FL Sen. Rick Scott Doubles Down on His Sickening & Unserious Republican Senatorial Platform

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has declined to say much about what Republicans would do if they take back the Senate this Fall, but other Republicans aren't as reticent about publishing an agenda. After reading FL Sen. Rick Scott's proposed Republican platform, it's pretty clear why McConnell doesn't want anyone to know. Scott's plan is a wonderful mess of culture war grievances, conspiracy theories, and empty platitudes.

Last week, Scott, the chairman of the Senate Republicans' campaign committee, unveiled his vision for the future of the GOP and it landed with a thud [and much consternation and laughter] across the nation. The highlight for most news outlets was his idea to tax the 50% of Americans who are retired or currently don't make enough to pay federal taxes, but that isn't even close to the worst idea.

Apparently unhappy with the response to his platform, Scott doubled down this morning with a Wall Street Journal op-ed to explain why he decided to defy "beltway cowardice" and publish an action list for Republicans. Scott tries to gain the moral high ground by arguing that he is the only one that wants to discuss America's real problems, but his platform is just a jumble of culture war nonsense and empty rhetoric.

Here are a few of our favorites from Scott's not-at-all serious Republican platform:

1. The Wall: Scott proposes to finish the border wall and name it after former President Donald Trump. Considering how many times it's been breached with simple power tools [more than 3200 so far] or simply collapsed, perhaps it's a good idea. And, Scott specifically refuses to discuss real immigration reform until he gets his way. None of that is helpful; it's just more posturing for the GOP's anti-immigrant base.

2. Election Fraud: Without mentioning any proof, Scott goes all-in on Trump's election fraud fantasy and suggests a bunch of stuff to make registering and voting more difficult. The reason that he doesn't offer any evidence of voter fraud is that after years of trying, Republicans have been unable to find any. Their desire is to make the process more difficult for working class folks, young voters, and minorities, and quite a few conservatives have been caught admitting that.

3. Sexuality: Instead of tackling something meaningful like battling environmental degradation, expanding access to health care, or reforming immigration, the Senator takes aim at trans individuals, especially trans kids, because the right wing spends WAY too much time obsessing over gender and sexuality. The idea that some folks don't fall neatly into their Ozzie & Harriot vision of sexuality just drives conservatives nuts.

4. Education: Like many Republicans, Scott seems to believe that bashing education and teachers is wise politics. Among other things, he wants to force schools "to teach our children to love America," meaning that teachers should provide students with a white-washed, pop-up book version of American history because the truth is divisive. Only a Boomer could make that argument because students today have easy access to the non-sanitized version of history and they will have nothing but contempt for those who feed them BS.

Moreover, America is a great country, BECAUSE we have sought to overcome our past and live up to our founding documents. Lying about our past is not patriotic. Patriotism involves being part of the effort to make the country truly fair and equal for all Americans.

5. Crime and Punishment: The Republican Senator wants "the soft-on-crime days of coddling criminal behavior" to end. Someone might want to remind Scott that America has the largest number of folks in prison in the world, more than China and Iran combined. The United States is also still in the top six nations for executions while most of the world has banned it. No rational person can argue that America coddles criminals; quite the opposite.

6. Immigration: his willingness to spread long-debunked conspiracy theories about immigrants explains how he feels about the folks coming to America.

• "We will stop incentivizing people to come to America to receive government benefits. We have plenty of welfare recipients – we need productive citizens instead."

Even Trumpists now seem to understand that both legal and illegal immigrants are some of the hardest working people in America. Actually, the more modern complaint against them is that they are willing to work harder for less. And, God knows we are going to need a lot more of them in the future. Scott doesn't even touch on the labor shortage.

7. Guns: Scott throws some red meat to the AR-15 crowd.

• "We will oppose every attempt to deny our 2nd Amendment freedoms and will defend our gun rights always, at all costs."

Just wondering what Scott means by "at all costs."

8: Gov. Reform and Budget Deficit: Scott doesn't even try to deal with either in a serious way. Consider this.

• "We will immediately cut the IRS funding and workforce by 50%."

Might I suggest that Scott name this proposed law the "Tax Cheat Preservation Act." The IRS is woefully underfunded now and it's costing us trillions of dollars. Most of the evasion is by the wealthy and large corporations according to IRS officials.

Another of Scott's economic ideas is to "force Congress to issue a report every year telling the public what they plan to do when Social Security and Medicare go bankrupt." I have a better idea; force Scott to say how he would shore up Social Security and Medicare. He won't because it just might entail a tax increase on rich folks or corporations, and the only other way to do it would be to cut benefits.

9. Empty Platitudes: Much of Scott's platform is a collection of meaningless political clichés and his section on "family" is full of statements such as, "families are crucial in raising young men and women of character and responsible members of society. The best form of governing our society is not government, it is family." Nice sentiment.

10. Dishonest Platitudes: Consider this one.

• "We will terminate any trade deal that takes away American jobs."

One would assume that Scott actually knows that all trade deals reduce jobs in some sectors of the economy while adding more jobs in other sectors. That's the point. His only possible reason for including this statement is to appeal to those who don't understand the economic advantages of free trade over protectionism. It's simply a sop to the GOP's base and that's true for his entire platform.

Scott wants voters to see him as a serious politician, but his platform belies that notion. Who knows; his platform might end up being good politics, but it's certainly not a serious attempt to address the nation's challenges.

#politics #culture

By: Don Lam & Curated Content