While Republican Florida Senator (and Bat Boy of World Weekly News fame all grown up) Rick Scott has a unique take on reality during his speech delivered at CPAC in a Disney-automaton-like demeanor. Scott claims that by having privately-owned and operated social media platforms monitor threatening and offensive content on their sites, they’re engaging in “modern-day book-burning” as part on the GOP’s fear-inducing Cancel Culture War on fictitious Cancel Culture. (We won’t even discuss how the right wing literally burns books, seen here and here and here, because that’s to on-the-nose.)
Set aside the fact that in Scott’s home state of Florida, the Republican Governor there is literally threatening to fire educators who discuss race and gender issues in the classroom, and that numerous Republican run states have passed legislation that ban books on race relations, gender identity and sexual orientation from bookshelves in libraries. Scott advocates for government takeover of private companies because the GOP’s message isn’t popular and is, quite literally, hateful.
Oh, and let’s not forget that Republicans have their own outlets through which they can spew their hateful rhetoric: places like Trot Socal Troop So-so Truth Social and Gab exist as supposed “free speech” zones (with the caveat that you literally are not allowed to say anything demeaning about the Trump cabal on Truth Social according to its Terms of Service). Scott essentially wants the government to undermine the Constitutional concept of free association by mandating association because conservatives don’t think rules apply to them.