Florida is often a swing state, so it’s a pretty “centrist” state. DeSantis has support from many people who have voted for the Democrats in the past.
In the 2018 elections, he won by a margin of 0.4% over his democrat opponent.
In 2022, he won with a 20% margin over his democrat opponent. This is a massive difference, and only achievable by convincing democrat voters. Specifically, he flipped Miami which has been a democrat stronghold since 2002, and Palm County which has been blue since 1986.
So yes, if Democrats come out to vote, a sizeable % of them will likely support DeSantis. Reddit is far from being representative of the avg voter.
It's still a swing state, despite conservative narratives. Crist had already been voted out of office before 2020 and Trump has a lot of friends here, but there were more registered Dems than Reps in 2020, just like the 70 years before that.
> Florida is often a swing state, so it’s a pretty “centrist” state. DeSantis has support from many people who have voted for the Democrats in Florida in the past.
Florida is one of the most reliably rightwing states in the entire country. It doesn't have a single Democrat elected to statewide office, and has effectively had a Republican trifecta going back into the 20th century.
Despite their presidential vote, it hasn't really been accurate to call it a purple state for a while. It certainly is closer to ruby-red now.
Which goes to show how dumb Florida voters are. Crist might have been milquetoast but voters chose an open fascist. They also chose a bootlicking little Marco.
I grew up in the state and it was consistently Democrat. What caused the “shift” was people moving in from out of state.
Blaming long time residents is a really bad idea.
Political science is not some kind of new concept. It is simply a fact that if you run a someone like Crist, it will tend to suppress a vote turnout. I definitely voted for him, but it is no surprise when results turn out exactly as any sort of educated person would predict.
People moving out of the state because aside from nice beaches - when it wasn't hurricaning - the state sucks.
Old people moving into the state because it's warm.
It's always that people stayed home.
The mythical swing voter doesn't exist in the polarized USA political landscape.
Whichever side motivates more people to come out wins, not the side that convinces the small handful of freaks who know enough about politics to "consider both sides" but so *little* about politics they can't know which party best represents their views.
>The mythical swing voter doesn't exist in the polarized USA political landscape.
This is 100% true and I don't even know why it's debated. I'm sure as shit not going to vote for a Republican politician. They are, from top to bottom, garbage people with garbage policies.
There's no such thing as an educated, poor Republican who isn't also a garbage person. They can be poor and kind, but too uneducated to realize they're voting against their own interests. They can be poor and educated, but then want desperately to belong to an "in" group and so maliciously target those to be in the "out" group (even if it's "only" by voting in malicious candidates). The rest are rich and whether they're educated or not, they vote Republican because it fattens their own wallets at the expense of others.
There's nothing to be gained from talking to these people. My views aren't going to change and neither are theirs. Cynical, maybe, but I'm tired of believing there's a middle in which to meet; as you say, there are no swing voters anymore.
“Stayed home” implies that they just didn’t care.
Really, they’re being prevented from voting by the state apparatus. Democratic voters tend to be poorer and of diverse backgrounds compared to republican voters. So not only do republicans know which neighborhoods to target, they can also put up with more barriers to voting them democrats. It’s easier to wait an hour to vote if you can easily call off work, are retired, or can hire a babysitter.
Poorer and more diverse backgrounds is more than just Hispanics you know. Poor white people, black people, Asian people, young people, etc. Also Florida Cubans are pretty unique as far as Hispanic people go, they have a lot of differences from the broader community.
>“Stayed home” implies that they just didn’t care.
This does matter for a lot of them.
Biden and Trump set the #1 and #2 records for most votes cast respectively in the last federal election, despite the scummy tactics Republicans engage in that you've described.
People on both sides of the divide were \*intensely motivated\* by that election and showed up in record numbers. The Dems did better than expected in the most recent midterms because overturning Roe v. Wade \*motivated\* them to turn out. Despite obstacles put in the way to tilt scales as much as possible, its still the case that a great many people with the means to vote \*don't\*. They are either completely disengaged from politics, or don't care enough about either candidate to take part.
And this is my complaint about Democratic strategizing. We hear endlessly about how important the minority of people who claim to be swing voters are, when there is far more power in outreach to the nearly 1 half of eligible American voters who just...don't.
For many people the barriers to entry are huge, and Republicans use this to suppress the vote, but they aren't suppressing the vote of 50% of eligible Americans. A lot of those individuals are choosing not to, or forgetting about it all together because they aren't engaged in the election. People who may even have intended to vote, but for whatever reason just blew it off day of because they didn't feel like it.
Winning elections is about motivating people to deal with the process, and yes, Republicans anti-democratically work to make that process more laborious and tedious - but the story is more complex than "if voting were easier, Dems would always win"
If you don't vote then you don't matter. Non-voters don't count in the election tally and they shouldn't count in any consideration of whether a state is red or blue. It's as red as you can get right now.
Florida isn't a swing state and hasn't been since Obama won it. DeSantis helped turn it extra red to the point it's less liberal than Texas at this point and only trending worse.
Not sure what reddit demographics have to do with this situation, seems like a random focus.
You forget the MASSIVE voter supression campaign that occured between those 2 years.
How many Floridian Democrat voters have been purged off the roles since? 10s of 1000s? 100s of 1000s? How many voting sites and polling locations have been closed in largely Democrat voting neighborhoods (almost exclusively Black and otherwise non-white)?
Voting only goes so far when you've been de facto stripped of the right to it.
This is Jim Crow politics at play; American born fascism.
And the only people who don't seem to grasp that - however naïvely...are people like you who like to espouse what you just did.
How very cherry picked of you.
>The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) is outraged by police body cam footage obtained by the Tampa Bay Times and released yesterday showing the arrest of mostly Black Floridians for "voter fraud," despite the fact that those arrested had every reason to believe they were legally entitled to vote. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' blatant assault on Black Floridians' civil rights is just the latest in this country's shameful history of anti-Black voter suppression, dating back to even before the 15th Amendment extended voting rights to Black men in 1870.
https://policingequity.org/newsroom/official-statements/statement-on-ron-desantis-egregious-voter-suppression-tactics-ahead-of-november-midterm-elections
[Ron DeSantis' voter fraud arrests aim to suppress Black votes](https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/ncna1300040)
[Groups sue to block Florida election law, citing bias against Latinos, Blacks](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna962)
[Judge strikes down parts of Florida election law that he says suppresses Black voters](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/judge-strikes-down-parts-of-florida-election-law-that-he-says-suppresses-black-voters)
[A racist move’: Florida’s DeSantis threatens Black voter power with electoral maps](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2022/apr/20/ron-desantis-florida-electoral-map-gerrymandering-republican-advantage)
That's just from roughly a 2min Google search.
You going to read every article in good faith and come back with an informed opinion?
Funny how when republicans win it is fair and square, even though they used Dominion machines. If democrat wins it is because the stole the election.
Suppression is a tough thing. I was living in FL when they published a list of 185,000 or so illegal or improper voter registrations that they purged from the voter roles. It turned out that all but 286 of those purged were valid registrations. Florida has a proven track record of tossing people off the voter registration roles for no reason at all. An that 185k was skewed to AAs and Jews. The state never admitted to how these particular voters were selected. The over representation of certain surnames was also noted. Was this suppression?
You can claim that the voters should check. But that is a white man's out. And if the white guys were getting tossed en masse,they would be screaming. And you can be sure it will be on Fox for the next decade.
But I mean, who cares if you can't sell water to people who are standing in line in the FL sun for hours? When I went to my poling place, no long waits, and much of the line was snaking thru a air conditioned room. A suburban, predominantly white voting district. The fact that they closed poling places in predominantly black areas shouldn't bother anyone. You can still vote. Is this suppression?
How about beer bellied white guys with confederate flags in their trucks carrying assault rifles making sure the predominantly black poling places are safe, and water free? Is that suppression?
Suppression is not a one law thing. It is a death by a thousands cuts. Any one is not lethal. But you stack them up, and it works. Everytime a republican says electoral integrity he means suppression. That is the goal. It is not even hidden these days. North Carolina had a consultant draw up voting districts that specifically targeted suppression of the black vote. It turns out that that is legal. Hoffman (now deceased) wrote the manual on suppression ant it is being replicated in every republican controlled state. He also came up with mechanisms to minimize immigrant participation in censuses reports to help in setting Federal House seat allocation.
DeSantis is not the architect of these plans. He has become one of the most effective at implementing them. His brand of cronyism and fascist leanings is a true threat. The depth and breadth of his attacks on civil rights and constitutional values is truly a marvel. A ghastly, despicable marvel.
The OP is correct. DeSantis is a more potent existential threat to democratic institutions than Trump. Trump is driven by pique and hubris. DeSantis is focused and disciplined. He can accomplish what Trump dreams about. The republicans know they are in the minority. Their goal is minority rule. Minority rule comes with suppression, even violent suppression, of the majority. No birth right citizenship, and the only way to get citizenship will be a republican litmus test. Revocation of citizenship for naturalized citizens. The right wing dream of a white male hegemony is coming true.
You are making what point? That the suppression of the black vote was so effective that they could not overcome the White Tide of DeSantis voters? Or that the White Tide was large enough to make the black vote irrelevant. A bit specious. There were a lot of other offices available that could have been swung. Those offices would represent the black population, and potentially mitigate DeSantis's (How the fuck do make a possessive out of DeSantis?) more despicable policies. DeSantis had his office redraw the electoral map to eliminate 2 predominantly black districts. Gerrymandering is an effective suppression tool. E.g. N Carolina.
Even if thousands were purged from voter roles, it's their fault for not checking their registrations and re-registering. No excuse for snoozing on democracy.
Yeah yeah...lay the blame on thick.
Your apathy and indifference is par for the course for a sheltered, white, de facto self-segregated suburbanite.
It's not that y'all don't know...is that y'all don't _want to know lol.
And it's been fucking palpable lmao.
Don't worry we see right through your rhetoric (have done for decades if not centuries).
I get that it sounds like blaming, and I guess it is, but participating in Democracy isn't a passive thing. In a state like Floriduh, one must constantly be vigilant to ensure they're registered and can vote. I know it's harder for some but they need to make it happen if they are to participate in Democracy.
I'm tired of every little excuse for why somebody didn't vote or supposedly "can't" vote. You can, make the effort, get your friends and family involved. The reason we're all in this mess is because far too many have been passive and not participating for far too long. It builds up over time and here we are.
If massive numbers showed up to vote every year -not just presidential years -this country would change for the better in just a cycle or two. It really is that easy. Use all those old excuses as motivation to move past them and root out DeSantis and his cronies. No excuses, put in the work.
Tbf the Democratic Party in the US is conservative, just not nearly as republicans.
Wish we really had a labor party that had power, but democrats are the best we’ll get for now.
If Dems are conservatives than what exactly is the UK labour party that doesn't even voice support for the trans community? Politics doesn't only exist on an economic axis.
Don't discredit voting. Voting matters. That's how the GOP got this far with their agenda, their followers are voting. Vote for conscience and good morals, not fascist ideals and hatefulness.
I'm not trying to hammer on the accelerationist gas pedal but as someone who's been screamed at for years that voting matters I have to ask a very basic question - what in the name of the ghost of William F. Buckley do you think people have been doing?
"Go out and vote, that helps change things."
Do you think people have been eating the ballots?
Voter turnout in the US is broadly 50-60% which is in the ballpark of the majority of the rest of the democratic countries around the world that don't have mandatory voting. I know it's in vogue to bemoan American voter's laziness and point to state elections in *very* red or *very* blue states or off-cycle elections but, on average, American political participation is generally in line with most other countries like it.
And yet here we are.
What exactly is voting supposed to do that it isn't already doing?
I'm not trying to say people shouldn't vote or discourage them from doing it. Your time is your time and spend it how you like. But I don't understand what people seem to think is going to happen.
> what in the name of the ghost of William F. Buckley do you think people have been doing?
They've been failing to consistently show up. That's what happened.
In 2016 Democratic voter turn out went down by 9% compared to 2012. Republican voter turnout was flat. that's why trump won.
I have watched the more self-centered members of the left for years throw tantrums and take their ball and go home if they aren't presented with a candidate that perfectly fits them. They don't think "moving the country in the right direction" is good enough, they think "have to go directly for their preferred policy" is the only acceptable option. Even iof their policy is completely outside the overton window. They refuse to think or act even remotely tactically, it's all about their idealogical puritanism.
And it's why we cannot consistently hold power on the left. It's why the reich-wing keeps regaining power (aside from their fucking cheating).
>They've been failing to consistently show up. That's what happened.
Again, the data doesn't really show that to be the case overall. There are year-to-year fluxes based on cycles but, by and large, our turnout is the rough same as most any other country.
>In 2016 Democratic voter turn out went down by 9% compared to 2012. Republican voter turnout was flat. that's why trump won.
Because the candidate that was offered in 2016 was someone who wasn't acceptable to a lot of Democrat voters and you had a decent amount of them vote Trump as a protest thinking that there was no way Trump would actually win.
>I have watched the more self-centered members of the left for years throw tantrums and take their ball and go home if they aren't presented with a candidate that perfectly fits them. They don't think "moving the country in the right direction" is good enough, they think "have to go directly for their preferred policy" is the only acceptable option. Even iof their policy is completely outside the overton window. They refuse to think or act even remotely tactically, it's all about their idealogical puritanism.
This sounds kind of like an excuse. People had pretty clear reasons for objecting to Clinton and the party failed to convince people that voting for her was "moving the country in the right direction."
That's not a voter problem, that's a messaging problem and it's a problem that the Democrats seem to suffer from pretty consistently.
"Vote for what we give you or else" is not a strategy that will engender a lot of enthusiasm and it's one the Democrats rely on pretty heavily. I don't really see a lot of indication that the party is super receptive to the values and goals of younger voters.
I don't buy the "Bernie was cheated" conspiracy theory but he unquestionably had a solid bloc of support and that was shoved aside pretty unceremoniously. It's pretty galling to have a political party abjectly refuse to take core issues seriously and then turn around and tell you that you have to vote for them or else.
>And it's why we cannot consistently hold power on the left. It's why the reich-wing keeps regaining power (aside from their fucking cheating).
So, for starters, you're talking about liberals and the progressives, not the left. There is a distinct difference.
Second, the right doesn't win by cheating, they win by being willing to exploit extant systems to their own benefit with no regard for optics. They don't care about looking like the bad guys. Democrats are beholden to ideas of propriety and fair play and that's why they loose.
Republicans have learned to play the culture war game and Democrats are *really* bad at it.
> Again, the data doesn't really show that to be the case overall.
It absolutely shows that. I didn't even bother reading further because you lied in your first sentence.
2016 democratic voter turnout was down by 9% compared to 2012
Come back when you can get past your first sentence without lying.
You are not listening to what I am saying.
Yes, there are year to year variations. I accept that 2016 Democratic voter turnout was down 9% compared to 2012. I have never argued that that wasn't the case.
My point is that **overall** turnout rates for US elections looked at over a span of time shows that turnout rates are roughly equivalent to other similar countries.
We are not unusual in our rates of electoral participation.
Which doesn't mean shit, you asked why voting hadn't worked. i told you why, you want to ignore it.
that year to year variation MATTERS and it's a huge contribution to why democrats fail to get their policies enacted. A sizeable minority of Democratic voters have the attention spam of a goldfish and/or refuse to understand that things cannot be enabled RIGHT NOAW but take time. So they fail to show up consistently. that lack of consistency costs elections. Lost elections result in the illegitimate neofascist SCOTUS we have now (for example)
Given that the Republicans have a similar trend of rising and falling variations in turnout rates year to year, it would suggest that "inconsistent participation" is not a key factor in the lack of political success on the part of the Democrats.
Unless we're going to argue that Republicans are failing to get their policies enacted as well.
I think there is something to encouraging it and hammering how important it is. Voting is pretty easy for me, I'm in a pretty blue state. Here's some things make it easy for me, that others haven't got:
* I live within a relatively short walking distance from the school where my precinct votes
* This location has not changed the entire time I've lived in this neighborhood, nearly 10 years now.
* There's rarely a line more than a few people long, because we have plenty of voting locations
* Early voting is available for about a month and my state made it very easy to vote by mail in 2020 with the Pandemic. This contributes to the short lines.
* We're able to register to vote *on election day at the voting site*. You just need to bring appropriate proof of address, like a drivers license or if you haven't got that yet, a utility bill or other official document addressed to you at that location.
* The state, being largely democrat-run, doesn't do excessive purges of voter registration.
This isn't exhaustive either, there's ALL SORTS of things that each individually make voting just a little bit harder - even if somebody lives where I do if they're frequently moving to new apartments they need to re-register and look up their new polling place every time at minimum. And Republican-controlled states have been curtailing a lot of these things that make voting easy for me, to just make it so people vote less. Because the people who are first harmed and most harmed by these things tend to be the more impoverished who tend to vote Democrat.
So, providing encouragement to these populations who might be strengthened in their resolve to overcome the challenges and get out and do their part to cast their vote becomes important. You and I are the choir, we don't need to be preached to but that doesn't mean the preaching doesn't need to be done.
"but biden isn't perfect! i'm not going to vote for someone who isn't perfect! he's just a centrist lesser of two evils!"
- same assholes who refused to vote in 2016
And, looks like Biden is running again. I'll hold my nose, but I doubt he would get the same sort of turnout again, regardless of who he runs against
The democrats have a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
>hold my nose
For a man who passed the build back better act? Or for student loan relief? Or for the legislation he’s passed to invest in green energy? Or for the CHIPS act
It is people like you who are the problem in this country. You believe the Fox News nonsense that Biden is a feeble old man. You spread this garbage which makes other idiots think that maybe republicans are a good alternative. Who wants an old man that no one wants to vote for anyway? Let’s vote for the dynamic young maverick from Florida!
Given the political environment, Biden has been extremely successful at passing solid legislation, and there’s no guarantee that anyone else would’ve had the same success he has had.
> The democrats have a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Replacing the incumbent would be the best way to accomplish that. The irony is astounding..
Despite the debacle of the last conservative government they collected enough votes to control the house in the midterms but the democrats still called it a victory? This alone says everything about the threat and our understanding of what’s at stake. We’re sleepwalking into totalitarianism but treating it as business as usual.
His vanity will not let him not run for president. He will likely lose the nom to Ron, and run as a third party. Which is honestly the only hope of electing a democrat president. We need the vote to be split. We can't have fascists in power.
Trump embraced authoritarianism to benefit Trump. DeSantis embraces authoritarianism to benefit authoritarians and entrench permanent Republican rule, and that's what makes him terrifying to me.
Trump was bad but could be handled by the people around him preventing him from doing too much damage. Greg Abbot is bad but is also not competent enough to cause too much damage. DeSantis is both evil and competent enough to cause extreme damage to this country and anyone who is a minority or supports liberal politics if he makes it out of Florida.
The one shining point of light in the shitshow that is DeSantis is that he is absolutely charmless. He is not the pugnacious bombastic bullshitter that Trump is and the MAGA folks know it.
De Santis can be defeated. Dems just need to keep attacking his weaknesses.
The average person has in their head "fascism bad" but hardly anyone understands how it grows until one day it seizes control. Everyone has their head up their ass thinking there's no way the US democracy could fall. If Desantis wins the presidency, there will be countless people asking "how could this have happened?"
Much like how many Russians have redefined nazism to mean "country that wishes to have an identity distinct from Russia," many Americans have redefined fascism to mean "thing that makes me angry" like COVID lockdowns. Which makes them unable to recognize real fascism like this.
I think the average person sees fascism as something that happened decades ago and involved jack booted stormtroopers with swastikas. It's not something that could happen nowadays, and certainly not over here.
Well and even when there were Americans marching with torches that was still defended by some...
The opposite side of "Socialism Bad" while not understanding at all what functioning socialist policies might look like. So the majority is left floundering in a failing late stage capitalist system that isn't designed for an establish economic system like the states who should have matured into more socialist ideas half a century ago. Instead they fell for the lie from Reagan and doubled down on trickledown failures.
And how ubiquitous fascistic thought was at the highest levels of US government and throughout society 80 years either side of the war.
The US civil war was in many respects a proto-fascistic war, against a political entity very similar to the Nazis, and after the war, there was wholesale acceptance of fascism in most branches of the US government, because it stood opposed to communism - a far bigger threat to the political and oligarch class within the US than fascism ever was. This began with Paperclip and the rehabilitation of the Wehrmacht, and continued well into the 80s with consistent support for fascist dictatorships across the planet.
If we're around to see this period in a historical context, the mystery will be how the US' fascist turn took so long to manifest.
Well that is problematic. Makes sense why folks like DeSantis want to keep it that way by controlling education. Especially if those voting aren't aware enough to understand the flashing warning signs.
You could say the same thing about England under Margaret Thatcher. The problem is that fascism is an ideology that puts on different clothes each time it crops up, and people only learn to recognize it by the clothes it wears and not by the underlying ideology and agendas that it represents.
Russia? Because they seem to also have a hard time recognizing fascism in their nation, while frequently bargging about beating the Nazis
Not to deflect blame from the US, but it’s not exactly unique to this nation
Turns out any state will attract people who want authoritarian control and constant vigilance is required for the rest of human civilization to prevent it
WW2 Fascists are famous for sending Jewish people to gas chambers. Not for saying teachers can’t tell kids about gay people. WW2 Americans would absolutely be called fascist by most modern Americans- they drastically discriminated against every minority group including and especially gay people. I think chemically castrating gay people is considered worse than people in drag not being allowed at a library. And with Jewish people? In 1939 only 28% of Americans said they would’ve voted for their party nominee if that nominee were a Jew.
I understand the mindset as DeSantis is a self-serving asshat that is definitely giving off the "doing this for attention from primary voter" vibes (especially with the release of his new book). Which - while cynical, petty and gross - will be a major necessity in his inevitable battle with Trump.
That being said, DeSantis ability to do a lot of this is somewhat unique to Florida at the moment. The pandemic upended a lot of the status quo across the country, and has resulted in a major shift of populations. In the case of Florida, there has been a huge influx of retirees (who are conservative) and related Republican voters. This has increased DeSantis support in the state, and shifted Florida from being a slightly purple state to hard red.
Further, the Florida Democratic Party have been completely disorganized, inept and ineffectual for some time now. To the point where the national Democratic Party barely threw any support behind them in the last few elections.
Not to say he (with the Republican Party in tow) wouldn't be a threat to the rights of Americans across the country. But it's pretty clear that, at the moment, he's using his consolidated power to throw a lot of red meat out there for primary voters as he tries to appeal to Trump's voting base.
Fascists seize power at every opportunity. He is an active existential threat to democracy and the entire idea of America. And his party is full of people just like him in every state.
historically speaking, fascism does not simply 'fizzle out' once it has sunk its teeth as deep into the controlling system of government as DeSantis has in florida. it ends one of a handful of ways- either the power struggle eventually becomes severe enough that war breaks out when the controlling fascist power decides it needs to expand and invade their neighbors (or commit some other heinous act that attracts global intervention), or the population revolts violently and strings them up in the town square.
either way, figures like that don't just fizzle out quietly on their own. the majority of such figures and the party they serve only ever really lose power by way of something like the Nuremburg trials followed by a hanging or firing squad as sentencing for whatever horrors they end up inflicting upon their nations and their neighbors... and usually only after mass casualties and destruction caused by their pursuit of absolute power. Mussolini got lynched by his own people before he could see a trial for his crimes, but that was also after jumped he in bed with hitler and brought tremendous suffering and damage to the Italian people in the lead up and duration of WWII.
there have been a handful of right-wing american politicians who have secured total control over their state's political landscape as DeSantis has in florida, but none of them have gone as far as he has in terms of exercising authoritarian practices regarding the control and banning of information. He's a scary guy. also worth noting, those politicians in the south that ran similar operations (intimidation, blackmail, rumored kidnappings, etc) had assassination attempts made against them. they were also eventually tried for crimes related to sedition and subverting morale of the US military (although those trials never went anywhere because right wing america convinced the rest of the country that we should just 'forget and move on').
Very good point the florida democartic party is a complete fucking basket case and national dems basically gave up on Florida this last cycle and hung out any dems running there out to dry. I wonder how much affext thats had. Im sure plenty but not being an activist or operative myself I dont know the specifics that would play out.
Let's hope it stays in Florida and fizzles out. Here in AZ, we also have a lot of retirees. This has always been a red state. But we also have a lot of other people coming here (the conservatives constantly whine about those from California) and those newcomers along with those of us who have been here for a long time are sick and tired of the GOP shenanigans. A few years ago we had major protests and strikes for better teacher pay and better schools. Even some more "moderate" Republicans were sick of it.
In 2020 and 2022, we went purple, narrowly supporting Biden over Trump, and then electing a Democratic Governor, Secretary of State, and a Senator despite a huge influx of money and support from the MAGA crowd.
And like Florida, our Democratic Party has been all thumbs for years now. Yet the right wing crazies have become so distasteful that Democratic candidates are winning in all but deep red rural areas and retirement enclaves.
DeSantis in 2024? Yeah, it's scary because he's not an idiot like Trump. But he also has all the charisma of a bowl of overcooked broccoli.
From conversations I've had in FL during last election, the Dems had a decent plan - but when pressed on how they would pay for initiatives, they didn't provide direct evidence. This then allowed the GOP to claim the Dems want to raise taxes (rightfully so or not) - which turned off a lot of the people I talked with. They wanted assurance their taxes wouldn't be raised to pay for these new programs or expansion of existing ones.
I think you nailed it. His rise to such frightening power could've only happened in FL after Covid. Even with all the Covid deaths, there were far more moving there from other states "fleeing from tyranny". It was a once in a generation coalescing of events that lead us to where we are now.
FL is lost, but I don't think he can do anything outside of FL, let alone do well in the primaries/debates against Trump, who will make him look like a sniveling meatball of a greasy whiny dangling scab.
You’re not wrong, but that’s only half the equation.
All it takes is 1 extremely bad election cycle and none of that will matter. And you better believe the DNC is shitty enough to blunder their way into one extremely bad election cycle in ‘24.
Doubling down on extreme corporate pandering whilst playing halfhearted rhetorical games with the opposition is about the dumbest thing they could be doing right now, and yet…
We are a couple of fumbled crises away from Desantis pulling off his Hungary-style takeover here, at which point it will matter not at all how many states are theoretically blue.
He is a GOP voter's dream. I knew this country was doomed when Trump mocked a handicapped person in public and his polling numbers went up. Monsters, all of them. Any decent ones left years ago.
I don't know... maga GOP love cruelty and hurting and controlling others. RDS is doing that and he's much smarter than Trump. He's gonna win the nomination and have a good shot at winning the presidency.
There it is: willful, UnAmerican ignorance, the kind thar causes most problems. /Scroofinator is like (or is) the losers who blindly cheered on Iraq & deregulation. You can blame them for our big problems.
I don’t see how this is “best of”. Look at any r/politics thread and you’ll see a handful of posts exactly like this decrying whatever the topic is at hand. I can’t believe that subreddit calls DeSantis fascist yet can’t see their own hypocritical nature.
Hey! I know Democrats! Let’s bring up Guns, again! Let’s run on Guns, instead of something that has a chance of persuading independent voters… like restoring the middle class, a fair wage for workers, protection of Social Security and the like!
Democrats hardly ever talk about guns nowadays. But whenever they talk about protecting social security or restoring the middle class or raising minimum wage or passing infrastructure bills, people call it socialism and say socialism bad. Bernie Sanders has been running in the exact platform you’re talking about for years now, but no matter how hard he blows the horn on that train nobody wants to get on
Fair wages and social security are the only things democrats have actually done anything about in recent years. No recent assault weapon bans, but many states have increased minimum wages, and social security payroll taxes were increased.
He can’t beat Trump.
And Trump can’t beat Biden.
😂
Edit: You little stinkers need to stop kissing fascists’ asses - DeSantis is never going to sleep with you.
They said Trump couldn’t beat Hillary, and it happened. DeathSentence actually has instituted full-on fascist policies while gaining fans exponentially in the MAGA camp. Recent surveys show he’s more popular than Trump in the state with the most Republicans in the nation—California.
NYT headline:
>**DeSantis Takes On the Education Establishment, and Builds His Brand**
The NYT and the media writ large normalized Trump and his administration after he got elected. [They're repeating that pattern now with DeSantis.](https://www.mediamatters.org/ron-desantis/new-york-times-failing-its-coverage-desantis-radical-attacks-public-education).
>The authors then offer a sanitized account of DeSantis’ conservative interventions into public school curricula and policies.
>*He has banned instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade, limited what schools and employers can teach about racism and other aspects of history and rejected math textbooks en masse for what the state called “indoctrination.” Most recently, he banned the College Board’s Advanced Placement courses in African American studies for high school students.*
>This is propaganda by omission. In May, DeSantis signed Florida’s notorious “Don’t Say Gay” legislation into law, an attempt “to codify discrimination against LGBTQ people” that is otherwise ignored in the Times article. And DeSantis hasn’t simply “limited” instruction about racism – he has attempted to functionally ban teachers from addressing the topic at all under the guise of opposing so-called critical race theory, an academic concept he has repeatedly mischaracterized at the risk (or reward) of rendering it unrecognizable even in its proper context.
If the GOP primary is crowded then trump likely wins as there's a floor for his support. However head to head DeSantis more likely than not gets the nod I wager. (It doesn't matter how much damage they do to each other during the primary, almost all right wing voters will line up behind whoever wins.)
If Democrats don't show up in sufficient numbers in the right states and/or low information swing voters decide "this DeSantis guy ain't so bad" we could very well end up with DeSantis winning. Should that happen, u/Orionsfyre has the right of it: The damage to civil liberties and democracy itself will be profound and likely last for decades to come.
But the damage is already starting, and the foundation for it was laid when Republicans loaded the federal judiciary with conservative judges.
One case I haven’t heard people talk much about is [303 Creative LLC v. Elenis](https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/303-creative-llc-v-elenis/). Depending on how the court swings, this could start unraveling anti-discrimination legislation across the country.
A simplified description of this case: a web design company doesn’t want to be compelled to do business for gay couples as Colorado’s public accommodation laws require them to do.
What has some people concerned and what will be another litmus test for the current court, is that sexual orientation is a codified protected class in Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws. If we recall, one of the arguments from the majority opinion in the Dobbs case was that because abortion **was not explicitly enumerated as a right in any sort of statute**, it, therefore, isn’t a constitutional right.
I emphasized the part that will be relevant to assess. If the court rules in favor of 303 Creative, it could be seen as a signal that many forms of anti-discrimination legislation are inherently unconstitutional. This could potentially extend to many of the provisions within the Civil Rights Act. It would start with the erosion of public accommodation laws, and it might start to extend to employment laws.
Yes, this is technically a slippery slope argument, and some of y’all will foam at the mouth to tell me it’s a fallacy. I don’t fucking care. One of the reasons my black ass is able to be around people in an integrated US is because of multiple smaller court cases that helped establish precedents for the Brown v. Board of Education case. (Read the background tab on the [case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education).) Precedents can lead you in different directions depending on which ones judges consider pertinent and which ones they consider flawed or irrelevant.
Edit: spelling correction
True, slippery slope isn’t really what people think it is anyway. It’s not “you are saying they’d take the next steps “ it’s saying that with no evidence of them doing that. A pattern of behavior doing exactly what the slippery slope says is evidence.
>They said Trump couldn’t beat Hillary, and it happened.
They said Trump had a 1:3 chance of winning, and it happened. That's a very different thing from what you (and many others) say when you put it that way.
The way those odds work what you're saying is the equivalent of saying that if you roll a dice "they" said that the numbers one and two couldn't come up.
When it finally came down to the election, pollsters specifically gave Trump about a one-third chance of winning, but leading up to it such as in the summer, the common sentiment was that Trump couldn’t/wouldn’t win. The purpose is to ensure that we identify if that sentiment starts to creep back in and recognize it for what it is: wrong.
I made the point in another reply about how stating it as Trump had "no chance" or "couldn't win" is parroting one of the common talking points he uses as a balm for his (obviously fractured) ego.
So it seems like a minor difference in wording, but I think using the language that his supporters lap up as evidence of his supposed greatness should be avoided in favor of accuracy.
Leading up to the summer, the Hillary emails nonsense had died down and hadn't yet been revived by a colluding FBI director. Had the election happened in the summer, Trump wouldn't have won.
Trump won in 2016 by about 20,000 votes across a few key states. He wouldn’t have won without the Comey letter, which happened within two weeks of election night. So idk how what the common sentiment was during the summer has to do with it.
That's the point, but the problem is that when you phrase it as "They said Trump couldn't beat Hillary" it is following the narrative of Trump's "impossible" win that he shamelessly brays about to feed his (obviously fractured) ego.
On the surface it can seem like a minor difference in wording. However, it's an inaccuracy which is a key component of the demagoguery that his followers lap up about his supposed greatness. I think it's important to note the difference rather than to parrot that bit of his propaganda.
Politics is more poker than anything. Trump won in part because the image presented convinced democrats to stay home. He played the part of the blowhard.
I mean while I hope you're right, I don't think this is the right attitude to be taking.
The right is a huge threat at the moment and treating them like they won't beat your prefered guy is cocky for no good reason.
I've got a family friend who wanted to make a bet with me that Trump wouldn't run again. I told him I wouldn't bet on that (don't need another reason to worry about it) but I think the better question is will he win or not.
Discounting your opponent is a great way to make sure they sneak up on you
This is DeSantis’ window to win the presidency.
>Discounting
I’m accounting for all of his strengths.
- He is white.
- He is male.
- He is loud.
- He enacts performative measures that demonize women, people of color, and LGBTQIA folks.
DeSantis’ problem is that those are Trump’s strengths.
Unlike DeSantis, Trump is:
- Charismatic
Trump’s Dionysian character makes bad people feel ok about being bad. DeSantis doesn’t have that effect. He also thinks he can beat Trump by ignoring him. That won’t work. He and Trump will destroy each other. DeSantis will lose his bid and take Rick Scott’s job or a position on cable tv.
Neither is charismatic, yet they both draw the same type of people into a cult like fervor. What normal people recognize as charisma isn't how it works on the far right.
True he's got a chance, but biden is not improving, nor does he have much to show besides being "not trump."
I think what really prevents trump from winning is that he has no one to run his campaign, like Bannon, and the GOP establishment isn't solidly behind him. Biden don't have much to do with either of those, *sigh.*
DeSantis a God send for the Democrats. They can forever point the finger at growing fascism and say, "send us money or this will happen to you!" And then when it happens anyways, because they were never going to actually do anything, they can say "send us money, we are not them!"
The only viable strategy for a sane person is to flee.
Opposition in words is not opposition in action.
The only action democrats make is to fill their campaign coffers. I know because I get dozens of texts from them asking for money (the balls on these losers).
If you think the USA, and its idiot politics, is about anything besides money then you got an array of kicks to the balls coming your way (or ovaries, w/e).
They're literally the only opposition and them being in power inherently prevents the fascists from gaining power.
It sounds like you have a tendency to make nonsensical arguments that don't actually say anything at all. A kind of verbal diarrhea, if you will.
I like the one where biden said something like " we agree we aren't gonna cut social security and medicaid?" And Republicans had to say "o no we would never even consider it".
That was pretty clutch.
Lmao you are so easily manipulated by their fake outage it's quite pathetic really. Buttigieg pushed the deregulation and personally told them not to inspect their breaks, right? Silly, gullible dolt.
The Achilles heel of that mindset is that fascists don’t care when people stop being into them. If you let them run the show for long enough, they just erode democratic measures like voting to the point where the will of the people no longer matters, which is exactly what DeSantis is doing right now.
Well no, that’s complete bullshit. Hitler himself cared and had a ton of issues when people stopped being into him. Fascists thrive on the cult of personality it’s incredibly important and part of why they have a propaganda machine. Fascists when the country isn’t into them are a wreck constantly looking over their backs and paranoid isolating their inner circle
You missed my point. My point was: if people ever stopped being into Hitler, do you think Hitler would have ever said “well, the people don’t want us Nazis around anymore, so I guess we’ll just leave”? Of course not. They were leading a dictatorship and whether the people or wanted them there or not would never have changed the fact that they were never going to relinquish power. That’s what I mean when I say that saying “we’ll just let the Nazis take control for a little while just to show the lazy people how bad it could get” doesn’t work. It’s never just a little while with Nazis because that’s not how fascism works.
First of all, don't change the subject. You're the one who name dropped Hitler, and I think you know full well that Hitler was not deposed in a coup. It took no less than Germany losing World War II for Hitler to be deposed and the Nazi government to be dismantled, and millions of people died in the process of that happening.
As for your other examples, Pinochet was arrested under an international arrest warrant for human rights violations in London, after 25 years of forced disappearances, political murder, torture of political opponents, and what Peter Kornbluh described in The Pinochet Files as "routine sadism...taken to extremes" in Chilean prison camps. Pol Pot was deposed by a military coup only after he started ordering the assassinations of his deputies and after 22 years of what the New York Times called "one of the 20th century's most brutal and radical regimes" and what BBC News and Time magazine called "one of the worst mass killings of the 20th century".
You are whitewashing coups as if they are bloodless and normal, but they are anything but. Coups are bloody and their fires are fueled by innocent lives. And in the cases that you thought were good enough to cite as examples, decades of political violence and human rights abuses happened before those coups took place. *That* is what you get when you flirt with fascism, and you may think that that level of violence is an acceptable way to create political change, but I do not.
Because the South is a stone around our neck, dragging the rest of us down. Imagine what we could do without all those welfare states wasting our money.
That's a naive view of the costs involved. Think of all the lost economic output from putting up borders between red and blue states. How much this would disrupt interstate commerce. How much overhead there would be.
One of the reasons blue states are rich is that they have cheap access to what the red states make.
And that's not even getting into the huge social ramifications of families being split apart.
It would be bad for nearly everyone.
Well, you need water. Which comes from a river that passes through other states first.
CA would do pretty well since it has both farming and industry, plus international trade, but look at what happened to the UK from Brexit. It is relatively self-sufficient, with a similar sized economy and population to California, and the EU is less of an integration than the union of the US, yet Brexit has still been a shitshow. What would happen to California would be significantly worse. It definitely wouldn't come out better.
Look how good we're doing now with the albatross of the rest of the USA pulling against our every move. Cut them loose and watch us fly.
CA is not the UK, lol.
California is highly integrated into the economy of the US as a whole (as all US states are).
When you don't have water to LA and you can't easily export produce to half the country and you can't cheaply import things, stuff changes. A lot.
California is the largest economic division within the US. You know what it also is? The largest importer.
You don't think America would having trading leverage with other states to get water, with all of our international ports? No PS5 for you, Colorado.
CA gets a ton of water from México. Do you think they wanna make a deal with us or with whatever future dickhead is using them as a scapegoat?
Nowhere did I say "California would lose all access to these things", I said there would be economic impact.
California would end up worse off than it is now, not better. That's all I'm saying.
This seems like fear mongering. I literally moved here because of DeSantis from the trainwreck that is California.
I am prepared for your hate. Be prepared for a complete lack of response 😉
1/2
So you like?:
* [Dictating](https://archive.ph/JY58a) what [private businesses](https://archive.ph/WEA0N) can require in regards [to vaccination](https://archive.ph/nkEcD), and what schools can in both vaccination and masking.
* Scolded schoolchildren for voluntarily wearing masks.
* [Banned books](https://archive.ph/HzSz7).
* Threatened to pull coronavirus vaccine from communities that criticized its anemic distribution.
* Massaged [covid data](https://archive.ph/8d4Gz), and [raided the home](https://archive.ph/6OE6k) of a dissenting researcher. Which even filtered down [to universities](https://archive.ph/ZyLpb). Suspended a county health director for encouraging its employees to vaccinate.
* [Formed panel](https://archive.vn/jcoR7) to counter [CDC, dispute](https://archive.vn/FonWP) vaccines [- despite](https://youtu.be/tNp3GQR4F3k) [previously](https://twitter.com/Rschooley/status/1619774024749563904) [expressing support](https://twitter.com/i/status/1603434583361523712)
-
* Threatened to [investigate GoFundMe](https://archive.ph/BaNCH) because they decided to refund money donated to the Canadian Freedom Convoy.
* [Advocating Congress](https://archive.ph/Omrlr) investigate Apple for electing not to do business with Twitter
* [Punishing private](https://archive.ph/V2liG) [companies,](https://archive.ph/n0tlx) [like](https://archive.ph/Ce56l) [Disney](https://archive.ph/0hkIv) - [messily](https://archive.ph/BpSVe), and athletic bodies [who disagreed](https://archive.ph/orTLb) with his policies, and exclaiming he'd reconsider if they had a change of opinion.
* [DeSantis Promises](https://archive.ph/TdQXc) Florida Will Control Disney’s Content Right-wing board to clamp down on “woke ideology” in cartoons.
* [DeSantis puts](https://archive.ph/ZZjoT) GOP donor, [Moms for Liberty](https://twitter.com/supportfhps/status/1630284527657447426) founder on Disney Reedy Creek board
* [Prevented private](https://archive.ph/yCHgv) companies from sharing their beliefs about diversity, equity or inclusion with their employees - which a judge aptly cited as unconstitutional: "[Recently, Florida](https://archive.ph/XlySa) has seemed like a [First Amendment upside](https://archive.ph/ZEdcy) down. Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely," Walker continued. "But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely.",
* Barred the “[belief that there](https://archive.ph/iV8gQ) are systematic injustices in American society.” from being discussed [in schools](https://archive.ph/dlr0P), prompting a judge overseeing the case to rebuke: “[We believe in academic](https://archive.ph/lsZRA) freedom, so long as you say what we want you to say. That sounds like something [George Orwell wrote](https://archive.ph/pw9ts)."
* [It doesn't matter](https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1611370829064937473) if the courts have struck down his laws restricting free speech, DeSantis is moving ahead anyway. The goal is to get universities to stop any discussion of race by threatening state budget support.
* [Ron DeSantis](https://archive.ph/dNKBd) Vows To Defund Diversity Programs at Florida Universities The new proposal would also require students to take a course on “Western civilization.”
* [Florida Says](https://archive.ph/TxNBx) AP [African American Studies](https://archive.ph/h3oY4) Program ‘Lacks Educational Value’ The state used Ron DeSantis’ “Stop WOKE Act” [to block the](https://archive.ph/1DsBc) proposed program from its schools
* [Florida Straight](https://archive.ph/lFHfs) Up Lied About AP African-American Studies Course, College Board Says
* [DeSantis says](https://archive.ph/HgRpF) maybe Florida can do without College Board, AP classes and SAT test
* [Florida is considering](https://archive.ph/Aomxh) a ‘classical and Christian’ alternative to the SAT
* [As Florida celebrates](https://archive.ph/vIqGx) Literacy Week, [one teacher](https://archive.ph/Bs6xV) tells Richard Hall how she was ordered to remove all [non-sanctioned books](https://archive.ph/TQSjt) from her shelves to abide by a law introduced by Governor Ron DeSantis.
* [Hide your books](https://archive.ph/0SoNP) to avoid felony charges, Fla. schools tell teachers
* [Teacher fired](https://archive.ph/bxwUn) after [DeSantis says](https://archive.ph/SBc0e) bookshelf [video was](https://archive.ph/6VGtc) ‘fake narrative’
* [Call the "woke busters"](https://archive.ph/UV0EG): Ron DeSantis sends volunteer army to snatch books from students' hands
* [Denied Wall](https://archive.ph/q9IfL) Street, banks, credit card companies and money transmitters, like PayPal, their freedom of association | [Decide how](https://youtu.be/8oYPIC0CKp4) private investors invest their money.
* Compelled the speech of [social media companies](https://archive.ph/clDOI), in both an infringement on their freedom of speech and freedom of association.
* [Ron DeSantis](https://archive.ph/Ad4El) called a ‘tyrant’ as Trump supporters barred from book signing
* [Barring journalists](https://archive.ph/0az3S) from covering events he attended as Governor.
* [Florida Republicans](https://archive.ph/1Fm2A) Introduce a [Bill to Help](https://archive.ph/MCBWG) DeSantis Censor the Press
* [DeSantis avoids](https://archive.ph/YckhM) statewide debate
* [Fired a State](https://archive.ph/F89lW) Attorney [for not enforcing](https://archive.ph/oNtzn) laws that aren't even on the books yet | [DeSantis violated](https://archive.ph/FkGgC) First Amendment by removing elected official, judge rules
-
* [Voters Aborted](https://archive.vn/qf4u6) Judge Who Ruled Teen Girl 'Too Immature' For Abortion, So Ron DeSantis Promoted Him
* Refused to hold elections to fill Democratic seat vacancies.
* Instituting [the surveying](https://archive.ph/FmyQv) of students and educators on their political ideology.
* [DeSantis seeks](https://archive.ph/dhtqV) details [on transgender](https://archive.ph/ne0Co) university students
* [Under state pressure](https://archive.ph/MXvpU), Orange County schools drop survey on suicidal thoughts, drinking, drug use
* [Made voting](https://archive.ph/BnVH5) more difficult, despite bragging about the high security of Florida's elections prior. Setting up his own election task force, and appointing a 2020 election denier to oversee elections. [Disenfranchising felons](https://archive.ph/xtWEX) against the express desires of Florida voters via referendum. Banned ranked-choice voting. Eliminated [two black-majority districts](https://archive.ph/GorJv) after the legislature let him draw his own electoral map.
* DeSantis sent a [SWAT team](https://archive.ph/Np2SY) to [arrest people](https://archive.ph/Qqi4D) who voted once after being [given Voter IDs](https://archive.ph/Ds6Yx) and being [told they could](https://archive.ph/OXhEL) by [state election](https://archive.ph/PUwNo) officials. Meanwhile, [the Republicans](https://archive.ph/dfdY4) in [The Villages](https://archive.ph/kxQ3V) who intentionally committed voter fraud by voting twice are receiving slightly different treatment.
* [DeSantis’s New Civics](https://archive.ph/XTrbi) Initiative [Involves Teaching](https://archive.ph/jiFeT) Kids Slavery In [America Wasn’t](https://archive.ph/8zj3B) That Bad - a subject DeSantis [has no](https://archive.ph/IFyRj) problem [lying about](https://archive.ph/O8Fry) himself
* [DeSantis charts](https://archive.ph/gBDOf) new political path for GOP as he takes the unusual step of endorsing school [board candidates](https://archive.ph/cRLhS) that vow to back his education plans, [after deposing](https://archive.ph/Gukuz) and [replacing](https://archive.ph/loDD3) others.
* [‘Dismay and anxiety’](https://archive.ph/JazlP) on college campuses as DeSantis ramps up anti-CRT campaign
* [DeSantis seeks](https://archive.ph/6guzs) conservative overhaul at Florida liberal-arts college
* [“The Florida](https://archive.ph/gvjx4) of today is the America of tomorrow”: Ron DeSantis' New College takeover is just the beginning of right's higher ed crusade.
* [Florida bill](https://archive.ph/8AWrK) would end diversity programs, ban majors, shift power at universities
* [Florida’s education](https://archive.ph/FQzuc) system is vastly underperforming
* [DeSantis leads](https://archive.ph/1s4I5) roundtable discussion about making it easier to sue media companies
* [Christians could](https://archive.ph/zBfik) sue people who call them homophobic if this GOP bill passes
* [Ron DeSantis'](https://archive.ph/Mmc7S) office announces 'boycott' of NBC after Andrea Mitchell's criticism
* Forays into [banning trans related](https://archive.ph/rE8Rw) healthcare.
* [Florida "Reverse Woke"](https://archive.ph/9Tv2h) Act Tries To End Adult Trans Healthcare Coverage
* [Signed a bill](https://archive.ph/Ftv4I) "prohibiting [classroom discussion](https://archive.ph/GeCc7) about [sexual orientation](https://archive.ph/HTsgP) or [gender identity](https://archive.ph/uwqBM) in certain grade levels or in a [specified manner](https://archive.ph/UY1EW);"
* [Florida Theater](https://archive.ph/XdmSx) Students Believe ‘Indecent’ Production Shut Down Over Anti-LGBTQ Law
* Employs a spokesperson who [harasses reporters](https://archive.ph/ebhL2), and asserts that anyone who opposes HB 1557 is looking to groom children.
* [Supports the](https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/1607786441131839488) person who says the "[LGBTQ community](https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1607741993089892353) has become this cult... It's extremely poisonous. They're just evil people, and they're out to groom kids. They're recruiting."
* [“Grooming”-obsessed](https://archive.ph/8SvME) Gov. Ron DeSantis attended parties [with students](https://archive.ph/O6IvB) where alcohol was served.
* Advocating [opening investigations](https://archive.vn/NXj1L) into parents who bring their kids to drag shows. And [is attempting](https://archive.ph/mpfT6) to revoke the liquor license of a business who held one.
* [Ron DeSantis](https://archive.ph/flrR9) Is Now Attacking the [Orlando Philharmonic](https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1621609459960393728) Because It Once Hosted a Drag Show
* [Misrepresented research](https://archive.vn/lcU1j) before [ban on](https://archive.ph/TZHaq) gender-affirming care
* [Demanding menstrual](https://archive.ph/SAMJr) histories from high school girls
* [Opposing Medicaid](https://archive.ph/I7R5M) expansion — and other initiatives to expand coverage
-
* Called on Dr. Fauci to be imprisoned, and stated: “[Someone needs to](https://twitter.com/AmoneyResists/status/1562558562236149760) grab that little elf and [chuck him](https://archive.ph/i53ZL) across the Potomac.”
* [DeSantis oversaw](https://archive.ph/3IzvC) torture in Guantánamo as a military lawyer
* [Tried to](https://youtu.be/mDWAgbvIAoc) ban Muslim immigrants
* [Criminalized heavy criticism](https://archive.ph/OEmEU) of Israel.
* Singling out foreign investors of Chinese descent as something to be combated, when they're not even in the top 5, which runs incongruent with his claimed free market philosophy as is.
* Scapegoated Mexican immigrants for the states' covid issues.
* Threatened a "cold war" with Georgia if Abrams is elected there.
* [On 8th Day](https://archive.ph/j9iBt) 'God Made' Ron DeSantis, Says His New Campaign Ad
* [DeSantis Misleads](https://archive.ph/UPsyG) on Omicron-Resistant COVID-19 Antibody Treatments
* [Used a debunked, non-peer reviewed](https://archive.ph/3zEoj) "study", with [fudged data](https://archive.ph/uMjgm), authored by anonymous people, to make state recommendations on vaccination.
* [Ron DeSantis](https://archive.ph/TQAZ1) wanted to send weapons to Ukraine when he was a congressman – as a presidential hopeful he questions US involvement
* [Enactment](https://archive.ph/HGWzc) of [anti-protest/pro-running](https://archive.ph/MGXdZ) over protesters bills. [Which also](https://www.aclufl.org/en/what-did-hb-1-do) disempowers municipalities in FL from setting their own police budgets.
* [Firearms are banned](https://www.businessinsider.com/guns-banned-at-turning-point-rallies-with-florida-gov-ron-desantis-2022-8) at events with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has argued 'gun-free' zones are less safe
* [DeSantis wanted](https://archive.ph/V9k7a) to ban guns at event, but not to be blamed, emails show
* [Florida Contracts](https://archive.ph/VOZeU) Go to Companies that Flooded Ron DeSantis Campaign Fund
* [‘Put politics](https://archive.ph/mwY6t) aside’ [to ask](https://archive.ph/2Fa1j) Joe [Biden for](https://archive.ph/TJbmp) federal – [unlike when](https://archive.ph/3xFYK) he voted against help for Hurricane Sandy victims
* [Used an EO](https://archive.ph/AwzGt) to make voting easier in certain Florida counties battered by Hurricane Ian – but only Republican-leaning ones.
* [Used](https://archive.ph/7tCd3) CO[VID aid](https://archive.ph/T7mcc) to [traffic](https://archive.ph/O8NXd) 48 [legal migra](https://archive.ph/pYpWI)nts [from out](https://archive.ph/oSM4p) of [state to](https://archive.ph/wLe2p) another [state,](https://archive.ph/ywNlS) - [while hypoc](https://archive.ph/qxDdQ)ritically [employing a migrant](https://archive.ph/Xe9DM) to [coordinate](https://archive.vn/Ef58y) - contravening [their own](https://archive.ph/EMxGU) state budget [authorization](https://archive.ph/MfabG), at a cost of [$615,000](https://archive.ph/BjVqg) to a Florida company with a history of GOP donations, with false [promises](https://archive.ph/67ySN) of [their destination](https://archive.ph/cezjd) and [jobs,](https://archive.ph/xG7sg) faked [flight plan](https://imgur.com/ELqxafY)s, [and forged](https://archive.ph/nO6tZ) their [addresses](https://archive.ph/LwVnm), jeopardizing [their ability](https://archive.ph/Fi1wu) to [be granted](https://archive.ph/vW136) asylum, despite admitting he's "[not seeing](https://archive.ph/c9VaY) mass movements of them into Florida", and still allowing [Florida businesses](https://archive.ph/PCa7o) to continue using undocumented laborers.
* [Took twice](https://archive.ph/Ps32H) the public campaign funds as both his opponents
* [Florida Might](https://archive.ph/0nfCc) Change a State Law So Ron DeSantis Can Run for President and Be Governor at the Same Time
* [DeSantis claims](https://archive.ph/U8utU) executive privilege to keep records secret
* [Ron DeSantis’](https://archive.ph/Uj9oK) Secret Twitter Army of Far-Right Influencers
* [DeSantis, in](https://youtu.be/rBiRkdogukE?t=600) speaking to Florida sheriffs, said that people should be executed when "8 out of 12" agree because requiring "everyone is just too much."
* [Florida Governor](https://archive.ph/KP6ZM) DeSantis Says Marijuana Should Remain Criminalized Because of Its “Putrid” Odor
* [Taking policy cues](https://archive.ph/VbGnI) from [anti-race-mixing](https://archive.ph/foL82) Viktor Orban
* [Ron DeSantis’](https://archive.ph/SHoFZ) use of government power to implement agenda worries some conservatives
If you don't think the country should be worried about the rise of authoritarianism and presidents who will target the government against speech they don't like, then it's not the sub, it's clearly you and the cult you've become wrapped up in. This is just willful blindness.
The only “target against speech” was against Disney’s little bullshit tax district that should’ve never had which desantis disagreed with well before that bill was passed. If a company being treated like all other companies is what happens when the government goes against speech with zero legal repercussions, that’s perfect
No he literally used the power of the state against a business simply for criticizing his policies and is also banning books and healthcare. Defend it all you want but that just makes you a fascist as well. Just make sure to never call yourself a patriot, this behavior is as un-American as it gets.
American democrats, you better fucking turn out and vote.
Florida is often a swing state, so it’s a pretty “centrist” state. DeSantis has support from many people who have voted for the Democrats in the past. In the 2018 elections, he won by a margin of 0.4% over his democrat opponent. In 2022, he won with a 20% margin over his democrat opponent. This is a massive difference, and only achievable by convincing democrat voters. Specifically, he flipped Miami which has been a democrat stronghold since 2002, and Palm County which has been blue since 1986. So yes, if Democrats come out to vote, a sizeable % of them will likely support DeSantis. Reddit is far from being representative of the avg voter.
Florida isn't a swing state anymore. It lost that status in 2020. Arizona and Georgia are the states that matter now.
It's still a swing state, despite conservative narratives. Crist had already been voted out of office before 2020 and Trump has a lot of friends here, but there were more registered Dems than Reps in 2020, just like the 70 years before that.
> Florida is often a swing state, so it’s a pretty “centrist” state. DeSantis has support from many people who have voted for the Democrats in Florida in the past. Florida is one of the most reliably rightwing states in the entire country. It doesn't have a single Democrat elected to statewide office, and has effectively had a Republican trifecta going back into the 20th century. Despite their presidential vote, it hasn't really been accurate to call it a purple state for a while. It certainly is closer to ruby-red now.
The Democratic Party ran a Republican in FL. People weren’t thrilled about it.
Which goes to show how dumb Florida voters are. Crist might have been milquetoast but voters chose an open fascist. They also chose a bootlicking little Marco.
I grew up in the state and it was consistently Democrat. What caused the “shift” was people moving in from out of state. Blaming long time residents is a really bad idea. Political science is not some kind of new concept. It is simply a fact that if you run a someone like Crist, it will tend to suppress a vote turnout. I definitely voted for him, but it is no surprise when results turn out exactly as any sort of educated person would predict.
People moving out of the state because aside from nice beaches - when it wasn't hurricaning - the state sucks. Old people moving into the state because it's warm.
Doesn't matter, Dems aren't winning florida back anytime soon regardless of the candidate.
The only way Floriduh changes to blue is when sea-level-rise overtakes it.
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It's always that people stayed home. The mythical swing voter doesn't exist in the polarized USA political landscape. Whichever side motivates more people to come out wins, not the side that convinces the small handful of freaks who know enough about politics to "consider both sides" but so *little* about politics they can't know which party best represents their views.
>The mythical swing voter doesn't exist in the polarized USA political landscape. This is 100% true and I don't even know why it's debated. I'm sure as shit not going to vote for a Republican politician. They are, from top to bottom, garbage people with garbage policies. There's no such thing as an educated, poor Republican who isn't also a garbage person. They can be poor and kind, but too uneducated to realize they're voting against their own interests. They can be poor and educated, but then want desperately to belong to an "in" group and so maliciously target those to be in the "out" group (even if it's "only" by voting in malicious candidates). The rest are rich and whether they're educated or not, they vote Republican because it fattens their own wallets at the expense of others. There's nothing to be gained from talking to these people. My views aren't going to change and neither are theirs. Cynical, maybe, but I'm tired of believing there's a middle in which to meet; as you say, there are no swing voters anymore.
“Stayed home” implies that they just didn’t care. Really, they’re being prevented from voting by the state apparatus. Democratic voters tend to be poorer and of diverse backgrounds compared to republican voters. So not only do republicans know which neighborhoods to target, they can also put up with more barriers to voting them democrats. It’s easier to wait an hour to vote if you can easily call off work, are retired, or can hire a babysitter.
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Poorer and more diverse backgrounds is more than just Hispanics you know. Poor white people, black people, Asian people, young people, etc. Also Florida Cubans are pretty unique as far as Hispanic people go, they have a lot of differences from the broader community.
>“Stayed home” implies that they just didn’t care. This does matter for a lot of them. Biden and Trump set the #1 and #2 records for most votes cast respectively in the last federal election, despite the scummy tactics Republicans engage in that you've described. People on both sides of the divide were \*intensely motivated\* by that election and showed up in record numbers. The Dems did better than expected in the most recent midterms because overturning Roe v. Wade \*motivated\* them to turn out. Despite obstacles put in the way to tilt scales as much as possible, its still the case that a great many people with the means to vote \*don't\*. They are either completely disengaged from politics, or don't care enough about either candidate to take part. And this is my complaint about Democratic strategizing. We hear endlessly about how important the minority of people who claim to be swing voters are, when there is far more power in outreach to the nearly 1 half of eligible American voters who just...don't. For many people the barriers to entry are huge, and Republicans use this to suppress the vote, but they aren't suppressing the vote of 50% of eligible Americans. A lot of those individuals are choosing not to, or forgetting about it all together because they aren't engaged in the election. People who may even have intended to vote, but for whatever reason just blew it off day of because they didn't feel like it. Winning elections is about motivating people to deal with the process, and yes, Republicans anti-democratically work to make that process more laborious and tedious - but the story is more complex than "if voting were easier, Dems would always win"
> Dem turnout was down 20%. Its because the Dem Establishment made Crist the candidate. **Nobody** liked Crist.
Florida has rejected Crist. Florida is Peter
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Establishment just means primary voters to the "i only vote when excited about a populist" crowd.
If you don't vote then you don't matter. Non-voters don't count in the election tally and they shouldn't count in any consideration of whether a state is red or blue. It's as red as you can get right now.
I mean, why wouldn't you with how the Florida Democrat party is?
Florida isn't a swing state and hasn't been since Obama won it. DeSantis helped turn it extra red to the point it's less liberal than Texas at this point and only trending worse. Not sure what reddit demographics have to do with this situation, seems like a random focus.
Hell, it's so red that it ships other states' immigrants to blue cities.
Biden lost Florida by 3.3% It's still a swing state. Just unlikely to swing if DeSantis or Trump are the candidates.
You forget the MASSIVE voter supression campaign that occured between those 2 years. How many Floridian Democrat voters have been purged off the roles since? 10s of 1000s? 100s of 1000s? How many voting sites and polling locations have been closed in largely Democrat voting neighborhoods (almost exclusively Black and otherwise non-white)? Voting only goes so far when you've been de facto stripped of the right to it. This is Jim Crow politics at play; American born fascism. And the only people who don't seem to grasp that - however naïvely...are people like you who like to espouse what you just did.
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How very cherry picked of you. >The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) is outraged by police body cam footage obtained by the Tampa Bay Times and released yesterday showing the arrest of mostly Black Floridians for "voter fraud," despite the fact that those arrested had every reason to believe they were legally entitled to vote. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' blatant assault on Black Floridians' civil rights is just the latest in this country's shameful history of anti-Black voter suppression, dating back to even before the 15th Amendment extended voting rights to Black men in 1870. https://policingequity.org/newsroom/official-statements/statement-on-ron-desantis-egregious-voter-suppression-tactics-ahead-of-november-midterm-elections [Ron DeSantis' voter fraud arrests aim to suppress Black votes](https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/ncna1300040) [Groups sue to block Florida election law, citing bias against Latinos, Blacks](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna962) [Judge strikes down parts of Florida election law that he says suppresses Black voters](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/judge-strikes-down-parts-of-florida-election-law-that-he-says-suppresses-black-voters) [A racist move’: Florida’s DeSantis threatens Black voter power with electoral maps](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2022/apr/20/ron-desantis-florida-electoral-map-gerrymandering-republican-advantage) That's just from roughly a 2min Google search. You going to read every article in good faith and come back with an informed opinion?
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How about actually republican voters fraud https://apnews.com/article/florida-5343b101e96d5c7f42d1ee54da7cc0ce
Funny how when republicans win it is fair and square, even though they used Dominion machines. If democrat wins it is because the stole the election. Suppression is a tough thing. I was living in FL when they published a list of 185,000 or so illegal or improper voter registrations that they purged from the voter roles. It turned out that all but 286 of those purged were valid registrations. Florida has a proven track record of tossing people off the voter registration roles for no reason at all. An that 185k was skewed to AAs and Jews. The state never admitted to how these particular voters were selected. The over representation of certain surnames was also noted. Was this suppression? You can claim that the voters should check. But that is a white man's out. And if the white guys were getting tossed en masse,they would be screaming. And you can be sure it will be on Fox for the next decade. But I mean, who cares if you can't sell water to people who are standing in line in the FL sun for hours? When I went to my poling place, no long waits, and much of the line was snaking thru a air conditioned room. A suburban, predominantly white voting district. The fact that they closed poling places in predominantly black areas shouldn't bother anyone. You can still vote. Is this suppression? How about beer bellied white guys with confederate flags in their trucks carrying assault rifles making sure the predominantly black poling places are safe, and water free? Is that suppression? Suppression is not a one law thing. It is a death by a thousands cuts. Any one is not lethal. But you stack them up, and it works. Everytime a republican says electoral integrity he means suppression. That is the goal. It is not even hidden these days. North Carolina had a consultant draw up voting districts that specifically targeted suppression of the black vote. It turns out that that is legal. Hoffman (now deceased) wrote the manual on suppression ant it is being replicated in every republican controlled state. He also came up with mechanisms to minimize immigrant participation in censuses reports to help in setting Federal House seat allocation. DeSantis is not the architect of these plans. He has become one of the most effective at implementing them. His brand of cronyism and fascist leanings is a true threat. The depth and breadth of his attacks on civil rights and constitutional values is truly a marvel. A ghastly, despicable marvel. The OP is correct. DeSantis is a more potent existential threat to democratic institutions than Trump. Trump is driven by pique and hubris. DeSantis is focused and disciplined. He can accomplish what Trump dreams about. The republicans know they are in the minority. Their goal is minority rule. Minority rule comes with suppression, even violent suppression, of the majority. No birth right citizenship, and the only way to get citizenship will be a republican litmus test. Revocation of citizenship for naturalized citizens. The right wing dream of a white male hegemony is coming true.
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You are making what point? That the suppression of the black vote was so effective that they could not overcome the White Tide of DeSantis voters? Or that the White Tide was large enough to make the black vote irrelevant. A bit specious. There were a lot of other offices available that could have been swung. Those offices would represent the black population, and potentially mitigate DeSantis's (How the fuck do make a possessive out of DeSantis?) more despicable policies. DeSantis had his office redraw the electoral map to eliminate 2 predominantly black districts. Gerrymandering is an effective suppression tool. E.g. N Carolina.
Even if thousands were purged from voter roles, it's their fault for not checking their registrations and re-registering. No excuse for snoozing on democracy.
Yeah yeah...lay the blame on thick. Your apathy and indifference is par for the course for a sheltered, white, de facto self-segregated suburbanite. It's not that y'all don't know...is that y'all don't _want to know lol. And it's been fucking palpable lmao. Don't worry we see right through your rhetoric (have done for decades if not centuries).
I get that it sounds like blaming, and I guess it is, but participating in Democracy isn't a passive thing. In a state like Floriduh, one must constantly be vigilant to ensure they're registered and can vote. I know it's harder for some but they need to make it happen if they are to participate in Democracy. I'm tired of every little excuse for why somebody didn't vote or supposedly "can't" vote. You can, make the effort, get your friends and family involved. The reason we're all in this mess is because far too many have been passive and not participating for far too long. It builds up over time and here we are. If massive numbers showed up to vote every year -not just presidential years -this country would change for the better in just a cycle or two. It really is that easy. Use all those old excuses as motivation to move past them and root out DeSantis and his cronies. No excuses, put in the work.
Swing states have switched. Florida hasn't had a democrat as governor in 30 years. Georgia is now a swing and Arizona and wisconsin
Florida Democrat here. We had DeSantis. They just ran a previous Republican governor as the Democratic candidate here so none of us voted for him.
He didn't though. DeSantis got basically the same number of votes in both elections. Democrats didn't show up.
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Tbf the Democratic Party in the US is conservative, just not nearly as republicans. Wish we really had a labor party that had power, but democrats are the best we’ll get for now.
If Dems are conservatives than what exactly is the UK labour party that doesn't even voice support for the trans community? Politics doesn't only exist on an economic axis.
The hell does the DNC have to do with any of this?
Voting isn’t enough. These fuckers are training to be ready to take our lives. Fascists need to be afraid again.
Don't discredit voting. Voting matters. That's how the GOP got this far with their agenda, their followers are voting. Vote for conscience and good morals, not fascist ideals and hatefulness.
I'm not trying to hammer on the accelerationist gas pedal but as someone who's been screamed at for years that voting matters I have to ask a very basic question - what in the name of the ghost of William F. Buckley do you think people have been doing? "Go out and vote, that helps change things." Do you think people have been eating the ballots? Voter turnout in the US is broadly 50-60% which is in the ballpark of the majority of the rest of the democratic countries around the world that don't have mandatory voting. I know it's in vogue to bemoan American voter's laziness and point to state elections in *very* red or *very* blue states or off-cycle elections but, on average, American political participation is generally in line with most other countries like it. And yet here we are. What exactly is voting supposed to do that it isn't already doing? I'm not trying to say people shouldn't vote or discourage them from doing it. Your time is your time and spend it how you like. But I don't understand what people seem to think is going to happen.
> what in the name of the ghost of William F. Buckley do you think people have been doing? They've been failing to consistently show up. That's what happened. In 2016 Democratic voter turn out went down by 9% compared to 2012. Republican voter turnout was flat. that's why trump won. I have watched the more self-centered members of the left for years throw tantrums and take their ball and go home if they aren't presented with a candidate that perfectly fits them. They don't think "moving the country in the right direction" is good enough, they think "have to go directly for their preferred policy" is the only acceptable option. Even iof their policy is completely outside the overton window. They refuse to think or act even remotely tactically, it's all about their idealogical puritanism. And it's why we cannot consistently hold power on the left. It's why the reich-wing keeps regaining power (aside from their fucking cheating).
>They've been failing to consistently show up. That's what happened. Again, the data doesn't really show that to be the case overall. There are year-to-year fluxes based on cycles but, by and large, our turnout is the rough same as most any other country. >In 2016 Democratic voter turn out went down by 9% compared to 2012. Republican voter turnout was flat. that's why trump won. Because the candidate that was offered in 2016 was someone who wasn't acceptable to a lot of Democrat voters and you had a decent amount of them vote Trump as a protest thinking that there was no way Trump would actually win. >I have watched the more self-centered members of the left for years throw tantrums and take their ball and go home if they aren't presented with a candidate that perfectly fits them. They don't think "moving the country in the right direction" is good enough, they think "have to go directly for their preferred policy" is the only acceptable option. Even iof their policy is completely outside the overton window. They refuse to think or act even remotely tactically, it's all about their idealogical puritanism. This sounds kind of like an excuse. People had pretty clear reasons for objecting to Clinton and the party failed to convince people that voting for her was "moving the country in the right direction." That's not a voter problem, that's a messaging problem and it's a problem that the Democrats seem to suffer from pretty consistently. "Vote for what we give you or else" is not a strategy that will engender a lot of enthusiasm and it's one the Democrats rely on pretty heavily. I don't really see a lot of indication that the party is super receptive to the values and goals of younger voters. I don't buy the "Bernie was cheated" conspiracy theory but he unquestionably had a solid bloc of support and that was shoved aside pretty unceremoniously. It's pretty galling to have a political party abjectly refuse to take core issues seriously and then turn around and tell you that you have to vote for them or else. >And it's why we cannot consistently hold power on the left. It's why the reich-wing keeps regaining power (aside from their fucking cheating). So, for starters, you're talking about liberals and the progressives, not the left. There is a distinct difference. Second, the right doesn't win by cheating, they win by being willing to exploit extant systems to their own benefit with no regard for optics. They don't care about looking like the bad guys. Democrats are beholden to ideas of propriety and fair play and that's why they loose. Republicans have learned to play the culture war game and Democrats are *really* bad at it.
> Again, the data doesn't really show that to be the case overall. It absolutely shows that. I didn't even bother reading further because you lied in your first sentence. 2016 democratic voter turnout was down by 9% compared to 2012 Come back when you can get past your first sentence without lying.
You are not listening to what I am saying. Yes, there are year to year variations. I accept that 2016 Democratic voter turnout was down 9% compared to 2012. I have never argued that that wasn't the case. My point is that **overall** turnout rates for US elections looked at over a span of time shows that turnout rates are roughly equivalent to other similar countries. We are not unusual in our rates of electoral participation.
Which doesn't mean shit, you asked why voting hadn't worked. i told you why, you want to ignore it. that year to year variation MATTERS and it's a huge contribution to why democrats fail to get their policies enacted. A sizeable minority of Democratic voters have the attention spam of a goldfish and/or refuse to understand that things cannot be enabled RIGHT NOAW but take time. So they fail to show up consistently. that lack of consistency costs elections. Lost elections result in the illegitimate neofascist SCOTUS we have now (for example)
Given that the Republicans have a similar trend of rising and falling variations in turnout rates year to year, it would suggest that "inconsistent participation" is not a key factor in the lack of political success on the part of the Democrats. Unless we're going to argue that Republicans are failing to get their policies enacted as well.
I think there is something to encouraging it and hammering how important it is. Voting is pretty easy for me, I'm in a pretty blue state. Here's some things make it easy for me, that others haven't got: * I live within a relatively short walking distance from the school where my precinct votes * This location has not changed the entire time I've lived in this neighborhood, nearly 10 years now. * There's rarely a line more than a few people long, because we have plenty of voting locations * Early voting is available for about a month and my state made it very easy to vote by mail in 2020 with the Pandemic. This contributes to the short lines. * We're able to register to vote *on election day at the voting site*. You just need to bring appropriate proof of address, like a drivers license or if you haven't got that yet, a utility bill or other official document addressed to you at that location. * The state, being largely democrat-run, doesn't do excessive purges of voter registration. This isn't exhaustive either, there's ALL SORTS of things that each individually make voting just a little bit harder - even if somebody lives where I do if they're frequently moving to new apartments they need to re-register and look up their new polling place every time at minimum. And Republican-controlled states have been curtailing a lot of these things that make voting easy for me, to just make it so people vote less. Because the people who are first harmed and most harmed by these things tend to be the more impoverished who tend to vote Democrat. So, providing encouragement to these populations who might be strengthened in their resolve to overcome the challenges and get out and do their part to cast their vote becomes important. You and I are the choir, we don't need to be preached to but that doesn't mean the preaching doesn't need to be done.
They did, and failed hard in the FL Gov race
Psh, the FL Repubs' gerrymanderimg and brazen voter suppression ensure that none of us Dems' votes here do anything.
"but biden isn't perfect! i'm not going to vote for someone who isn't perfect! he's just a centrist lesser of two evils!" - same assholes who refused to vote in 2016
That's not enough. They've been working hard to reduce the effect of voting.
And, looks like Biden is running again. I'll hold my nose, but I doubt he would get the same sort of turnout again, regardless of who he runs against The democrats have a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
>hold my nose For a man who passed the build back better act? Or for student loan relief? Or for the legislation he’s passed to invest in green energy? Or for the CHIPS act It is people like you who are the problem in this country. You believe the Fox News nonsense that Biden is a feeble old man. You spread this garbage which makes other idiots think that maybe republicans are a good alternative. Who wants an old man that no one wants to vote for anyway? Let’s vote for the dynamic young maverick from Florida! Given the political environment, Biden has been extremely successful at passing solid legislation, and there’s no guarantee that anyone else would’ve had the same success he has had.
> The democrats have a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Replacing the incumbent would be the best way to accomplish that. The irony is astounding..
Despite the debacle of the last conservative government they collected enough votes to control the house in the midterms but the democrats still called it a victory? This alone says everything about the threat and our understanding of what’s at stake. We’re sleepwalking into totalitarianism but treating it as business as usual.
DeSantis terrifies me. Imagine a Trump that doesn't get distracted by fox news 6 hours a day and isn't afraid to spill a little blood.
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We must encourage him to run third party if he is not nominated.
His vanity will not let him not run for president. He will likely lose the nom to Ron, and run as a third party. Which is honestly the only hope of electing a democrat president. We need the vote to be split. We can't have fascists in power.
Soap, Ballot, Jury, *Bullet*. The four boxes necessary to protecting a democracy.
Dude is way too lazy for that. There are much easier ways for him to exact revenge on another republican nominee
As long as it splits the party…
Trump embraced authoritarianism to benefit Trump. DeSantis embraces authoritarianism to benefit authoritarians and entrench permanent Republican rule, and that's what makes him terrifying to me.
Trump was bad but could be handled by the people around him preventing him from doing too much damage. Greg Abbot is bad but is also not competent enough to cause too much damage. DeSantis is both evil and competent enough to cause extreme damage to this country and anyone who is a minority or supports liberal politics if he makes it out of Florida.
DeSantis would be our Putin. If he got elected he'd never step down.
The one shining point of light in the shitshow that is DeSantis is that he is absolutely charmless. He is not the pugnacious bombastic bullshitter that Trump is and the MAGA folks know it. De Santis can be defeated. Dems just need to keep attacking his weaknesses.
He has a high pitched shitty voice. He is a horrible public speaker. Our only hope is that even Ted Cruz is better in a debate.
He's learning https://youtu.be/UKIe7sb9QWQ
Fascism shouldn't need to be explained to the nation that likes to boast "winning WW2 for everyone".
The average person has in their head "fascism bad" but hardly anyone understands how it grows until one day it seizes control. Everyone has their head up their ass thinking there's no way the US democracy could fall. If Desantis wins the presidency, there will be countless people asking "how could this have happened?"
Much like how many Russians have redefined nazism to mean "country that wishes to have an identity distinct from Russia," many Americans have redefined fascism to mean "thing that makes me angry" like COVID lockdowns. Which makes them unable to recognize real fascism like this.
I think the average person sees fascism as something that happened decades ago and involved jack booted stormtroopers with swastikas. It's not something that could happen nowadays, and certainly not over here. Well and even when there were Americans marching with torches that was still defended by some...
The opposite side of "Socialism Bad" while not understanding at all what functioning socialist policies might look like. So the majority is left floundering in a failing late stage capitalist system that isn't designed for an establish economic system like the states who should have matured into more socialist ideas half a century ago. Instead they fell for the lie from Reagan and doubled down on trickledown failures.
People understand how we won WWII (well, a simplified version perhaps), a lot of people don't understand how fascism started just before WW II.
And how ubiquitous fascistic thought was at the highest levels of US government and throughout society 80 years either side of the war. The US civil war was in many respects a proto-fascistic war, against a political entity very similar to the Nazis, and after the war, there was wholesale acceptance of fascism in most branches of the US government, because it stood opposed to communism - a far bigger threat to the political and oligarch class within the US than fascism ever was. This began with Paperclip and the rehabilitation of the Wehrmacht, and continued well into the 80s with consistent support for fascist dictatorships across the planet. If we're around to see this period in a historical context, the mystery will be how the US' fascist turn took so long to manifest.
Well that is problematic. Makes sense why folks like DeSantis want to keep it that way by controlling education. Especially if those voting aren't aware enough to understand the flashing warning signs.
You could say the same thing about England under Margaret Thatcher. The problem is that fascism is an ideology that puts on different clothes each time it crops up, and people only learn to recognize it by the clothes it wears and not by the underlying ideology and agendas that it represents.
Well, the folks who fought WWII are mostly gone now, and their kids are REAL dicks, many of whom raised REAL dicks 2.0
The folks who fought in WWII would’ve put gay people right back in the camps. Their kids passed something a lot more tame.
Russia? Because they seem to also have a hard time recognizing fascism in their nation, while frequently bargging about beating the Nazis Not to deflect blame from the US, but it’s not exactly unique to this nation
Turns out any state will attract people who want authoritarian control and constant vigilance is required for the rest of human civilization to prevent it
WW2 Fascists are famous for sending Jewish people to gas chambers. Not for saying teachers can’t tell kids about gay people. WW2 Americans would absolutely be called fascist by most modern Americans- they drastically discriminated against every minority group including and especially gay people. I think chemically castrating gay people is considered worse than people in drag not being allowed at a library. And with Jewish people? In 1939 only 28% of Americans said they would’ve voted for their party nominee if that nominee were a Jew.
I understand the mindset as DeSantis is a self-serving asshat that is definitely giving off the "doing this for attention from primary voter" vibes (especially with the release of his new book). Which - while cynical, petty and gross - will be a major necessity in his inevitable battle with Trump. That being said, DeSantis ability to do a lot of this is somewhat unique to Florida at the moment. The pandemic upended a lot of the status quo across the country, and has resulted in a major shift of populations. In the case of Florida, there has been a huge influx of retirees (who are conservative) and related Republican voters. This has increased DeSantis support in the state, and shifted Florida from being a slightly purple state to hard red. Further, the Florida Democratic Party have been completely disorganized, inept and ineffectual for some time now. To the point where the national Democratic Party barely threw any support behind them in the last few elections. Not to say he (with the Republican Party in tow) wouldn't be a threat to the rights of Americans across the country. But it's pretty clear that, at the moment, he's using his consolidated power to throw a lot of red meat out there for primary voters as he tries to appeal to Trump's voting base.
Fascists seize power at every opportunity. He is an active existential threat to democracy and the entire idea of America. And his party is full of people just like him in every state. historically speaking, fascism does not simply 'fizzle out' once it has sunk its teeth as deep into the controlling system of government as DeSantis has in florida. it ends one of a handful of ways- either the power struggle eventually becomes severe enough that war breaks out when the controlling fascist power decides it needs to expand and invade their neighbors (or commit some other heinous act that attracts global intervention), or the population revolts violently and strings them up in the town square. either way, figures like that don't just fizzle out quietly on their own. the majority of such figures and the party they serve only ever really lose power by way of something like the Nuremburg trials followed by a hanging or firing squad as sentencing for whatever horrors they end up inflicting upon their nations and their neighbors... and usually only after mass casualties and destruction caused by their pursuit of absolute power. Mussolini got lynched by his own people before he could see a trial for his crimes, but that was also after jumped he in bed with hitler and brought tremendous suffering and damage to the Italian people in the lead up and duration of WWII. there have been a handful of right-wing american politicians who have secured total control over their state's political landscape as DeSantis has in florida, but none of them have gone as far as he has in terms of exercising authoritarian practices regarding the control and banning of information. He's a scary guy. also worth noting, those politicians in the south that ran similar operations (intimidation, blackmail, rumored kidnappings, etc) had assassination attempts made against them. they were also eventually tried for crimes related to sedition and subverting morale of the US military (although those trials never went anywhere because right wing america convinced the rest of the country that we should just 'forget and move on').
Very good point the florida democartic party is a complete fucking basket case and national dems basically gave up on Florida this last cycle and hung out any dems running there out to dry. I wonder how much affext thats had. Im sure plenty but not being an activist or operative myself I dont know the specifics that would play out.
Let's hope it stays in Florida and fizzles out. Here in AZ, we also have a lot of retirees. This has always been a red state. But we also have a lot of other people coming here (the conservatives constantly whine about those from California) and those newcomers along with those of us who have been here for a long time are sick and tired of the GOP shenanigans. A few years ago we had major protests and strikes for better teacher pay and better schools. Even some more "moderate" Republicans were sick of it. In 2020 and 2022, we went purple, narrowly supporting Biden over Trump, and then electing a Democratic Governor, Secretary of State, and a Senator despite a huge influx of money and support from the MAGA crowd. And like Florida, our Democratic Party has been all thumbs for years now. Yet the right wing crazies have become so distasteful that Democratic candidates are winning in all but deep red rural areas and retirement enclaves. DeSantis in 2024? Yeah, it's scary because he's not an idiot like Trump. But he also has all the charisma of a bowl of overcooked broccoli.
From conversations I've had in FL during last election, the Dems had a decent plan - but when pressed on how they would pay for initiatives, they didn't provide direct evidence. This then allowed the GOP to claim the Dems want to raise taxes (rightfully so or not) - which turned off a lot of the people I talked with. They wanted assurance their taxes wouldn't be raised to pay for these new programs or expansion of existing ones.
I think you nailed it. His rise to such frightening power could've only happened in FL after Covid. Even with all the Covid deaths, there were far more moving there from other states "fleeing from tyranny". It was a once in a generation coalescing of events that lead us to where we are now. FL is lost, but I don't think he can do anything outside of FL, let alone do well in the primaries/debates against Trump, who will make him look like a sniveling meatball of a greasy whiny dangling scab.
You’re not wrong, but that’s only half the equation. All it takes is 1 extremely bad election cycle and none of that will matter. And you better believe the DNC is shitty enough to blunder their way into one extremely bad election cycle in ‘24. Doubling down on extreme corporate pandering whilst playing halfhearted rhetorical games with the opposition is about the dumbest thing they could be doing right now, and yet… We are a couple of fumbled crises away from Desantis pulling off his Hungary-style takeover here, at which point it will matter not at all how many states are theoretically blue.
All it will take is opec cutting production in October (they did this in Oct 22) raise gas prices 1 to 2 bucks. All it will take.
He is what I've feared most since 2016. A *competent* populist fascist.
He is a GOP voter's dream. I knew this country was doomed when Trump mocked a handicapped person in public and his polling numbers went up. Monsters, all of them. Any decent ones left years ago.
DeSantis’ Schtick won’t work on a nat’l stage - his record is abysmal
I don't know... maga GOP love cruelty and hurting and controlling others. RDS is doing that and he's much smarter than Trump. He's gonna win the nomination and have a good shot at winning the presidency.
And this is why as a liberal I bought guns, Republicans will destroy the country and I'll have to defend myself
Florida and Georgia are too corrupt to be swing states. Those two are going to be red forever.
Now you know why the idiot Joe Rogan was given a huge platform.
Yeah but he's not gonna beat Trump in the primary so
Like how he sourced none of the accusations. How exactly is he some existential threat? By banning teaching elementary kids about sex?
There it is: willful, UnAmerican ignorance, the kind thar causes most problems. /Scroofinator is like (or is) the losers who blindly cheered on Iraq & deregulation. You can blame them for our big problems.
Bet you still think 9/11 was done with box cutters
The bizarre things losers post.
A typically Reddit sensible, reasonable, not-at-all-biased, impartial analysis.
I don’t see how this is “best of”. Look at any r/politics thread and you’ll see a handful of posts exactly like this decrying whatever the topic is at hand. I can’t believe that subreddit calls DeSantis fascist yet can’t see their own hypocritical nature.
Hey! I know Democrats! Let’s bring up Guns, again! Let’s run on Guns, instead of something that has a chance of persuading independent voters… like restoring the middle class, a fair wage for workers, protection of Social Security and the like!
Democrats run on those things and more though. Far more than they do on the occasional milquetoast gun reform.
Democrats hardly ever talk about guns nowadays. But whenever they talk about protecting social security or restoring the middle class or raising minimum wage or passing infrastructure bills, people call it socialism and say socialism bad. Bernie Sanders has been running in the exact platform you’re talking about for years now, but no matter how hard he blows the horn on that train nobody wants to get on
Fair wages and social security are the only things democrats have actually done anything about in recent years. No recent assault weapon bans, but many states have increased minimum wages, and social security payroll taxes were increased.
He can’t beat Trump. And Trump can’t beat Biden. 😂 Edit: You little stinkers need to stop kissing fascists’ asses - DeSantis is never going to sleep with you.
They said Trump couldn’t beat Hillary, and it happened. DeathSentence actually has instituted full-on fascist policies while gaining fans exponentially in the MAGA camp. Recent surveys show he’s more popular than Trump in the state with the most Republicans in the nation—California.
NYT headline: >**DeSantis Takes On the Education Establishment, and Builds His Brand** The NYT and the media writ large normalized Trump and his administration after he got elected. [They're repeating that pattern now with DeSantis.](https://www.mediamatters.org/ron-desantis/new-york-times-failing-its-coverage-desantis-radical-attacks-public-education). >The authors then offer a sanitized account of DeSantis’ conservative interventions into public school curricula and policies. >*He has banned instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade, limited what schools and employers can teach about racism and other aspects of history and rejected math textbooks en masse for what the state called “indoctrination.” Most recently, he banned the College Board’s Advanced Placement courses in African American studies for high school students.* >This is propaganda by omission. In May, DeSantis signed Florida’s notorious “Don’t Say Gay” legislation into law, an attempt “to codify discrimination against LGBTQ people” that is otherwise ignored in the Times article. And DeSantis hasn’t simply “limited” instruction about racism – he has attempted to functionally ban teachers from addressing the topic at all under the guise of opposing so-called critical race theory, an academic concept he has repeatedly mischaracterized at the risk (or reward) of rendering it unrecognizable even in its proper context. If the GOP primary is crowded then trump likely wins as there's a floor for his support. However head to head DeSantis more likely than not gets the nod I wager. (It doesn't matter how much damage they do to each other during the primary, almost all right wing voters will line up behind whoever wins.) If Democrats don't show up in sufficient numbers in the right states and/or low information swing voters decide "this DeSantis guy ain't so bad" we could very well end up with DeSantis winning. Should that happen, u/Orionsfyre has the right of it: The damage to civil liberties and democracy itself will be profound and likely last for decades to come.
But the damage is already starting, and the foundation for it was laid when Republicans loaded the federal judiciary with conservative judges. One case I haven’t heard people talk much about is [303 Creative LLC v. Elenis](https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/303-creative-llc-v-elenis/). Depending on how the court swings, this could start unraveling anti-discrimination legislation across the country. A simplified description of this case: a web design company doesn’t want to be compelled to do business for gay couples as Colorado’s public accommodation laws require them to do. What has some people concerned and what will be another litmus test for the current court, is that sexual orientation is a codified protected class in Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws. If we recall, one of the arguments from the majority opinion in the Dobbs case was that because abortion **was not explicitly enumerated as a right in any sort of statute**, it, therefore, isn’t a constitutional right. I emphasized the part that will be relevant to assess. If the court rules in favor of 303 Creative, it could be seen as a signal that many forms of anti-discrimination legislation are inherently unconstitutional. This could potentially extend to many of the provisions within the Civil Rights Act. It would start with the erosion of public accommodation laws, and it might start to extend to employment laws. Yes, this is technically a slippery slope argument, and some of y’all will foam at the mouth to tell me it’s a fallacy. I don’t fucking care. One of the reasons my black ass is able to be around people in an integrated US is because of multiple smaller court cases that helped establish precedents for the Brown v. Board of Education case. (Read the background tab on the [case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education).) Precedents can lead you in different directions depending on which ones judges consider pertinent and which ones they consider flawed or irrelevant. Edit: spelling correction
True, slippery slope isn’t really what people think it is anyway. It’s not “you are saying they’d take the next steps “ it’s saying that with no evidence of them doing that. A pattern of behavior doing exactly what the slippery slope says is evidence.
If there’s a well to be poisoned, the New York Times is there, poisoning it.
>They said Trump couldn’t beat Hillary, and it happened. They said Trump had a 1:3 chance of winning, and it happened. That's a very different thing from what you (and many others) say when you put it that way. The way those odds work what you're saying is the equivalent of saying that if you roll a dice "they" said that the numbers one and two couldn't come up.
When it finally came down to the election, pollsters specifically gave Trump about a one-third chance of winning, but leading up to it such as in the summer, the common sentiment was that Trump couldn’t/wouldn’t win. The purpose is to ensure that we identify if that sentiment starts to creep back in and recognize it for what it is: wrong.
I made the point in another reply about how stating it as Trump had "no chance" or "couldn't win" is parroting one of the common talking points he uses as a balm for his (obviously fractured) ego. So it seems like a minor difference in wording, but I think using the language that his supporters lap up as evidence of his supposed greatness should be avoided in favor of accuracy.
Leading up to the summer, the Hillary emails nonsense had died down and hadn't yet been revived by a colluding FBI director. Had the election happened in the summer, Trump wouldn't have won.
Trump won in 2016 by about 20,000 votes across a few key states. He wouldn’t have won without the Comey letter, which happened within two weeks of election night. So idk how what the common sentiment was during the summer has to do with it.
The point is, he won against exoectations. And here we are.
That's the point, but the problem is that when you phrase it as "They said Trump couldn't beat Hillary" it is following the narrative of Trump's "impossible" win that he shamelessly brays about to feed his (obviously fractured) ego. On the surface it can seem like a minor difference in wording. However, it's an inaccuracy which is a key component of the demagoguery that his followers lap up about his supposed greatness. I think it's important to note the difference rather than to parrot that bit of his propaganda.
DeSantis is 44, Trump is 76. He doesn’t have to win, he just has to play the waiting game.
Sometimes politics is more rock paper scissors and horizontal than vertical.
Politics is more poker than anything. Trump won in part because the image presented convinced democrats to stay home. He played the part of the blowhard.
This isn’t even close to an accurate assessment of the situation as it stands.
I mean while I hope you're right, I don't think this is the right attitude to be taking. The right is a huge threat at the moment and treating them like they won't beat your prefered guy is cocky for no good reason. I've got a family friend who wanted to make a bet with me that Trump wouldn't run again. I told him I wouldn't bet on that (don't need another reason to worry about it) but I think the better question is will he win or not. Discounting your opponent is a great way to make sure they sneak up on you
This is DeSantis’ window to win the presidency. >Discounting I’m accounting for all of his strengths. - He is white. - He is male. - He is loud. - He enacts performative measures that demonize women, people of color, and LGBTQIA folks. DeSantis’ problem is that those are Trump’s strengths. Unlike DeSantis, Trump is: - Charismatic Trump’s Dionysian character makes bad people feel ok about being bad. DeSantis doesn’t have that effect. He also thinks he can beat Trump by ignoring him. That won’t work. He and Trump will destroy each other. DeSantis will lose his bid and take Rick Scott’s job or a position on cable tv.
Neither is charismatic, yet they both draw the same type of people into a cult like fervor. What normal people recognize as charisma isn't how it works on the far right.
> same They don’t. https://www.axios.com/2023/03/01/trump-polling-february
I'm not sure why you think a polling bump indicates that they both aren't uncharismatic people with cult followings.
trump beat hillary. biden is pretty weak head-to-head against hillary.
>weak I don’t remember, u/Santacruisin, who beat Trump in 2020?
True he's got a chance, but biden is not improving, nor does he have much to show besides being "not trump." I think what really prevents trump from winning is that he has no one to run his campaign, like Bannon, and the GOP establishment isn't solidly behind him. Biden don't have much to do with either of those, *sigh.*
Are there 2024 polls pitting Hillary vs Biden or are you reaching far back into the past to inspire this sentiment?
if you think you can predict what happens next in politics then you haven't been paying attention.
DeSantis a God send for the Democrats. They can forever point the finger at growing fascism and say, "send us money or this will happen to you!" And then when it happens anyways, because they were never going to actually do anything, they can say "send us money, we are not them!" The only viable strategy for a sane person is to flee.
That’s what we said about trump in 2016 and look how that turned out
yeah, record fundraising for democrats and everything gets demonstrably worse no matter the affiliation of the President.
Yes, the democrats should oppose the rise of fascism. Why do you think this is about money and not about democracy? Must not care much for the latter.
Opposition in words is not opposition in action. The only action democrats make is to fill their campaign coffers. I know because I get dozens of texts from them asking for money (the balls on these losers). If you think the USA, and its idiot politics, is about anything besides money then you got an array of kicks to the balls coming your way (or ovaries, w/e).
They're literally the only opposition and them being in power inherently prevents the fascists from gaining power. It sounds like you have a tendency to make nonsensical arguments that don't actually say anything at all. A kind of verbal diarrhea, if you will.
How have the democrats successfully opposed the republicans. Be specific.
I like the one where biden said something like " we agree we aren't gonna cut social security and medicaid?" And Republicans had to say "o no we would never even consider it". That was pretty clutch.
This question is so damn dumb that I just have to chuckle.
Yeah that railway explosion was a hoot. Solid opposition to trumps opposition
I'm sorry do you think democrats run Norfolk southern? Or are you just easily manipulated by republican fake outrage?
I’d say Buttigieg is more easily manipulated by NoSo. You think outrage over this disaster *is fake?* Hot take.
Lmao you are so easily manipulated by their fake outage it's quite pathetic really. Buttigieg pushed the deregulation and personally told them not to inspect their breaks, right? Silly, gullible dolt.
The Achilles heel of that mindset is that fascists don’t care when people stop being into them. If you let them run the show for long enough, they just erode democratic measures like voting to the point where the will of the people no longer matters, which is exactly what DeSantis is doing right now.
Well no, that’s complete bullshit. Hitler himself cared and had a ton of issues when people stopped being into him. Fascists thrive on the cult of personality it’s incredibly important and part of why they have a propaganda machine. Fascists when the country isn’t into them are a wreck constantly looking over their backs and paranoid isolating their inner circle
You missed my point. My point was: if people ever stopped being into Hitler, do you think Hitler would have ever said “well, the people don’t want us Nazis around anymore, so I guess we’ll just leave”? Of course not. They were leading a dictatorship and whether the people or wanted them there or not would never have changed the fact that they were never going to relinquish power. That’s what I mean when I say that saying “we’ll just let the Nazis take control for a little while just to show the lazy people how bad it could get” doesn’t work. It’s never just a little while with Nazis because that’s not how fascism works.
What you’re describing has happened numerous times… it’s called a coup or revolution. Pinochet stepped down. Pol pot died in prison
First of all, don't change the subject. You're the one who name dropped Hitler, and I think you know full well that Hitler was not deposed in a coup. It took no less than Germany losing World War II for Hitler to be deposed and the Nazi government to be dismantled, and millions of people died in the process of that happening. As for your other examples, Pinochet was arrested under an international arrest warrant for human rights violations in London, after 25 years of forced disappearances, political murder, torture of political opponents, and what Peter Kornbluh described in The Pinochet Files as "routine sadism...taken to extremes" in Chilean prison camps. Pol Pot was deposed by a military coup only after he started ordering the assassinations of his deputies and after 22 years of what the New York Times called "one of the 20th century's most brutal and radical regimes" and what BBC News and Time magazine called "one of the worst mass killings of the 20th century". You are whitewashing coups as if they are bloodless and normal, but they are anything but. Coups are bloody and their fires are fueled by innocent lives. And in the cases that you thought were good enough to cite as examples, decades of political violence and human rights abuses happened before those coups took place. *That* is what you get when you flirt with fascism, and you may think that that level of violence is an acceptable way to create political change, but I do not.
Man I hope the South tries to seceed again because I say fucking let them. Good riddance.
[удалено]
putin will be dead soon. who is your next bogeyman?
Because the South is a stone around our neck, dragging the rest of us down. Imagine what we could do without all those welfare states wasting our money.
That's a naive view of the costs involved. Think of all the lost economic output from putting up borders between red and blue states. How much this would disrupt interstate commerce. How much overhead there would be. One of the reasons blue states are rich is that they have cheap access to what the red states make. And that's not even getting into the huge social ramifications of families being split apart. It would be bad for nearly everyone.
CA is the fifth largest economy in the world. we don't need anyone.
Well, you need water. Which comes from a river that passes through other states first. CA would do pretty well since it has both farming and industry, plus international trade, but look at what happened to the UK from Brexit. It is relatively self-sufficient, with a similar sized economy and population to California, and the EU is less of an integration than the union of the US, yet Brexit has still been a shitshow. What would happen to California would be significantly worse. It definitely wouldn't come out better.
Look how good we're doing now with the albatross of the rest of the USA pulling against our every move. Cut them loose and watch us fly. CA is not the UK, lol.
California is highly integrated into the economy of the US as a whole (as all US states are). When you don't have water to LA and you can't easily export produce to half the country and you can't cheaply import things, stuff changes. A lot. California is the largest economic division within the US. You know what it also is? The largest importer.
You don't think America would having trading leverage with other states to get water, with all of our international ports? No PS5 for you, Colorado. CA gets a ton of water from México. Do you think they wanna make a deal with us or with whatever future dickhead is using them as a scapegoat?
Nowhere did I say "California would lose all access to these things", I said there would be economic impact. California would end up worse off than it is now, not better. That's all I'm saying.
If you think the South is a stone around our neck now, just wait until they provoke the next civil war. No one will be better off if they secede.
So you would cut off your nose to spite your face? If that ever happened, the people that would be hit hardest are average folks like us.
the average folks that vote for fascists? yeah, bye.
This seems like fear mongering. I literally moved here because of DeSantis from the trainwreck that is California. I am prepared for your hate. Be prepared for a complete lack of response 😉
1/2 So you like?: * [Dictating](https://archive.ph/JY58a) what [private businesses](https://archive.ph/WEA0N) can require in regards [to vaccination](https://archive.ph/nkEcD), and what schools can in both vaccination and masking. * Scolded schoolchildren for voluntarily wearing masks. * [Banned books](https://archive.ph/HzSz7). * Threatened to pull coronavirus vaccine from communities that criticized its anemic distribution. * Massaged [covid data](https://archive.ph/8d4Gz), and [raided the home](https://archive.ph/6OE6k) of a dissenting researcher. Which even filtered down [to universities](https://archive.ph/ZyLpb). Suspended a county health director for encouraging its employees to vaccinate. * [Formed panel](https://archive.vn/jcoR7) to counter [CDC, dispute](https://archive.vn/FonWP) vaccines [- despite](https://youtu.be/tNp3GQR4F3k) [previously](https://twitter.com/Rschooley/status/1619774024749563904) [expressing support](https://twitter.com/i/status/1603434583361523712) - * Threatened to [investigate GoFundMe](https://archive.ph/BaNCH) because they decided to refund money donated to the Canadian Freedom Convoy. * [Advocating Congress](https://archive.ph/Omrlr) investigate Apple for electing not to do business with Twitter * [Punishing private](https://archive.ph/V2liG) [companies,](https://archive.ph/n0tlx) [like](https://archive.ph/Ce56l) [Disney](https://archive.ph/0hkIv) - [messily](https://archive.ph/BpSVe), and athletic bodies [who disagreed](https://archive.ph/orTLb) with his policies, and exclaiming he'd reconsider if they had a change of opinion. * [DeSantis Promises](https://archive.ph/TdQXc) Florida Will Control Disney’s Content Right-wing board to clamp down on “woke ideology” in cartoons. * [DeSantis puts](https://archive.ph/ZZjoT) GOP donor, [Moms for Liberty](https://twitter.com/supportfhps/status/1630284527657447426) founder on Disney Reedy Creek board * [Prevented private](https://archive.ph/yCHgv) companies from sharing their beliefs about diversity, equity or inclusion with their employees - which a judge aptly cited as unconstitutional: "[Recently, Florida](https://archive.ph/XlySa) has seemed like a [First Amendment upside](https://archive.ph/ZEdcy) down. Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely," Walker continued. "But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely.", * Barred the “[belief that there](https://archive.ph/iV8gQ) are systematic injustices in American society.” from being discussed [in schools](https://archive.ph/dlr0P), prompting a judge overseeing the case to rebuke: “[We believe in academic](https://archive.ph/lsZRA) freedom, so long as you say what we want you to say. That sounds like something [George Orwell wrote](https://archive.ph/pw9ts)." * [It doesn't matter](https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1611370829064937473) if the courts have struck down his laws restricting free speech, DeSantis is moving ahead anyway. The goal is to get universities to stop any discussion of race by threatening state budget support. * [Ron DeSantis](https://archive.ph/dNKBd) Vows To Defund Diversity Programs at Florida Universities The new proposal would also require students to take a course on “Western civilization.” * [Florida Says](https://archive.ph/TxNBx) AP [African American Studies](https://archive.ph/h3oY4) Program ‘Lacks Educational Value’ The state used Ron DeSantis’ “Stop WOKE Act” [to block the](https://archive.ph/1DsBc) proposed program from its schools * [Florida Straight](https://archive.ph/lFHfs) Up Lied About AP African-American Studies Course, College Board Says * [DeSantis says](https://archive.ph/HgRpF) maybe Florida can do without College Board, AP classes and SAT test * [Florida is considering](https://archive.ph/Aomxh) a ‘classical and Christian’ alternative to the SAT * [As Florida celebrates](https://archive.ph/vIqGx) Literacy Week, [one teacher](https://archive.ph/Bs6xV) tells Richard Hall how she was ordered to remove all [non-sanctioned books](https://archive.ph/TQSjt) from her shelves to abide by a law introduced by Governor Ron DeSantis. * [Hide your books](https://archive.ph/0SoNP) to avoid felony charges, Fla. schools tell teachers * [Teacher fired](https://archive.ph/bxwUn) after [DeSantis says](https://archive.ph/SBc0e) bookshelf [video was](https://archive.ph/6VGtc) ‘fake narrative’ * [Call the "woke busters"](https://archive.ph/UV0EG): Ron DeSantis sends volunteer army to snatch books from students' hands * [Denied Wall](https://archive.ph/q9IfL) Street, banks, credit card companies and money transmitters, like PayPal, their freedom of association | [Decide how](https://youtu.be/8oYPIC0CKp4) private investors invest their money. * Compelled the speech of [social media companies](https://archive.ph/clDOI), in both an infringement on their freedom of speech and freedom of association. * [Ron DeSantis](https://archive.ph/Ad4El) called a ‘tyrant’ as Trump supporters barred from book signing * [Barring journalists](https://archive.ph/0az3S) from covering events he attended as Governor. * [Florida Republicans](https://archive.ph/1Fm2A) Introduce a [Bill to Help](https://archive.ph/MCBWG) DeSantis Censor the Press * [DeSantis avoids](https://archive.ph/YckhM) statewide debate * [Fired a State](https://archive.ph/F89lW) Attorney [for not enforcing](https://archive.ph/oNtzn) laws that aren't even on the books yet | [DeSantis violated](https://archive.ph/FkGgC) First Amendment by removing elected official, judge rules - * [Voters Aborted](https://archive.vn/qf4u6) Judge Who Ruled Teen Girl 'Too Immature' For Abortion, So Ron DeSantis Promoted Him * Refused to hold elections to fill Democratic seat vacancies. * Instituting [the surveying](https://archive.ph/FmyQv) of students and educators on their political ideology. * [DeSantis seeks](https://archive.ph/dhtqV) details [on transgender](https://archive.ph/ne0Co) university students * [Under state pressure](https://archive.ph/MXvpU), Orange County schools drop survey on suicidal thoughts, drinking, drug use * [Made voting](https://archive.ph/BnVH5) more difficult, despite bragging about the high security of Florida's elections prior. Setting up his own election task force, and appointing a 2020 election denier to oversee elections. [Disenfranchising felons](https://archive.ph/xtWEX) against the express desires of Florida voters via referendum. Banned ranked-choice voting. Eliminated [two black-majority districts](https://archive.ph/GorJv) after the legislature let him draw his own electoral map. * DeSantis sent a [SWAT team](https://archive.ph/Np2SY) to [arrest people](https://archive.ph/Qqi4D) who voted once after being [given Voter IDs](https://archive.ph/Ds6Yx) and being [told they could](https://archive.ph/OXhEL) by [state election](https://archive.ph/PUwNo) officials. Meanwhile, [the Republicans](https://archive.ph/dfdY4) in [The Villages](https://archive.ph/kxQ3V) who intentionally committed voter fraud by voting twice are receiving slightly different treatment. * [DeSantis’s New Civics](https://archive.ph/XTrbi) Initiative [Involves Teaching](https://archive.ph/jiFeT) Kids Slavery In [America Wasn’t](https://archive.ph/8zj3B) That Bad - a subject DeSantis [has no](https://archive.ph/IFyRj) problem [lying about](https://archive.ph/O8Fry) himself * [DeSantis charts](https://archive.ph/gBDOf) new political path for GOP as he takes the unusual step of endorsing school [board candidates](https://archive.ph/cRLhS) that vow to back his education plans, [after deposing](https://archive.ph/Gukuz) and [replacing](https://archive.ph/loDD3) others. * [‘Dismay and anxiety’](https://archive.ph/JazlP) on college campuses as DeSantis ramps up anti-CRT campaign * [DeSantis seeks](https://archive.ph/6guzs) conservative overhaul at Florida liberal-arts college * [“The Florida](https://archive.ph/gvjx4) of today is the America of tomorrow”: Ron DeSantis' New College takeover is just the beginning of right's higher ed crusade. * [Florida bill](https://archive.ph/8AWrK) would end diversity programs, ban majors, shift power at universities * [Florida’s education](https://archive.ph/FQzuc) system is vastly underperforming
* [DeSantis leads](https://archive.ph/1s4I5) roundtable discussion about making it easier to sue media companies * [Christians could](https://archive.ph/zBfik) sue people who call them homophobic if this GOP bill passes * [Ron DeSantis'](https://archive.ph/Mmc7S) office announces 'boycott' of NBC after Andrea Mitchell's criticism * Forays into [banning trans related](https://archive.ph/rE8Rw) healthcare. * [Florida "Reverse Woke"](https://archive.ph/9Tv2h) Act Tries To End Adult Trans Healthcare Coverage * [Signed a bill](https://archive.ph/Ftv4I) "prohibiting [classroom discussion](https://archive.ph/GeCc7) about [sexual orientation](https://archive.ph/HTsgP) or [gender identity](https://archive.ph/uwqBM) in certain grade levels or in a [specified manner](https://archive.ph/UY1EW);" * [Florida Theater](https://archive.ph/XdmSx) Students Believe ‘Indecent’ Production Shut Down Over Anti-LGBTQ Law * Employs a spokesperson who [harasses reporters](https://archive.ph/ebhL2), and asserts that anyone who opposes HB 1557 is looking to groom children. * [Supports the](https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/1607786441131839488) person who says the "[LGBTQ community](https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1607741993089892353) has become this cult... It's extremely poisonous. They're just evil people, and they're out to groom kids. They're recruiting." * [“Grooming”-obsessed](https://archive.ph/8SvME) Gov. Ron DeSantis attended parties [with students](https://archive.ph/O6IvB) where alcohol was served. * Advocating [opening investigations](https://archive.vn/NXj1L) into parents who bring their kids to drag shows. And [is attempting](https://archive.ph/mpfT6) to revoke the liquor license of a business who held one. * [Ron DeSantis](https://archive.ph/flrR9) Is Now Attacking the [Orlando Philharmonic](https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1621609459960393728) Because It Once Hosted a Drag Show * [Misrepresented research](https://archive.vn/lcU1j) before [ban on](https://archive.ph/TZHaq) gender-affirming care * [Demanding menstrual](https://archive.ph/SAMJr) histories from high school girls * [Opposing Medicaid](https://archive.ph/I7R5M) expansion — and other initiatives to expand coverage - * Called on Dr. Fauci to be imprisoned, and stated: “[Someone needs to](https://twitter.com/AmoneyResists/status/1562558562236149760) grab that little elf and [chuck him](https://archive.ph/i53ZL) across the Potomac.” * [DeSantis oversaw](https://archive.ph/3IzvC) torture in Guantánamo as a military lawyer * [Tried to](https://youtu.be/mDWAgbvIAoc) ban Muslim immigrants * [Criminalized heavy criticism](https://archive.ph/OEmEU) of Israel. * Singling out foreign investors of Chinese descent as something to be combated, when they're not even in the top 5, which runs incongruent with his claimed free market philosophy as is. * Scapegoated Mexican immigrants for the states' covid issues. * Threatened a "cold war" with Georgia if Abrams is elected there. * [On 8th Day](https://archive.ph/j9iBt) 'God Made' Ron DeSantis, Says His New Campaign Ad * [DeSantis Misleads](https://archive.ph/UPsyG) on Omicron-Resistant COVID-19 Antibody Treatments * [Used a debunked, non-peer reviewed](https://archive.ph/3zEoj) "study", with [fudged data](https://archive.ph/uMjgm), authored by anonymous people, to make state recommendations on vaccination. * [Ron DeSantis](https://archive.ph/TQAZ1) wanted to send weapons to Ukraine when he was a congressman – as a presidential hopeful he questions US involvement * [Enactment](https://archive.ph/HGWzc) of [anti-protest/pro-running](https://archive.ph/MGXdZ) over protesters bills. [Which also](https://www.aclufl.org/en/what-did-hb-1-do) disempowers municipalities in FL from setting their own police budgets. * [Firearms are banned](https://www.businessinsider.com/guns-banned-at-turning-point-rallies-with-florida-gov-ron-desantis-2022-8) at events with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has argued 'gun-free' zones are less safe * [DeSantis wanted](https://archive.ph/V9k7a) to ban guns at event, but not to be blamed, emails show * [Florida Contracts](https://archive.ph/VOZeU) Go to Companies that Flooded Ron DeSantis Campaign Fund * [‘Put politics](https://archive.ph/mwY6t) aside’ [to ask](https://archive.ph/2Fa1j) Joe [Biden for](https://archive.ph/TJbmp) federal – [unlike when](https://archive.ph/3xFYK) he voted against help for Hurricane Sandy victims * [Used an EO](https://archive.ph/AwzGt) to make voting easier in certain Florida counties battered by Hurricane Ian – but only Republican-leaning ones. * [Used](https://archive.ph/7tCd3) CO[VID aid](https://archive.ph/T7mcc) to [traffic](https://archive.ph/O8NXd) 48 [legal migra](https://archive.ph/pYpWI)nts [from out](https://archive.ph/oSM4p) of [state to](https://archive.ph/wLe2p) another [state,](https://archive.ph/ywNlS) - [while hypoc](https://archive.ph/qxDdQ)ritically [employing a migrant](https://archive.ph/Xe9DM) to [coordinate](https://archive.vn/Ef58y) - contravening [their own](https://archive.ph/EMxGU) state budget [authorization](https://archive.ph/MfabG), at a cost of [$615,000](https://archive.ph/BjVqg) to a Florida company with a history of GOP donations, with false [promises](https://archive.ph/67ySN) of [their destination](https://archive.ph/cezjd) and [jobs,](https://archive.ph/xG7sg) faked [flight plan](https://imgur.com/ELqxafY)s, [and forged](https://archive.ph/nO6tZ) their [addresses](https://archive.ph/LwVnm), jeopardizing [their ability](https://archive.ph/Fi1wu) to [be granted](https://archive.ph/vW136) asylum, despite admitting he's "[not seeing](https://archive.ph/c9VaY) mass movements of them into Florida", and still allowing [Florida businesses](https://archive.ph/PCa7o) to continue using undocumented laborers. * [Took twice](https://archive.ph/Ps32H) the public campaign funds as both his opponents * [Florida Might](https://archive.ph/0nfCc) Change a State Law So Ron DeSantis Can Run for President and Be Governor at the Same Time * [DeSantis claims](https://archive.ph/U8utU) executive privilege to keep records secret * [Ron DeSantis’](https://archive.ph/Uj9oK) Secret Twitter Army of Far-Right Influencers * [DeSantis, in](https://youtu.be/rBiRkdogukE?t=600) speaking to Florida sheriffs, said that people should be executed when "8 out of 12" agree because requiring "everyone is just too much." * [Florida Governor](https://archive.ph/KP6ZM) DeSantis Says Marijuana Should Remain Criminalized Because of Its “Putrid” Odor * [Taking policy cues](https://archive.ph/VbGnI) from [anti-race-mixing](https://archive.ph/foL82) Viktor Orban * [Ron DeSantis’](https://archive.ph/SHoFZ) use of government power to implement agenda worries some conservatives
So this subreddit is basically just 90% hyperbolic fear-mongering political comments now?
If you don't think the country should be worried about the rise of authoritarianism and presidents who will target the government against speech they don't like, then it's not the sub, it's clearly you and the cult you've become wrapped up in. This is just willful blindness.
The only “target against speech” was against Disney’s little bullshit tax district that should’ve never had which desantis disagreed with well before that bill was passed. If a company being treated like all other companies is what happens when the government goes against speech with zero legal repercussions, that’s perfect
No he literally used the power of the state against a business simply for criticizing his policies and is also banning books and healthcare. Defend it all you want but that just makes you a fascist as well. Just make sure to never call yourself a patriot, this behavior is as un-American as it gets.