Scott is centrist on the whole, just like me. He's far from actually being liberal.
Something interesting I've considered is that if everything else was exactly the same - all his views and everything - and he was only just a Democrat instead of a Republican, he would be loved by the GOP for being so 'conservative' (this despite his views being exactly the same) and such a 'maverick' and would be hated by the Democrats for being a DINO. Because people would all inherently focus much more on his conservative policy positions, rather than his liberal policy positions - which makes sense, because you have expectations of liberalness from Democrats and conservatism from the GOP, and he'd be known more as a economically centre-right Democrat rather than a socially centre-left Republican. So at the end of the day, it's actually kind of ironic: Scott should be a GOPer if he prioritizes economic issues, but when he is, it's the social issues he's liberal on that get much more talked about and become what defines him, but if he conversely cared more about social issues and thus identified as a Democrat, it would be the economic issues he is right-wing on that would be emphasized, and which would largely shape people's opinion of him. It also explains why I'm an R avatar when I think I have more in common with the Democratic Party: because if I was a Democrat, I'd be known as that anti-welfare, (perceivedly) anti-trans Democrat (views which, while I'm not ashamed of, I don't hold too strongly or have much conviction in), rather than an anti-gun, anti-election-lie, pro-environment, pro-mask-and vaccination (views which I hold much more proudly and firmly; issues which I prioritize) Republican.
Some highlights of the past three Democratic presidencies, all of which began with trifectas:
Clinton:
-Ended welfare as we know it
-Passed NAFTA and used union busting to do it
-Admitted China into WTO
-Deregulated Wall Street
-Deregulated media conglomerates
-Defined marriage as between a man and a woman
-Three strike laws, mandatory minimums, and handouts to private prisons
-Biggest reduction in government bureaucracy in history
-Balanced budget through light austerity (note: I think this was a good thing, but it's a conservative policy)
-Bombed the last remaining socialist state in Europe
Obama:
-Bailed out the banks after the recession with no consequences
-Passed a healthcare bill based on a Heritage Foundation proposal with no public option
-Offered to cut Social Security openly (Obama) and secretly (Clinton, cancelled after Gingrich impeached him)
-Made the Bush tax cuts permanent despite campaigning on restoring Clinton tax rates
-Pushed the Trans Pacific Partnership
-Proposed EU levels of austerity in response to debt crisis
-Backed coups in pink tide states
-Deported a record 2 million immigrants.
-Jailed a record number of whistle-blowers and journalists (I think Trump topped him eventually), including putting Chelsea Manning in a men's prison
-Proposed Cap-and-Trade a top-down market based solution to climate supported as a conservative alternative to carbon taxes; failed anyway
-Instituting franking and building anti-ecological pipelines on Indigenous land
- Campaigned on Union card check; never seriously proposed it
Biden (in progress):
- Compromised on minimum wage (which Clinton and Obama both technically increased, but not to 1968 levels) and public option immediately; can't pass BBB anyway, currently talking about breaking it up.
-Bragged about wanting to restore Bush tax rates; hasn't done it anyway.
-Continuing Trump's immigration policy
-Letting big business write COVID policy
-Ended unemployment extension on Labor Day
-Ended eviction moratorium
-Won't budge on student loans despite executive authority and campaign promises
The Democrats are a liberal party. There are many progressives and a literal handful of leftists in the Democratic Party. Some liberals are left. But the Democratic Party is not a left-wing or even a progressive party. The median Democrat is centrist, business-friendly, and anti-welfare. The Democratic Party wasn't even that socially liberal until very recently.
Phil Scott would not be even be close to being the most conservative Democrat. He's a pretty standard New Democrat, maybe even on the more left flank of New Dems. If you want a pro-business, socially moderate, not-the-most-overtly-bloodthirsty-towards-workers party, a successor to the Rockefeller Republicans then congrats, that's what the Democratic Party has been since the DLC took over. The New Dems are quite a bit more anti-welfare than the Rockefeller Republicans ever were. Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we've had since Ike.
