https://www.wsj.com/articles/barack-obama-tim-scott-nikki-haley-republicans-democrats-2024-race-9400eac?mod=opinion_lead_pos2
As America’s first black President, Barack Obama entered office with a promise of improving race relations and reducing political discord. Eight years later, rancor was worse as Mr. Obama’s Administration exploited race as a political weapon on voting rules, criminal justice, and preferences for jobs and much more. This explains why the former President is now attacking South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott.
Last week Mr. Obama, who doesn’t riff by accident, went after Mr. Scott and Nikki Haley, two of the GOP’s minority candidates for President. “I think there’s a long history of African-American or other minority candidates within the Republican Party who will validate America and say, ‘Everything’s great, and we can all make it.’ I mean, Nikki Haley, I think, has a similar approach,” Obama said on David Axelrod’s podcast.
“I’m not being cynical about Tim Scott individually. I am maybe suggesting that the rhetoric of ‘Can’t we all get along’” has to be “undergirded with an honest accounting of our past and our present,” Mr. Obama said. He added that people can be “rightly skeptical” when a Republican, “who may even be sincere in saying, ‘I want us all to live together,’ doesn’t have a plan for how do we address crippling generational poverty that is a consequence of hundreds of years of racism in this society.”
Ms. Haley and Mr. Scott both rebutted the former President’s patronizing comments. “There’s no higher compliment than to be attacked by President Obama,” Mr. Scott said. “Whenever the Democrats feel threatened, they pull out—drag out—the former President, have him make some negative comments about someone running, hoping that their numbers go down.”
Mr. Scott is right, and it’s worth asking why.