Deal With The Devil
Floridians who still have health care are going to need it after they woke up with a major case of whiplash as Rick Scott, Donald Trump and the guy who pretends to be the Secretary of Interior, Ryan Zinke, attempted a political stunt that backfired.
As Rick Scott prepares to exit the governor's office and contemplates his next attempt at running government like a business, he's trying to reinvent himself as opposed to offshore oil drilling. But much like pouring Corexit on an oil spill already in progress, it only made Scott more toxic.
Who could have seen this coming?
Last week Unstable-In-Chief announced that it was once again open season on oil drilling on America's coastlines, but by yesterday he had already found an exception: Florida. Now, many cried foul noting that there's a certain piece of real-estate on Florida's coastline that stands to benefit from pristine waterfront in order to attract tourists and anyone from a foreign government who wants to manipulate a certain President* for their own mutual gain while enjoying all that Florida has to offer - Mar-a-Lago.
But there was another reason. If Scott fancies himself as Florida's next new Senator, he has a lot of cleanup to do, hence his sudden flip-flop on oil drilling, just for starters. Should he get in the race, he'd be trying to oust Sen. Bill Nelson who has been against oil drilling from the get-go.
Problem.
The old "drill-baby-drill" foot-stomping from Republicans just wasn't the same after BP literally brought oil to Florida's shores during the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and Scott knows it.
Granted, this is great news for Florida and the small business owners Trump pretends to embrace who were hit hard during that oil gusher that held viewers hostage on live television for months and hostage to a cleanup that went on for years with problems still ongoing. (Don't worry Florida, Trump can still get all up in your "states rights" in plenty of other ways, and he's already working on it.) So while this may cause sighs of relief in Florida, it may not be the magic electoral potion Rick Scott thought it would be. Sure, he took heat as a hypocrite from Democrats and environmental groups alike, but it also set off a "blowout" if you will among many of those he might hope will be new Republican colleagues in Washington.
Zinke cited Florida's coastlines as "unique" when crossing them off the list of shores he felt worthy of being forever soiled and destroyed by thick goo that kills much of everything it touches. But hey, who knew that there were other states who also rely on tourism, the fishing industry, and oil-free coastlines? Worse, some of them are also ::gasp:: red states where tears are not limited to liberals living there, but actual elected "I Got Mine, Screw You" Republicans who now find themselves on the wrong end of one of Trump's "best deals." Worse, Trump did it to boost one of the country's most toxic governors at their expense. Trump may have thought he was being clever in governing by revenge against blue coastal states, but even blue states have Republicans who know Trump and offshore oil drilling are equally toxic and this squeezes them into that ever-shrinking space between the rocks and hard places of Trumpism.
It's a delicate dance indeed for those Republicans who courted Trump but don't happen to have a Private Presidential* Club in their back yard and a President*-for-profit who hopes to have a Senator from Florida happy to take his loyalty oath while protecting his business interests in Florida
Trumpism bites, huh GOP?
