It is no accident that Ron DeSantis blocked AP African American Studies courses the week of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
While the law DeSantis was claiming to enforce was part of his ‘Stop The Woke’ campaign announced last May, his team deftly made sure his current action was ‘breaking news’ this past week.
This latest stunt is the Florida Governor’s attempt not just to whitewash history but to limit truth being taught in the state’s academic institutions.
Never a hot bed of higher education, Florida will drift further towards the deep-fried dystopia it is currently on track to becoming.
DeSantis is rebranding the state as a white supremacist backwater with an alternate set of ‘historical facts’ meant to enshrine the illusion of greatness to mediocre white southern men.
The kind of folks that would find Florida an attractive place to live in 2023.
It is not (that’s not to say there aren’t amazing, progressive people living in the Sunshine State but they’re being besieged by the creeping rot of authoritarianism).
It uses more energy than it should for one, keeping its behemoth indoor facilities at a chilly 65 degrees no matter what temps the rest of the eastern seaboard is facing in winter. I’ve never been colder than when staying in a Florida hotel room.
Common sense and conservation are in short supply; over-consumption and idiocy are the norm. The entire state at times feels like a giant middle finger to the environmental movement.
You would think by now we would at least have the concept of some sort of sympathetic environmental stewardship in our lexicon - but thanks to DeSantis we are moving in the opposite direction - and farther from the solution.
The over-consumption of fossil fuels in a state with sunny days year round - that could lead the way on solar energy - instead chooses to poison our planet further as just another way to ‘own the libs’.
Of course, Florida is not alone in this assault on our environment but there’s something about the greasy smirk of their governor that makes it feel that much more egregious.
Ron DeSantis is a man who has openly courted white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
Refusing to denounce his followers who seem to show up whenever he speaks wearing swastikas and carrying Nazi flags.
He is perhaps the most anti-LGBTQ governor in America - at a time when Republican governors trip over themselves to outdo each other in the bigotry department.
DeSantis refuses to hold real press conferences or give interviews to unfriendly outlets and saves his doughy face-to-face time for national outlets like Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
He does this because he is building a national brand - and accountability to the people of Florida hasn’t been on his list of priorities since he was a junior congressman sucking up to the Koch Brothers.
He is betting on the ignorance and inherent racism of a sizable chunk of white America - it’s fair to say no one has ever gone broke making that bet.
Donald Trump built a political empire, albeit a crumbling one now, as mold (and a special prosecutor) creep up the castle walls. Ron was watching, paying attention and seems quite confident in his launch of MAGA 2.0.
Using a sleeker, more self-disciplined and evilly vindictive version of racist dog whistles and outright homophobia than even Trump had employed. A man who at times had his tiny little hands on a shimmering fortune built on selling an illusion of greatness to mostly non-college educated and retired red state Americans; Trump held out the promise of the good life in his casinos and various ‘luxury brands’ all of which at best were merely a hoax and at worst, an outright grift.
As I said in a previous post, I believe America is a country in need of a moral inventory. We cannot hold our heads up high - and let go of the shame and deep injustices of our past - if we fail to confront them in a thorough and sober way.
Men like DeSantis and Trump know instinctually the shame and hurt that lives masked in mediocrity and mirth in the hearts of men just like themselves.
‘Hurting people, hurt people’ as the saying goes - both men are quite clearly deeply flawed human beings from a moral perspective.
Both men have publicly displayed their sadism to the applause of their followers and found pleasure in such a dynamic. (That fact alone should be terrifying to any student of world history, especially the mid-20th century European chapters. The iconography of which is fetishistically adopted across a wide swath of the burgeoning fascist movement now taking hold in the United States).
From Mussolini to Mao the world’s worst are made of similar stuff. The desire to watch fellow human beings suffer to score political points and gain power is the most abhorrent of character defects.
It always ends in catastrophe and evil.
It’s roots seek fertile soil in a lack of empathy.
Something we have no shortage of in the United States at present.
Most folks don’t spend enough time witnessing the struggles and what becomes of the lives this country chews up.
Poverty is punitive in this land of plenty. In reality it is a land of privilege.
Poverty and our abysmal healthcare system alone causes far too much needless suffering and tragedy.
Combine that with a criminal justice system that runs on systematic racism and a prison industrial complex that acts as a feeder system for corruption, especially in the deep southern GOP-controlled rural areas.
Consider these elements and you have a view of a nation that is far removed from the one we see offered up in pick-up truck commercials during football games. An idealized iconography designed to mask a hideous reality for far too many of our fellow citizens.
Fox News and ‘Bro Country’ radio feeds into this narrative and the NRA lights it all in a wash of unadulterated race-based fear.
At this point we are several generations into an almost criminal manipulation red state Americans by the GOP and their corporate overlords.
Most MAGA voters are at this point too addled, addicted or angry to see clearly how they are being used but it is in the hearts and minds of these men and women that the coming cultural battles will be waged for the soul of this nation.
People on the right often wonder why inclusion is so necessary. They have been trained not only not to care for their fellow man but to resent them.
They make ‘wokeism’ the butt of jokes for the smarmy frat-bro TV anchors or content for lecherous politicians - that are really nothing more than genuflecting trolls bending over backwards to obey and mollify their dark money supporters and Russian-backed benefactors.
Ron DeSantis is hurting the people that his supporters instinctively do not like, he is offering a form of sadism on public display as red meat for his base and to lure the same kinds of folks Trump exploited to his brand.
A leaner, meaner Trump and more audaciously brutal when it comes to punishing ‘the other’ in the public square.
In exchange for their support, DeSantis will help his big money donors rob his constituents blind and steal their children’s future.
If the ‘power slap’ were a politician it would be Ron DeSantis.
‘Power Slap’ Politics
So glad that your thoughts are making it to print, Noel. So important. Thank you!
Once again, a true indictment of the Republican machine.