Sen. Tim Scott: NAACP Leader Engaging in 'Philosophical Bigotry'

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said Tuesday that he was a victim of “philosophical bigotry” after an NAACP leader referred to him as a ventriloquist’s dummy.

Appearing on Fox News’s The Kelly File, Scott said that NAACP leader William Barber was engaging in a form of “philosophical bigotry” because he knows that the group’s “baseless rhetoric” about “the same old things that have not worked so far” is becoming ineffective. Scott also emphasized, “We’ve had a 50-year war led by the government on poverty, and it hasn’t taken people out.” He said that “we should be preaching the fact” that “free market capitalism produces greater success” than government ever can. 

“A ventriloquist can always find a good dummy,” Barber said of Scott before saying “the extreme right wing down here (in South Carolina) finds a black guy to be senator and claims he’s the first black senator since Reconstruction and then he goes to Washington, D.C., and articulates the agenda of the Tea Party.”

Scott said the NAACP only stands up for liberal blacks because “there is a major threat coming from the right” as conservatives show people the path forward, actually embrace people, and want to empower those who are impoverished. He said this threatens groups like the NAACP and the institutional left. 

Scott is the first black U.S. senator elected from South Carolina since Reconstruction from either party.