The Galtian Republic Of Rick Scott

Former Florida GOP Governor and now Senator Rick Scott really doesn't give a shit if you think he's a crook (he's a Medicare fraudster who scammed the government of billions as a hospital chain CEO) who became the richest man in the Senate, he's here openly saying the GOP's plan is to destroy Medicare and Social Security and raise taxes on tens of millions of working-class Americans to make them "pay their fair share" while wrecking all federal protections on civil rights, voting rights, clear air and water, and leaving everything to the states to decide.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott has been publicly dressed down by Republican leader Mitch McConnell, privately rebuked by his colleagues and repeatedly accused of running the National Republican Senatorial Committee in a way that benefits his own future over the candidates he was hired to get elected.

He has directed a sizable share of his fundraising as NRSC chair to his own accounts, while shifting digital revenue away from Senate campaigns and buying ads promoting himself that look all but identical to spots he does for the national committee.

But during the seven weeks of turmoil since Scott dropped a provocative conservative policy bomb on an unsuspecting party — a plan that called for tax increases and expiration dates for all federal laws, including those establishing Social Security and Medicare — he has not once expressed regret. Instead, the former hospital chain CEO and two-term governor, the richest man in the Senate, argues that he owes his detractors nothing.

“My whole life has been people telling me that, you know, you’re doing it the wrong way. You can’t, you shouldn’t be doing this,” he said in a recent interview at NRSC headquarters. “I’ve been up here for three years. Do you know how many people have come to me and asked me, before they vote, what my opinion is on something and whether it’s good for my state? That would be zero.”

Barbs like these from the inner sanctum of GOP leadership toward his fellow senators and political operatives have cut unexpected fissures into what appears to be a banner election year for Republicans, who are a single seat away from majority control of the Senate. Private grumbling about how Scott has turned the NRSC into the “National Rick Scott Committee” has become widespread enough in some Republican circles that other jokes have been added. “All this, for four percent in Iowa,” is the punchline of one about the harm he could do to Republican fortunes in November in pursuit of national ambitions.

During a Feb. 29 meeting with Senate leadership in McConnell’s office, other senators brought articles that showed members being attacked for various parts of his plan, particularly the tax provision and another imposing term limits. They chastised him in round-robin fashion for the unnecessary headache he had created, said people familiar with the meeting, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Scott answered days later with a Wall Street Journal op-ed — “Why I’m Defying Beltway Cowardice” — and a March 31 speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“Bring it on,” he said there.

Scott is going after Mitch's job and telling everyone with a bullhorn that he's going to erase federalism and rewind the clock back 100 years. laws, the whole thing since the New Deal vanishes and we're back to robber barons busting unions and strikes with Pinkertons and federal troops and a only a third of the country being eligible to vote.

He also may be the Democrats' best hope for keeping Congress.