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The Undefeated Ron DeSantis

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sure is winning his war on the woke. The only problem is, he doesn’t really have an opponent so much as a bunch of strawmen he props up so that he can easily knock them down, puff his chest out beyond his bloated belly, and declare yet another victory in what amounts to political shadow boxing. Meanwhile, the very real issues facing our state continue to go unaddressed so that our leader can continue to build a profile from which to launch his sure-to-come 2024 presidential run.

This week, the governor once again graced Manatee County with his presence, making a stop at the State College of Florida for more rhetoric on all of the ways that he is going to reform higher education by protecting it from the liberal elite. DeSantis reminds me a lot of former president George W. Bush in the way he manages to convince so many blue-collar folks that a guy who went to Yale and Harvard before spending nearly his entire adult life in high-level politics is somehow just like them and only getting fat at the public trough–both literally and figuratively–for their benefit.

He also broke the news that one of his favorite brown-nosers, former Florida House Speaker and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, would be the new president of the official state honors college, New College of Florida. This came after a bunch of yes-men DeSantis appointed to the famed institution’s board axed Patricia Okker. Founded as a liberal arts college, DeSantis and his goons have vowed to transform the storied school into something that looks more like a conservative think tank, because Florida is all about freedom, unless it’s educational freedom, like choosing a liberal arts college for your higher education.

There is also DeSantis’ obsession with drag queens and members of the LGBT community. Seriously, the governor’s infatuation with men in women’s clothing has been delivered so often and with such evangelistic fervor that one has to seriously wonder whether there might be some projection going on, which so often turns out to be the case when politicians endlessly obsess over elements of human sexuality that do not otherwise intersect with the administration of public policy. It also remains to be seen how far DeSantis can push in this area before the many non-out gays in his party revolt, either silently or otherwise.

What's more, because the Republican Party of Florida has essentially traded out Trumpism for DeSantis’ brand of the culture war, the governor’s bullet points have bled down to local governments across the state, Manatee County even more than most. Week after week, we have to hear men on our otherwise macho-portraying county commission endlessly emasculate themselves in a sad competition of who can simp harder for our great governor, showering him with compliments and devising ways that they might win some battles in their general’s war, like making sure that some teenager doesn’t turn trans because of a book that made its way into a county library.

Meanwhile, DeSantis continues to fail the citizens of his state who are experiencing the very real consequences of his complete failure to reform the failed property insurance market beyond forcing homeowners to give even more money to highly profitable insurance companies. Likewise, the governor who promised Floridians in 2018 that he was going to be all about being a good steward of Florida’s fragile environment has done next to nothing to address red tide, green algae, declining mangroves, or the woeful outlook for our midterm water supply suggested by groundwater modeling.

There’s also the rhetoric DeSantis likes to give about historic corporate tax cuts that help Florida businesses become more competitive while attracting more businesses to the state. However, a closer look at many of those policies suggests that they are little more than corporate welfare, some of which incentivize international businesses to direct profits to overseas subsidiaries in order to avoid taxes that would otherwise be paid to our state where they can be used to address some of the aforementioned issues there never seems to be enough cash in the coffers for.

For example, the GOP’s HB 7127, passed in 2019 and signed into law by DeSantis, is estimated to cost the state more than $100 million annually in corporate tax revenue by actually subverting a mechanism in the Trump tax cuts that lowered overall corporate taxes while increasing the amount that would go to states. If you are finding it hard to rectify giving an advantage to international businesses that play such tax games to avoid paying their fair share over Florida businesses that only operate domestically or aren’t big enough to take advantage of such loopholes, that might be because few of the RPOF’s actual policies could even be accused of rhyming with patriotism let alone representing it.

As such, Floridians who have not sworn off logic and joined the cult might find it hard to understand national television pundits who consistently describe DeSantis as a more "palatable" version of Trump, one that is more likely to appeal to moderate Republicans and independents. The answer seems to boil down to the fact that DeSantis simply isn’t as well known nationally and has yet to accumulate the sort of highlight reel that 45 has put together over the years.

But I wouldn’t worry too much about that. The 2024 election is still far enough away that our man in Tallahassee could easily fit both of his feet into his big mouth before a presidential campaign even gets off the ground. Meanwhile, we Floridians on the other hand should be very afraid of what his abdication of actual governance will mean by the time 2026 rolls around.

The annual 60-day legislative session starts in about a month and every indication suggests that much more energy will again be spent banning books and policing "woke" kindergarten teachers than solving the very real problems facing our state. Welcome to Flori-duh, where we prize free-dumb above all else, particularly common sense.

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County governmentsince 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University, where he earned a degree in Government. He later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Clickherefor his bio. Dennis' latest novel, Sacred Hearts, is availablehere.


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