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   From: bw3ss@magikbeanz.net   
      
   Rick Scott's 11 Point Plan to Rescue America is so insane it’s basically a   
   gift to the Democrats   
   By Jeffrey C. Billman @jeffreybillman   
      
   Mitch McConnell knows how to win the midterm: Oppose everything Joe Biden   
   does, blame him for anything that goes wrong, but never lay out an agenda   
   that turns the election into a choice rather than a referendum.   
      
   Last week, however, Sen. Rick Scott — a billionaire Medicare scammer who   
   scammed Floridians into narrowly electing him governor twice and senator   
   once, and who is in charge of electing Republicans to the Senate — threw a   
   wrench into the machine with his “11 Point Plan to Rescue America,” a   
   manifesto that mixes Newt Gingrich’s kick-the-poor ’90s with Trumpian   
   authoritarianism, white Christian nationalism, overt attacks on voting   
   rights, economic and constitutional illiteracy, and a Mack truck full of   
   gaslighting.   
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   The 11 points speak for themselves:   
      
       Turn schools into patriotism factories where kids are forced to say   
   the Pledge of Allegiance (unconstitutional) and teachers can get fired for   
   making white children uncomfortable (i.e., “critical race theory”). Then   
   again, none of that will matter after they close the Department of   
   Education and implement a voucher program that ghettoizes public schools   
   and routes billions of tax dollars to unregulated religious institutions.   
       End diversity training “or any woke ideological indoctrination” in the   
   military — “woke” is Scott’s new favorite word — cut off funding for   
   universities that try to diversify their student bodies, and proclaim as a   
   point of fact that the nation is colorblind (the last 400 years never   
   happened).   
       Impose more draconian sentences for violent and nonviolent crime, and   
   expand qualified immunity so that cops can even more easily abuse their   
   authority with impunity. Blue lives matter, etc.   
       “We will secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it   
   after President Donald Trump.”   
       Give the president a line-item veto (not only unconstitutional, but it   
   would render Congress irrelevant), prohibit debt ceiling increases   
   (calamitous), tax poor and retired people (everyone should have “skin in   
   the game”) and whatever “Socialism will be treated as a foreign combatant”   
   means.   
       Enact term limits for members of Congress and civil servants   
   (unconstitutional and will empower lobbyists), move government agencies   
   out of Washington and “into the real world” (expensive), and cut IRS   
   funding in half (presumably so Scott’s pals can get away with tax fraud).   
       Ban same-day and automatic voter registration (because fraud, or   
   whatever), unmanned collection boxes and public campaign financing (“No   
   serious person would ever favor this,” says the billionaire), and don’t   
   count absentee ballots that arrive after Election Day. But voter ID will   
   be mandatory, of course.   
       Ban abortion, ban porn, give tax breaks to “nuclear families” and   
   allow faith-based groups to discriminate against whomever they like.   
       God says trans people aren’t real, so doctors should be banned from   
   treating trans children and trans men should be banned from women’s sports   
   — which the party that just a few years ago ridiculed Title IX now finds   
   sacred. (Strange, that.) Also, “no government forms will include questions   
   about ‘gender identity’ or ‘sexual preference.’”   
       Ban Facebook and Twitter from banning users for hate speech or   
   spreading misinformation (unconstitutional), “reject both the roots and   
   the adherents of cancel culture in America,” and “stop investing federal   
   retirement dollars with ‘woke’ fund managers and companies that put left-   
   wing politics ahead of profits” (“woke” means clean energy, I presume).   
       Stop participating in peacekeeping missions, end imports from China   
   (only $435 billion a year), “take climate change seriously but not   
   hysterically” (i.e., do nothing) and “treat our enemies like enemies.”   
      
   There is the Republican plan to “rescue” the country, which was humming   
   along fine until Jan. 20, 2021.   
      
   Most of it isn’t new, per se. What’s new is Scott’s attempt to marry the   
   party’s anti-tax, pro-austerity wing with Trump’s populist, authoritarian   
   wing. On the surface, that seems dubious. To the degree Trump had a policy   
   outlook more sophisticated than “Build the Wall,” it was that he promised   
   everything to everyone — cut taxes and increase spending and cut the   
   deficit — and pretended he never made those promises when they became   
   inconvenient.   
      
   Scott, however, wants to reframe the oligarchical (read: deeply unpopular)   
   aspects of the GOP agenda as an extension of the culture wars: The “woke”   
   left is sending your money to “undeserving” others; you don’t have to   
   squint to see the racial subtext. From start to finish, this is an   
   authoritarian document dressed up in the language of freedom. Like all   
   variants of right-wing populism, it focuses the grievances of its target   
   demo (a loss of cultural primacy) at scapegoats (the wokes).   
      
   Consider how Scott begins his treatise: “The militant left now controls   
   the entire federal government, the news media, academia, Hollywood, and   
   most corporate boardrooms — but they want more. They are redefining   
   America and silencing their opponents.”   
      
   Put aside the obvious question — how much LSD does a man have to take to   
   think of Joe Biden as the “militant left”? — and allow me to translate   
   from Fox Newsese: Scott’s version of a white, Christian America that   
   idealizes capitalists (for example, him) has lost favor in the cultural   
   marketplace, and people who espouse racist, misogynistic or bigoted views   
   now face consequences they didn’t before (which they call censorship). A   
   multicultural society forces their children to learn more than the   
   historical myths on which their purported superiority was constructed   
   (which they call indoctrination).   
      
   They are victims, forever and always. Scott is promising to avenge their   
   victimhood by imposing their cultural norms on everyone else — in the name   
   of freedom — and maintaining the socioeconomic caste system that has   
   fostered the greatest level of inequality in a century.   
      
   That is the Republican Party’s 2022 platform. It’s also a gift to   
   Democrats — if they can figure out how to use it.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)