The junior senator from the Palmetto State, Tim Scott, entered the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on Monday. Scott laid out an optimistic message filled with faith and patriotism, a message that the lion's share of the GOP base surely agrees with.
"Our nation, our values, and our people are strong. But our president is weak. America is not a nation in decline. But under Joe Biden, we have become a nation in retreat," he said. "Retreating from our heritage and our history. Retreating from personal responsibility and hard work. Retreating from strength and security. Even retreating from religious liberty and the worship of God himself."
WHO'S IN, WHO'S OUT, WHO'S STILL WAITING TO ANNOUNCE FOR SENATE IN 2024
The senator added: "Our party and our nation are standing at a time for choosing, victimhood or victory? Grievance or greatness? I choose freedom and hope and opportunity. Will you choose it with me?”
I worship God, appreciate our nation’s history and heritage, value hard work, abhor victim politics, and agree that the Biden administration has been an abomination. But Scott is not the man for the moment. If a conservative leader does not comprehend the obvious state of decline plaguing our country, that person has no business in leadership.
Borrowed Reagan quips and nice-guy politics may have worked in the past, but that bygone era is never coming back — the Democrats have made sure of it. What exactly did the previous generation’s GOP conserve? William F. Buckley called a conservative “a man that stands athwart history yelling stop.” How did that work out?
The nation is self-evidently in decline. Our government is north of 30 trillion dollars in debt, all while funding a proxy war in Europe with no end in sight and letting cognitively impaired, geriatric politicians run the country. Democrats are persecuting their political opponents as major cities descend into a state of constant crime and unrest.
People are so demoralized and separated from the rugged individualism that made the country great that tyrannical governors who used the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to cosplay Mussolini were almost universally reelected by wide margins. The southern border has been rendered essentially nonexistent, and major sports teams are hosting blasphemous, anti-Catholic bigots. The nation’s test scores are plummeting, and the country is having babies at far below replacement levels. If you do not assess the state of our nation and not only see decline, but also have no feasible plan to reverse it, you are not equipped to lead the nation toward a brighter future.
Scott seems like a good man. He certainly passes the "would you get a beer with him?" test, but we need a fighter. The Democrats are not obeying the rules — they are crossing the Alps with war elephants to burn and pillage everything conservatives hold dear.
Scott should have a long career in the Senate, and I hope he sponsors a thousand right-wing bills that help drag our nation kicking and screaming back from the brink, but in 2024, we need someone who realizes what we are up against. Rumor has it that a certain governor who fits that description is set to throw his hat into the ring later this week.
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Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.