Scott Jennings has a gift. Actually, he has many. But none is more apparent to the general public than the one he displays in his role as CNN‘s senior political commentator. There, he unfailingly articulates President Donald Trump‘s appeal to an audience that is prone to believe there is none.
This ability comes from a background very different than what you would expect for a man who is often the only conservative navigating four or more Democrats. It includes growing up in a family of Democrats in a coal patch town on Mine Equipment Road.
“I grew up in the heart of blue dog, union, Democrat, FDR, country often called the Rock of Gibraltar for the Democratic Party,” Jennings said.
Jennings, who released his new book, A Revolution of Common Sense, this week, is the grandson of a Democratic elected official and the son of a union man at a local factory who rose to leadership until the factory closed.
“He eventually had a couple of other jobs as I was growing up. One was as a garbage man. Eventually, he got a job at Goodyear Tire and Rubber,” Jennings said, adding that this did not mean economic stability.
“We rode the roller coaster of furloughs and layoffs and plant closures, and eventually wound up working for Goodyear in Union City, Tennessee, which was like a hundred-mile drive one way from our home in Dawson Springs,” he said.
Living through the undulations of the blue-collar, middle-American economic experience, one of constant anxiety and worry about whether you were going to make the mortgage payment next month, shaped Jennings’s worldview long after he earned a McConnell Scholarship in high school, which led him to attend college.
“It was a full ride,” he said. “So if I didn’t win that scholarship, I’m not sure I would’ve made it. We didn’t have any money.”
Jennings has emerged as a leading voice for conservative populism, in part due to his affable arguments, often breaking the fourth wall as he reacts to his progressive colleagues.
He said the title of his book came from Trump’s inaugural address. The book details one of the biggest political comebacks in American history and provides insight into how Trump rebranded the Republican Party. For Jennings, it had to be done by someone not just in the trenches, but who “keenly understands what is happening.”
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Jennings’s interviews with members of the administration, including Elon Musk, reveal a team of individuals who understand the president’s mission of advancing American interests and are committed to completing it.
He argues that on 80/20 issues, which the majority of Americans rally around, no matter what party they belong to, Republicans have a future well beyond Trump.
