Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida with Fellow Republicans at a podium in the Capitol
Many of you have probably heard of the Republican’s 11-point plan to “Rescue America”. I thought I would read it to see if it was as bad as I had heard. I found it far, far worse than I had imagined; and if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought it was a parody of modern day Republicanism created by a writer with a wicked sense of humor. Bad news. It’s for real. Worse news for me. My two Republican Senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, seem to be fans.
You can go read it if you want, but I warn you, it’s full of lies and full of the crazy. Here are the highlights with suggestions of what that they really mean.
Rick Scott’s opening quote:
“Americans Deserve to Know What We Will Do When Given the Chance to Govern”
My thoughts: Amen to that Ricky Poo, and remember America, when Republicans tell you what they will do, believe them! Your rights and even your life may depend on it.
Rick Scott’s analysis of the problem (I’m paraphrasing here): The Government Is Evil! … Democrats Are Evil! … Woke People Are Evil! … They Steal Our Money and Spy on Us and Kill our Jobs and Let Criminals Run Free! … They Even Let Whole Caravans of Diseased Terrorists Cross Our Southern Border to Take Over the Country! … Public School Teachers are Teaching White Children That They Should Hate Themselves and That They Can Decide Who They Are Even if We Disagree! … Socialism! … Critical Race Theory! … Cancel Culture! … Antifa! … Agree with Me or You’re Not a Real American! … God is on My Side Not Yours You Loser!
My thoughts: You know that whole evil thing, Rick? Projecting much?
Here’s the plan’s main points and for those of you who don’t speak fascism, my humble attempt to translate. By the way, the Devil is in the details (literally). Check them out if you think you can handle it.
PLAN POINT #1
Our kids will say the pledge of allegiance, salute the Flag, learn that America is a great country, and choose the school that best fits them.
The “Elitist Hitler Youth” Theory of Education: Only private schools will exist and only people who can afford them will go there. Right-minded Republicans will control the curriculum and incinerators will be set up outside all libraries. We believe that schools should be used to coerce and indoctrinate children so that they will never question the Powers-That-Be should they realize America does not always live up to its ideals and that change is needed to make America the country we deserve.
PLAN POINT #2
Government will never again ask American citizens to disclose their race, ethnicity, or skin color on any government forms.
The “If You Don’t Measure It, It Doesn’t Exist” Theory of Problem Solving: If we have no way to identify disparities based on race and ethnicity, then there aren’t any; and if there aren’t any, then there’s nothing to fix. This theory is also extremely useful in a global pandemic.
PLAN POINT #3
The soft-on-crime days of coddling criminal behavior will end. We will re-fund and respect the police because they, not the criminals, are the good guys.
The “Let Police Do Any Thing They Damn Well Please Because They Are Always the Good Guys” Theory of Law Enforcement: To all police, we won’t cramp your style if you want to hurt or even kill unarmed men, women and children, especially if they make you nervous, and as long as they’re Black. After all, if they’re Black, how can they be the good guys/gals/kids? In fact, no matter how bloated your budget or how extensive your pattern of violence against people who don’t look like us (in fact, because of it), we’ll give you all a raise.
PLAN POINT #4
We will secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it after President Donald Trump.
The “Throw Good Money After Bad to Kiss Trump’s Backside” Theory of Border Control: Enough said.
PLAN POINT #5
We will grow America’s economy, starve Washington’s economy, and stop Socialism.
The “Steal America Blind and Starve the Children” Theory of Economics: We believe that all tax cuts should differentially benefit the top 1% of wealthiest Americans. When that blows a hole in the budget, then we’ll cut all the public spending that benefits the other 99%, because those benefits are SOCIALISM!!! Rinse and repeat. Oh, and pay no attention to the evidence that we create an economic mess every time we are in power and Democrats have to spend the first half of their terms cleaning it up.
PLAN POINT #6
We will eliminate all federal programs that can be done locally, and enact term limits for federal bureaucrats and Congress.
The “Let’s Get Rid of All Federal Programs and Pretend the Solution to Growing Fascism in America Is Term Limits” Theory of Governing: Since there’s no federal program that is not done, at least in part, with state and local personnel and resources, we can kill them all. [Insert sound of evil laughter here.] Also, since St. Ronnie pointed it out, we know that the government can’t do anything right. So, we think term limits on people hired to keep our country functioning (even though there is no such thing as a “term limit” for federal employees) will get rid of any competent ones standing in our way. And since we can’t help being horrifyingly awful at governing, please stop us before we kill again.
PLAN POINT #7
We will protect the integrity of American Democracy and stop left-wing efforts to rig elections.
[Sorry, had to take a break here for hysterical laughter and abundant eye rolling. Okay, I’m good.]
The “OMG Height of Hypocrisy and Projection” Theory of Defending Democracy: Yes, our party keeps passing legislation to suppress the vote and make state legislatures and Congress less representative of the majority. And yes, our party proactively argues that if any of our candidates lose an election, it must have been rigged. And sure, our party keeps spending millions of taxpayer dollars to NOT FIND voter fraud, but we’re going to keep arguing it exists anyway. And you might note that leaders in our party carried out a complex scheme to overthrow the government of the United States that ended in a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. But hey, that’s just us being us. We trust our voters to avoid critical thinking on this issue. Come to think of it, we trust our voters to avoid critical thinking on any issue.
PLAN POINT #8
We will protect, defend, and promote the American Family at all costs.
The “We Won’t Vote to Spend One Damn Dime on American Families” Theory of Federal Budgeting: We like to talk about supporting families, but surely you don’t expect us to support any policies that actually do that. Like that Build Back Better Act, yuck. You see, we believe that people exist solely as profit generators for the rich and to give us power. They’re also quite handy as cannon fodder in our culture wars. And, of course, we get to decide which families are “deserving”, and which are not. Fail at those things and as far as we are concerned, you can just go in a ditch and die. Take your whole family while you’re at it.
PLAN POINT #9
Men are men. Women are women, and unborn babies are babies. We believe in science:
[Warning, misplaced colon.]
The “We (Not You) Get to Decide Who You Are and How Many Children You Will Have” (Non-Scientific) Theory of Human Rights: We reject the science that tells us gender identity is complex, because science is hard. In fact, we reject any science that doesn’t conform to our beliefs (also known in the reality-based community as sheer stupidity). Science is what we say it is! Also, we reject the notion that women should be treated as fully free and independent persons able to make their own private reproductive healthcare decisions, because we believe they are too lazy and stupid to be trusted with that. Finally, we pretend that we care about babies, but our policies abandon them the minute they are born, sometimes even before. Get a job you whiny brats!
PLAN POINT #10
Americans will be free to welcome God into all aspects of our lives,
[What’s with the inconsistent punctuation at the end of some points? Couldn’t find a competent editor, Scott?]
The “Welcome Our God or Else” Theory of Religious Freedom: Religious freedom is for me not for thee. God created government (as long as we control it) and the Supreme Court (as long as we’ve packed it with religious extremists) so that we could use them to impose OUR religious beliefs on you; and freedom of speech means we can say any false and hateful thing we want, but to those of you who point it out when we intimidate and discriminate against others in God’s name, shut the hell up and sit down!
PLAN POINT #11 (Thank My God It’s Almost Over!)
We are Americans, not Globalists.
The “We’re Isolationists Unless It Suits Our Party’s Political Purposes” Theory of International Relations: Remember how George W. and the neocons started two glorious wars. Sure, we were in Afghanistan for 20 years and achieved none of our objectives. Still, totally worth it! Remember how we dropped bombs on innocent civilians in Bagdad. Shock and awe baby! And remember when Trump told our allies that they suck and that dictators were so much sexier. Wasn’t he the greatest diplomat the world has ever known! And best of all, remember when Trump told President Zelensky of Ukraine that if he wanted to see those weapons we promised him, he’d better (wink, wink) do us a favor and say he’s looking for dirt on Hunter Biden. Now that’s international leadership! Meanwhile, a ruthless megalomaniac dictator Putin has invaded Ukraine and is engaged in war crimes. Why should we care? Actually, let’s just side with Putin because he runs Russia the way we would SO like to run America.
Fortunately, the majority of Americans disagree with every actual thing the Republicans are proposing to do. Unfortunately, too many voters trip and fall down on the way to connecting the dots.
I have a 1-point plan. In November, let’s come together and vote these horrible people out!
