Wait — I thought we were owning the *libs*!

Mass unemployment in Florida means that a lot of people who voted for Rick Scott will be completely screwed by the unemployment insurance system he completely gutted:

Already anxious about Trump’s chances in the nation’s biggest swing state, Republicans now are dealing with thousands of unemployed workers unable to navigate the Florida system to apply for help. And the blowback is directed straight at Trump’s top allies in the state, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott.

Privately, Republicans admit that the $77.9 million system that is now failing Florida workers is doing exactly what Scott designed it to do — lower the state’s reported number of jobless claims after the great recession.

“It’s a sh– sandwich, and it was designed that way by Scott,” said one DeSantis advisor. “It wasn’t about saving money. It was about making it harder for people to get benefits or keep benefits so that the unemployment numbers were low to give the governor something to brag about.”

[…]

The new online system was part of a series of changes designed to limit benefits. The ultimate goal — which it delivered on — was to lower unemployment taxes paid by Florida businesses. A 2011 analysis done by the Florida Legislature estimated that the changes pushed by Scott would save businesses more than $2.3 billion between 2011 and 2020.

Now, as thousands of people try to get help, the system crashes or denies them access. Nearly 400,000 people have managed to file claims in the last two and half weeks. It’s not known how many have tried and failed.

Most of those who do submit applications won’t qualify for aid, and the benefits that are paid out are among the most meager in the country — a maximum of $275 a week.

“This is horrible for people. I don’t want to minimize that,” one DeSantis adviser told POLITICO. “But if we have to look past the crisis, it’s bad for the president and it’s bad for the governor.”

In theory, you’d think this would concentrate the minds of Florida voters about what happens when you vote Republican, and the thinking should be further concentrated when the bill for DeSantis’s ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ reaction to a pademic comes due. And yet, as Eric Levitz observes:

One might think that, after this vivid demonstration of the Florida GOP’s malign indifference to the well-being of working people, the Sunshine State would be certain to go blue this November. But then again, this is a state whose disproportionately elderly voters elected Rick Scott as their governor, a man who oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in history; watched him transfer wealth from the middle class to the rich for eight years; and then promoted him to the Senate in 2018.