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John,
Below are my notes from a speech I gave at a church in inner city Chicago yesterday. It’s long, but I meant every word I said. I believe you and every person in America needs to hear this message.
Please read it and then let me know what you think:
It’s an honor to be here at New Beginnings.
That’s what the Lord offers each of us, in our lives — a new beginning. Take off the old self and walk with Jesus.
It’s also what Chicago and big cities across America need desperately. New beginnings.
Let me share a little bit about my beginning.
My grandfather was born in 1921 in the deep South. By the time he was in the third grade, his education was over. He was forced to drop out of school and start picking cotton.
This man had every excuse to give up hope. But he held onto stubborn faith. Faith in God, faith in himself, and faith in what America could one day be.
He saw beyond the pain of his present… to the promise of the future.
His daughter, my mother, grew up with segregated water fountains.
She grew up to become a nurse’s aide. Year after year, she worked 16-hour days, changing bedpans and rolling patients.
When I was young, my parents divorced. My mom, my brother, and I moved in with my grandparents. It was a 700 square foot house. The three of us shared one bedroom.
We were mired in poverty. The kind of poverty where sometimes you come home and hit the light switch, and there’s no light.
I was confused and angry. I nearly failed out of school.
But my granddaddy taught me that I could be bitter, or I could be better — but not both.
My mama said that we could either be victims or victors — and she chose victory.
So I finished high school. I finished college. I started a business.
Eventually I won an underdog race for Congress… against Strom Thurmond’s son… in the district where the Civil War began. Don’t tell me things don’t change!
Don’t tell me America hasn’t made progress!
None of us think our nation is perfect. But our progress has been palpable and undeniable.
The hope of Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King… the stubborn faith of people like my grandfather… it’s being rewarded.
America is the land of opportunity — not a land of oppression.
But there is a problem in this country that is growing, and it is sinister in nature. There is a radical movement on the far Left.
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And the more progress that America makes on race, the harder they try to deny it.
Whenever their power is questioned, whenever they’re losing an argument, they exploit race and class.
And the people they claim they’re helping fall further and further behind.
Look around. Look at this city. Look at the South Side and the West Side.
Chicago is a world class city. But for too many Chicagoans, it isn’t.
120 years ago, Chicago was the fastest-growing city in the world.
The first skyscraper was built here.
This city drew hundreds of thousands of African-Americans during the Great Migration — people searching for greater opportunity and more equal justice.
But Chicago — now, what has happened?
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Too many households have been swallowed up by idleness and addiction.
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Neighborhoods are being eaten alive by crime.
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Broken families and broken schools are robbing kids of their future.
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Last year alone, crime in Chicago created more than a quarter of a million victims.
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Just since 2019, homicides are up almost 40%.
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Shooting victims have included dozens of children under the age of 12.
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Car theft is up more than 200% in two years.
A long-term study found the shocking fact that an outright majority of blacks and Hispanics in Chicago have witnessed — no, have experienced the devastation of witnessing — a shooting by the time they reach middle age.
In this city — even after years of a hot job market, unemployment in the black community is stuck above 10%.
Less than 17% of minority kids can read at grade level.
And 4 out of 5 of our kids are born to a mom and dad who aren’t married.
Chicago, you have tried every single thing the radical Left demanded.
You’ve given progressives the keys to the kingdom. They got every ounce of power they have asked for.
You haven’t elected a Republican mayor since 1927.
You have strict gun control laws. High taxes. Social programs.
Your state is in the top 10 for K-12 spending per student — and has grown that spending faster than any other state.
In 2021, your leaders cut funding to the police — while they kept their own police protection.
This city has given the teachers’ union so much power that their lobbyist is now your Mayor!
The progressive philosophy has a monopoly. But it’s not working.
The streets aren’t safe. The schools aren’t good.
For too many kids who look like us, the future is not as bright as it could be; as it should be; as it needs to be.
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A few weeks back, I said something that caused a stir.
They attacked me on MSNBC. They attacked me on Twitter.
A sitting Democrat Congressman, a black man himself, called me a racist slur.
Here’s the point I made.
Slavery isn’t just the worst thing to happen to black people, it’s the worst thing that’s happened to America. It was disgusting. Despicable.
But when you face the facts… When you look at the statistics… You have to acknowledge another reality as well.
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The black family — here with us today — overcame slavery.
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The black church survived segregation.
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The black middle class survived Jim Crow.
It is changes in the last 60 years that have devastated black families.
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The modern welfare state.
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The creep of socialism.
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A culture that rejects individual responsibility.
Our country has made huge strides on race — but lawlessness and fatherlessness and joblessness have gotten worse, not better.
As recently as the 1960s, 70-plus percent of black kids were growing up with two parents in the household. Today, more than 70 percent do not.
Why? Because elites dumped money into a system that required black fathers to exit the household in order for government checks to arrive in the mail.
The far Left has spent decades going soft on crime, defending failing schools, undermining traditional values, and weakening capitalism.
And you can measure the devastation.
You measure it in crime. You measure it in unemployment. You measure it in despair.
Proverbs 13:12 says “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”
It’s not just Chicago.
In liberal-run Baltimore, the government schools have record funding, but 13 high schools had zero students proficient in math.
In Democrat-run New York, they’re spending tens of millions of dollars putting illegal immigrants up in hotels while actual American citizens are crushed by housing inflation.
With radicals running Philadelphia, a district attorney is refusing to uphold the law while innocent people are shot and killed.
If this movement actually cared about Americans — of any color — they would admit their failures and change direction.
But it’s not about inspiration. It’s manipulation. It’s about POWER.
The status quo may not be working for anyone else. But it’s working perfectly for elite progressives.
They are choosing their own power over prosperity in our communities.
They choose power over safety on our streets.
They choose power over good jobs, and great schools, and drug-free neighborhoods.
But it’s even worse than that.
To stop people from noticing the devastation, they try to get us addicted to the drug of victimhood. The narcotic of despair.
They’ve written a new curriculum to teach kids that the arrival of slavery in 1619 was more fundamental to the founding of America than the ideals of 1776.
It’s poisonous. It’s wrong. But it serves their purpose.
Because the problems around us can’t be liberals’ fault if we live in a systemically racist country.
The problems can’t be liberals’ fault if the deck is permanently stacked against us.
Progressives would rather lower the bar for people of color than raise the bar for their own leadership.
They say they want low-income Americans and people of color to rise. But actions speak louder than words.
Their actions say they want us to sit to sit down, shut up, stay mad, and vote blue.
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Instead of solutions, we are offered distraction and division.
Look at the reflex of the current President when his political fortunes are under threat.
When Republicans passed commonsense voting laws, laws that left African-Americans praising their voting experience, the President of the United States called it “Jim Crow 2.0” and compared Republicans — including me! — to segregationists.
Just a few months before Hamas terrorists would slaughter dozens of American citizens, our President said the most dangerous terrorist threat to Americans was “white supremacy.”
And the last time he was running for reelection, as Vice President in 2012, Joe Biden told a black audience the Republican ticket would “put y’all back in chains.”
It’s not just him.
The head of the national teachers’ union is a woman named Randi Weingarten. She recently said that people who fight for school choice and parents’ rights are today’s version of segregationists.
The Democratic Congresswoman who represents the Bronx has said that talking about illegal immigration and border security is white supremacy.
Even Vice President Harris raised bail money for rioters who looted, burned, and devastated black and brown communities.
On every issue, they cynically exploit race and class for their own benefit.
Look at what’s happened in the last few days, after the worst attacks on our Jewish brothers and sisters since the Holocaust.
The radical Left is so addicted to reducing every issue to the oppressor versus the oppressed, they are literally taking the side of the terrorists.
Democrats in Congress have called Israel “racist” and “apartheid.” Comparing child-killing terrorists to Nelson Mandela!
We’ve had far-Left protest groups who say they’re part of Black Lives Matter openly celebrating the murders of innocent people.
And the mainstream media is so blinded by their race obsession, they copied-and-pasted propaganda from the same people who killed Americans without even checking if it was true.
Every issue gets reduced to skin color. Whether it’s welfare at home or war overseas.
It’s insulting — and it’s evil.
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It cheapens our past. It hurts our present. It dishonors the progress we’ve made and makes it harder to keep going.
I am a conservative because the G.O.P. needs to stand for Great Opportunity Party.
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I believe we have the economic solutions that create jobs, opportunity, and investment.
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I believe education policy should give every family a choice and every parent a voice so that every child has a chance.
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I believe the Biblical values of life and human dignity would put a stop to the staggering abortion rates in our country — for all babies, but especially black babies.
Just think about it: The radical Left is happier when a black neighborhood gets a new Planned Parenthood clinic than when we get a new charter school.
So, yes, I am passionate about better policy.
I believe there are far better ways to empower people and rebuild the values that built this country.
That’s the mission I want to take to the Oval Office.
But there’s another truth that is even more important.
No American is a victim who needs to wait on Washington to solve his or her problems.
What our country is truly starving for… is a revival of personal responsibility.
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We need to replace victimhood culture with empowerment.
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We need to replace a message of grievance with a message of greatness.
The government cannot and should not raise our kids — but we can!
Social programs can never be the breadwinner who gives our family a better life — but we can! Social media, smartphones, and pop culture will not teach young people the values they need to succeed — but we can!
And almost every able-bodied American can go out right now and not just get a job, but start a career. There’s a labor shortage. Employers need talent. We can go out, work hard, and earn success!
This is a gospel that we must share.
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It’s not about taking the Republican side or the Democrat side. It’s about taking the side of our kids, our families, our communities. It’s taking my mama's side. My nephew’s side.
Every single day, every single one of us can be the example someone needs to see.
The question is: Do we have what it takes? Are we tough enough? Are we tough enough to get better, instead of bitter?
Are we tough enough to show what it means to be a victor and not a victim?
Whatever our color, whatever our story, every one of us has a duty to own our choices.
We are, praise God, the master of our fate. We are the captain of our ship.
You can’t have freedom without responsibility. We all know this. It’s the price of American citizenship.
If you take away someone’s accountability, you are robbing that person of their dignity.
The radical Left pretends that being soft on crime is good for black people. I say they’re not listening to black victims.
They pretend that people of color will never succeed without quotas and Affirmative Action. I say that what we marched and rallied and prayed for was an equal shot and a level playing field.
I’ve even heard elites say that praising the two-parent family is racist! I say: Tell my grandparents who were married for 56 years that it’s racist. Tell my brother who’s been married for 25 years that it’s racist. We all know that stable families are better when both mom and dad are in the household.
I’m sick and tired of this endless spiral of low expectations.
We’ve got to climb out of this cultural quicksand that leaves people feeling like they have no hope, no skin in the game.
We need to stand up and say —
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If you commit a violent crime, you don’t get to blame the police. You go to jail.
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If you fail a class because you didn’t study, you don’t blame things that happened before you were born. You study harder!
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When I didn’t get jobs I wanted, I didn’t blame discrimination. I decided I had to run the whole organization. So I worked harder.
We’re Americans. We are blessed. We can’t let any obstacles or any excuses hold us back from God’s plan for our lives.
And I’ll say this plainly. Every man — and I mean every man — must take responsibility for his actions. If you have a baby, it is your duty to raise that child.
I’ve got good news. It’s a formula that’s easy to follow. Finish high school. Get a job. Then get married. Then have kids. And you reduce your chance of living in poverty by 97%.
Can I get an Amen? Can’t you feel the power?
If you listen to God’s Word, use a little common sense, and live the way my grandmama and your grandmama told us — you reduce the chance of poverty by 97%. This is life-giving!
The elites who say they care should be shouting this from the rooftops! But they refuse. They refuse to preach what they practice.
These basic truths are plain to see. But it’s up to each of us to live them out.
This is the single most powerful change America can make.
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Individual responsibility.
I know that’s controversial to say in 2023. I can already hear the attacks.
Don’t worry. I’ve heard it all.
I grew up with kids who ended up in the graveyard or in jail. But when I fought to fund the police, liberals called me a token.
I was raised in working poverty. But when I cut taxes for families and single moms, liberals called me a prop.
When I pushed back on President Biden, progressives called me the N-word.
And when I say that America is not a racist country, that every one of us can build our lives, guess what phrase trends on social media?
“Uncle Tim.”
See — I disrupt, dismantle, and destroy their tired, negative narrative.
I threaten their control over your future.
Let’s put them on notice!
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I am proud that I terrify the teachers’ unions who are standing in the schoolhouse door and limiting kids’ futures based on where they live.
I am proud that I intimidate the drug-dealers of despair who would rather see a teenager lose hope than a progressive lose an election.
The inner-city community has just been the early warning system. Socialism and victimhood have been tested on our inner cities — and the results are in.
Failure. Colossal, continual, crippling failure.
This ideology is a threat to the entire country if left unchecked.
But it’s not too late to turn around.
So I will not sit down. And I certainly will not shut up.
I wear the battle scars like a badge of honor.
I will walk in faith, not always by sight.
“Don’t be afraid! Don’t be silent! For I am with you. No one will attack and harm you. Because the people in this city belong to me.” (Acts 18:9)
We need to take this message of personal responsibility and empowerment to every corner of this country.
And with God’s help, I pray that we can take it to the Oval Office.
John, if you agree with my message, will you please chip in a few dollars to help me stand up to the racist, radical Left and restore our country’s greatness?
Seriously, anything you can chip in will support my campaign.
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Thank you! God bless you. And God bless the United States of America!
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– Senator Tim Scott
Candidate for President
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Tim has taken a commanding lead after his debate performance in Simi Valley, California! Here’s what people are saying about Tim’s dominant debate performance:
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"WINNERS:
Tim Scott: The South Carolina senator was much more forceful than in the first debate, delivering a body-blow attack line against rival Vivek Ramaswamy by accusing the entrepreneur of being “in business with the Chinese Communist Party.” He also got in one of the first applause lines of the night when asked about President Biden joining striking autoworkers on the picket line this week."
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"WINNERS:
Scott later singled out Ramaswamy for saying during the first debate he was "the only person on the stage who isn’t bought and paid for," alleging he was "in business" with the Chinese Community Party and the same people who funded Hunter Biden."
Trace Gallagher: "The response from the crowd was Tim Scott brought his energy. He brought his game tonight."
Garrett Haake: "We did see a much more aggressive Scott challenging Ramaswamy, challenging some of these other candidates to try to create opportunities for himself to better introduce himself."
Wall Street Journal: "Well, they had their moments. Tim Scott finally cut through the disorderly debate with remarks on race and America’s promise."
Larry Kudlow: "Tim Scott I have to give him a lot of credit because he did this riff on Blacks, African Americans, somehow surviving through slavery and then went on to say that the Great Society of LBJ and all the democratic presidents since then have made the black situation worse, not better. Breaking up the black family... I just have to give him credit on that."
Sean Hannity: "He's an inspiring speaker."
Lanhee Chen: "Tim Scott stood out...I think people will see him as someone who wanted to come out and make some points and I think he did."
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