In op-ed, Rick Scott says he wants a “peaceful revolution”

Bernie Sanders isn’t the only political figure talking about a revolution in 2016.

In an opinion piece penned for the conservative website Newsmax that posted Friday night, Rick Scott writes that it’s time for a “peaceful revolution” in our politics.

“With a majority of Americans unhappy about our current course, America’s next president will have to begin a revolution of multigenerational change,” the Florida Governor writes. “Our next president must be willing to take on the many promises big government has made to us over the years that we know they can’t afford to keep. Who actually believes Social Security will be there for them when they retire? Who has been helped by losing the doctors and insurance plans they liked because they were forced to take government-run insurance? Who is confident that ISIS is losing its battle against freedom?”

Scott begins his column by excoriating President Obama for some of the optics of his trip to Latin America last month.

“Just weeks ago, we were ashamed to see our president doing the “Wave” at a baseball game with Cuba’s communist dictator who has murdered and imprisoned innocent men and women,” he writes. “We were shocked to see our president doing the Tango in Argentina rather than grieving with us over the Belgium terror attacks. We were speechless to hear our president tell an audience of Argentinean youth that there is not a great difference between communism and capitalism.”

Obama was pounded with similar criticism for those appearances that took place right immediately after the terrorist attack hit Brussels. All three Republican presidential candidates said the president should have returned to the U.S. immediately.

Scott endorsed Donald Trump for president last month, the day after Florida Republicans gave him the state’s 99 delegates in the winner-take-all primary election. Scott writes, though, that the “monumental change needed in our country today is bigger than one political party or one election.”

The column is also an unapologetic argument for American exceptionalism, a theme that many Republicans have returned to in this campaign some seven years after the country elected Barack Obama president.

Before his surprising victory in the 2010 Florida gubernatorial election, Scott worked in the heath care industry, and was a fierce critic of the Clinton administration’s attempts to reform health care in the 90s, and Obama’s efforts in 2009. But this column is one of his most full-throated advocacy pieces about where he wants then country to go since being in office.

Scott has a little more than a year-and-half in office before being term-limited out in 2018. Rumors continue to percolate that he is seriously considering a run against Bill Nelson for U.S. Senate.

Read the column in full:

It’s no wonder that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe our country is headed in the wrong direction.

Just weeks ago, we were ashamed to see our president doing the “Wave” at a baseball game with Cuba’s communist dictator who has murdered and imprisoned innocent men and women.

We were shocked to see our president doing the Tango in Argentina rather than grieving with us over the Belgium terror attacks. We were speechless to hear our president tell an audience of Argentinean youth that there is not a great difference between communism and capitalism.

We need to start a peaceful revolution in our country by electing a president who knows why our country was created, who believes that American freedom and beliefs are exceptional, and who understands WHY capitalism has done more to eliminate poverty than any government program. I have already announced my support for Donald Trump in this presidential election, but the monumental change needed in our country today is bigger than one political party or one election.

With a majority of Americans unhappy about our current course, America’s next president will have to begin a revolution of multigenerational change. Our next president must be willing to take on the many promises big government has made to us over the years that we know they cant afford to keep. Who actually believes Social Security will be there for them when they retire? Who has been helped by losing the doctors and insurance plans they liked because they were forced to take government-run insurance? Who is confident that ISIS is losing its battle against freedom?

The revolution our country needs will require unity — not squabbling about how to engineer secret backroom deals with delegates during a national convention. If we genuinely value the freedoms our country was founded on — freedom from government control and government regulation — freedom to work hard and succeed, then its time to join together and drastically change the path our country is on.

Abraham Lincoln said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” We have a major election in just eight months and that means we have a chance to begin a multigenerational revolution in our country to SAVE our country. We can choose to end government-takeovers orchestrated by leaders who believe there is little difference between communism and capitalism. We can choose a leader devoted to right-sizing government, defeating ISIS, and turning our economy around so businesses can grow more jobs in America.

I believe that if we join together in a peaceful revolution, American exceptionalism can triumph again. Let’s make the hard choices to have government live within its means. Let’s be honest with the American people about what programs government can afford and what it cannot. Let’s protect freedom — through economic strength at home and a strong national defense abroad. I have always believed our country is special, and with a major change in direction I know we cannot only regain the confidence of the American people, but give them something to be proud of again.