Tim Scott embraces another Democrat talking point on race.

Tim Scott has criticized Ron DeSantis for defending the statement in Florida’s AP African-American History (APAAH) curriculum that some slaves gained useful skills they put to use once freed. Scott declared that slavery had no “silver lining.”

But as I argued here, the statement in the curriculum (which says nothing about a silver lining) is true. In fact, a similar statement appeared in the left-wing College Board’s version of APAAH. Far from expressing outrage, DeSantis’ critics ripped him for rejecting that curriculum.

As for slavery having a silver lining, that’s a value judgment the Florida curriculum does not make. The statement Scott objects to is a true statement of fact, not a statement of opinion or value.

Other true statements of fact in the curriculum cast slavery in such a strongly negative light that it’s unlikely any student will regard the learning of useful skills by some blacks as a silver lining. But students will gain insight into the range of experiences of slaves once they were freed from bondage.

Scott has come under criticism from some conservatives for siding with Democrats —most notably Kamala Harris who traveled to Florida to rip the governor — on this matter. Some have accused him of being “woke.” Kurt Schlichter has the fiercest takedown of Scott I have read.

He writes:

[Scott] could have said this: “The idea that Ron DeSantis is some sort of slavery advocate is silly and cynical and I refuse to play Kamala Harris’s divisive race-baiting game. I intend to beat the governor in this race, but I will do it on policy, not on lies. Next question.”

Holy cow, that would have crushed it. He would have been a hero – including to those of us like me who prefer other candidates (I personally prefer RDS). It would have been based and gracious, all in one sharp response. It would have rejected both the lie and the idea that he could be co-opted to do the left’s bidding. And that response has the benefit of being true. The idea that Ron DeSantis somehow drafted some sort of pro-slavery provision in the standards – there are no pro-slavery provisions, of course – is just as dumb as the idea that DeSantis approves of slavery. It’s an almost insultingly stupid accusation, making the pushback a no-brainer. It was an easy win.

But Tim Scott chose to be a loser in what should be the defining moment of his campaign. He made the other choice. He chose to accept the premise of our enemy, the lying, borderline clinical moron Kamala, and use it to try to achieve a cheap momentary advantage over his rival for second place in the primary race.

To do so, he unforgivably accepted the premise of Kamala and her regime media lackeys, and the headlines reflected it. NBC crowed: “Tim Scott rebukes Ron DeSantis over Florida Black history standards about slavery.

I’m less inclined to criticize Scott for trying to gain a dishonest advantage over a rival in the race for the GOP nomination — or I would be if Scott didn’t have a history of subscribing to leftist talking points on race. Much is fair in love, war, and presidential politics. Scott may have miscalculated here, as Schlichter believes, but I’m too cynical to be appalled when a candidate seeking the presidency seizes unfairly on a statement that may leave a rival vulnerable.

The problem is that Scott has played the race card in contexts having nothing to do with presidential politics. I wrote about one case of it here:

Scott has not been entirely above choosing victimhood and grievance. In the Senate, he backed and lauded the First Step Act. This jailbreak legislation was premised on twin grievances — the view that the U.S. has an over-incarceration problem and that the criminal justice system is unfair to blacks.

In reality, the U.S. has an under-incarceration problem. And to the extent that blacks make up a high percentage of those in prison, it’s because they make up a high percentage of those who commit felonies.

Scott has also complained about being stopped by the police. In a 2016, he said he was stopped seven times on one year:

Was I speeding sometimes? Sure. But the vast majority of the time I was pulled over for driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood or something else just as trivial. . . .

I do not know many African-American men who do not have a very similar story to tell no matter their profession. No matter their income, no matter their disposition in life.

Naturally, Scott resents being pulled over by the police. In his frustration, however, he seemingly dismissed the possibility that blacks are stopped by the police in disproportionate numbers not because police officers are racist, but because police officers know that blacks commit a disproportionate number of the crimes police stops are targeting.

I failed to mention what might be a worse example of Scott on race. During the Trump years, Scott sank the nomination of Ryan Bounds to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Bounds, a strong conservative, was attacked by Senate Democrats for things he wrote for the college newspaper as a student at Stanford 25 years earlier. As David Lat explained, Bounds “poked fun at the excesses of political correctness” but has been “tar[red]” as supposedly being “biased against minorities, women and gays.” The tarring was unfair. Bounds’ bias was not against minority group members, it was against the campus diversity fetish.,

It’s not surprising that Senate Dems used things a nominee wrote in college to block a well qualified conservative from office (at the same time ignoring the blatantly racist writings of Kristen Clarke when she was in college, as they confirmed her to be the nation’s top civil rights enforcer). But the Democrats could not have succeeded without the support of Tim Scott.

Mitch McConnell had to withdraw Bounds’ nomination after Scott said he couldn’t support it. Scott managed to convince Marco Rubio to join him.

Finally, Schlichter says that during the 2020 riots Scott could be relied on to embrace the left’s views. He offers no examples, but if true this would also count against Scott.

In any case, the three matters I have documented — the attack on DeSantis, the complaint about police stops, and the rejection of Bounds for things he wrote as a college student — tell me that Scott is carrying a racial chip on his shoulder. It’s understandable that he does. If I had lived Scott’s life, I would probably be carrying one, as well — possibly a bigger one.

But we should expect conservative Senators, and especially GOP presidential candidates, to rise above this. I’m pretty sure that Clarence Thomas, who grew up in the deep South decades before Scott, experienced more virulent racism than the South Carolina Senator did. Yet, he doesn’t indulge in the kind of knee-jerk embrace of leftist talking points we see too often from Scott.

I’m not saying Scott is woke, as some of his conservative critics complain. But Scott is too quick to default to left-wing narratives on race.

That’s not what I’m looking for in a presidential candidate.