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When I first saw some reporting yesterday about Sen. Rick Scott urging radicals to steer clear of Florida, I was encouraged. There have been some neo-Nazi gatherings in the state recently, and my hope was that the Republican senator had issued a message telling these dangerous extremists that they’re not welcome in Florida.
Unfortunately, that’s not quite what happened. Scott did issue a 35-second statement, but the GOP lawmaker had a different audience in mind.
“Sen. Rick Scott here. Let me give you a travel warning: If you’re a socialist, communist, somebody who believes in big government, I would think twice, think twice, if you’re thinking about taking a vacation or moving to Florida. We’re the free state of Florida. We actually don’t believe in socialism. ... We like freedom, liberty, capitalism, things like that.”
The odd video was distributed by way of social media — and it was, naturally, soon followed by an accompanying fundraising pitch.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. With Florida Republicans having imposed a series of regressive restrictions on civil liberties, a variety of prominent national organizations have warned their members about conditions in the Sunshine State. As a Daily Beast report noted, actual travel advisories have been issued by “the NAACP, League of United Latin American Citizens, Equality Florida, Florida Immigrant Coalition, and the Human Rights Campaign—the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy group. The organizations have declared a state of emergency for Black Americans, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ individuals in Florida, citing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ aggressive campaign of anti-trans laws, a harsh new law on undocumented immigrants, and book bans.”
With this in mind, Scott’s video was intended as sarcasm. National organizations are warning their membership about Florida’s increasingly toxic political environment? Fine, the senator said. He’d warn proponents of “big government” that they’re not welcome in the Sunshine State anyway.
He delivered a similar message last month, though yesterday’s message went further, and as such, generated more attention.
There are plenty of obvious problems with the senator’s ugly pitch. It’s inherently strange, for example, to see a statewide officeholder, representing many constituents who rely on tourism, publicly encouraging people not to even visit his own home state. It’s just as bizarre for a senator, who presumably knows better, to lump together socialists, communists, those who believe in “big government,” as if the labels were effectively interchangeable.
But what struck me as especially notable about Scott’s video were his references to “freedom.” He represents “the free state of Florida,” he said, where people “like freedom.”
Except, in the same video, Scott helps clarify what he means when he uses the word: In Florida, you’re free — to agree with Scott. The senator will welcome you to his home state, just so long as you choose to share his beliefs about government and economic policy.
The lack of self-awareness is head-spinning: Over the course of half a minute, a sitting Republican senator — ahead of his re-election campaign — argued (a) if you disagree with his political vision, you shouldn’t even go on vacation in Florida; and (b) because Florida is a state where locals appreciate “freedom.”
How did Scott reconcile the contradiction? By failing to understand that it exists.
In 1971, Janis Joplin sang, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” A half-century later, Florida’s junior Republican senator would have us believe that “freedom” is just another word for having the right to agree with Rick Scott.