supremacists, Trump had “compromised his moral authority to lead.” All was forgiven after Trump signed off on “opportunity zones” in inner cities and praised Scott’s mother and gave her a ride on Air Force One. In summary, America’s not racist; Trump’s a decent man who represents ordinary people and is “a man who believes he can fix things”; many of the rioters on Jan. 6 “came late and, for the most part, never realized how violent things had been”; and the “liberal elitists in the media” are the nation’s true villains. Scott checks all the requisite right-wing boxes, piling on pablum about national unity, can’t-we-all-get-along goodwill, and the privilege of voting—and never mind his party’s anti-minority voter-suppression efforts.

A snooze in which cheerleading, apologia, and all-too-familiar political rhetoric collide.