Ron DeSantis has garnered a few headlines lately. Just in case you had any doubts as to whether the Florida governor was part of the radical right, he's traveling with Turning Point Action to stump on behalf of candidates like Ohio Republican candidate for Senate JD Vance, Pennsylvania's GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, Arizona Republican candidate for Senate Blake Masters and GOP nominee for governor Kari Lake. Other than Hershel Walker and Dr. Oz, that amounts to a "hall of shame" when it comes to Republican nut jobs that are running in the 2022 midterms.
The question of the day has become whether DeSantis is maneuvering to be the heir apparent to the MAGA crowd and challenge Trump for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024. Conservatives as disparate as Andrew Sullivan and Alex Jones are abandoning the former guy to become the standard-bearers for this country's next round of Republican authoritarianism.
In this contest of Trump vs. DeSantis, the assumption has been that the latter is the more intelligent and competent choice - even if he is lacking in the personality department. The Florida governor is branding himself as the culture warrior who is capable of winning the fight against his domestic enemies. But does his record bear that out?
Other than denying science during a global pandemic, DeSantis is best known for punishing DisneyWorld by convincing Florida's Republican-controlled state legislature to overturn the Reedy Creek special district status the theme park has maintained since it's founding in the 70's. But the revocation of that status was delayed until next summer. In the meantime, Disney made sure the governor and his pals knew that the district has about $1 billion of municipal bonds outstanding. That debt would fall on Florida taxpayers if the special district was eliminated. So here's what is happening:
Florida’s head of bond finance said lawmakers will likely re-establish the embattled Walt Disney Co.’s special district after the state passed a law that would dissolve the governing body next year.
Ben Watkins, director of the state’s division of bond finance, said legislators are likely to create a successor district, one that will assume many of the powers that Reedy Creek Improvement District, the agency that allows Disney to preform certain municipal functions at its resort properties...
“I’m confident that Reedy Creek will get addressed in a more meaningful way,” he said Thursday. Lawmakers will likely restore a limited version of the special district in the next legislative session, Watkins said. He added that Governor Ron DeSantis’s office has been “supportive” of the successor district approach.
So the whole "special district status" will be restored next year AFTER DeSantis runs for re-election. The only remaining question is whether the governor rushed into all of this in ignorance or if he planned the whole thing as a show that he knew would never actually amount to anything.
In the popular television series Stranger Things, the “upside down” describes a parallel dimension containing a distorted version of our world. Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down. Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely. But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely.“Now, like the heroine in Stranger Things, this Court is once again asked to pull Florida back from the upside down,” Walker wrote.
It remains to be seen whether or not DeSantis will be able to tear the MAGA crowd away from their cult leader. He doesn't seem to have the kind of personality that inflames their passions. But let there be no doubt about his intentions. Here's a taste from one of his fundraising emails.
Our country is currently facing a great threat. A new enemy has emerged from the shadows that seeks to destroy and intimidate their way to a transformed state, and country, that you and I would hardly recognize.
This enemy is the radical vigilante woke mob that will steamroll anything and anyone in their way. Their blatant attacks on the American way of life are clear and intensifying: stifling dissent, public shaming, rampant violence, and a perverted version of history...
I am choosing to counter this enemy with faith, with reason, and with freedom. As Governor of the Free State of Florida, I have chosen to lead with a vision that builds America up rather than tears it down.
Of course, it is people like DeSantis who are stifling dissent while peddling lies based on a perverted version of history. But projection has become the name of the game for Republicans these days.
If you want to know where DeSantis stands, there you have it. He's fanning the flames of fear and hate in order to create chaos and gain power. Being competent has never been the point.
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ReplyDeletePredictions are difficult, especially about the future, but I'd guess the tattered remnants of our democracy would be in worse shape after a DeSantis presidency than after a second Trump term. Orban might be the nearest model, and he'd have wide support across major institutions, who are more offended by Trump's bad manners than his threat to the nation. When it comes to saving the country from GOP autocratic rule or saving the GOP from its embarrassing dalliance with the clownish leader, don't expect the powers that be to do the right thing. They'll be happy to sacrifice democracy for a "strong" leader who can project an air of competence and respectability.
ReplyDeleteThe Republican base likes the clown though, and GOP poobahs and cheerleaders don't really call the shots. Hard to see DeSantis taking down Trump if Trump is free and runs. (Desantis is ridiculously young, fwiw. He'd be younger than any president exc. TR and JFK, I believe.)
After years of dumping on the left for abandoning "free speech," it's rather rich that Andrew Sullivan now finds new hope in DeSantis, the guy who's criminalized what teachers can say in the classroom. What an effing joke he is. I never thought much of him, so it's hard to say I'm surprised or disappointed. I did have more hope for D. Frum, who I thought had made a break from the dark side. If he or other NeverTrumpers are willing to jump back to the old party when a crazier but Trump-less GOP emerges, then fuck 'em.
We all know what Lee Atwater said. "You start out in 1954 by saying, “N___, n___, n___.” By 1968 you can’t say “n___”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract." If Atwater were around in 2022, he'd say, "You say stuff like woke, woke, woke." DeSantis knows what he's talking about. https://twitter.com/reneeygraham/status/1561099661762596864
That was me. Didn't mean to post Anon.
DeleteNancy is pointed and chilling in her account of what DeSantis wants to do. (John Farmer is dead on as well.) I do, though, think she is taking the wrong approach in putting it under the heading of all talk no action, with the implication that he's yet another politician who's not so good at delivering.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, I don't think he or is supporters would mind the charge. As with much of theGOP in office, his goal is basically to send a signal to his base, without regard to what he believes, whatever that is. In turn, the base just feels that it's the same old story about libtards. DeSantis is on their side, but the liberal elitist conspiracy that runs America won't let him or us be.
For another, too often progressives have urged something similar. Don't worry if McConnell's Senate (and likely the GOP House after November) would shoot it down, not to mention the newly conservative Supreme Court. Just show what you believe! Call me dubious. Worse, too, then, many of the same people plus the Maureen Dowds of the centrist press keeping score would then go on to use the charge of failure against Biden! What a wuss!
Rather than focus on DeSantis's failure to achieve a wildly radical agenda, we should be decrying that agenda and making thanks that the American system of government still has protections against it. The only question is then whether those protections will remain in place should Trump or DeSantis becomes the next president. And whether enough of us believe in the urgency of preventing that.
Instead, I see too many calls to abandon faith in the Constitution or the courts. There was another in the Sunday Times opinion section. Forget our system of government and legal protections. Let the people and the legislature decide. As if that weren't precisely what conservatives have called for forever, with "states rights," the Dodd decision returning things to the states, and a GOP Congress blocking progressive legislation.