Friends were planning on retiring to Florida.
Karen, who isn’t one, calls herself an iguana. She likes it hot, the hotter the better. She does not like cold and wet.
She’s been living in Michigan since 1988, where cold and wet happens a lot.
Her parents moved to a retirement community in Florida, and she visited, regularly. She loved the heat and the humidity. She enjoyed swimming in the ocean, and watching the wildlife, including her fellow iguanas.
By the time her husband retired, she’d changed her mind.
She doesn’t like Michigan winters any more than she did ten years ago. Especially not last winter, when her furnace quit at Christmas.
But she likes them better than the idea of living in Trumpland.
My friend is a progressive, politically. She’s neo pagan. Her husband is an atheist. Their child is trans gendered. Florida is not the place for them.
They are staying in Michigan, where they have friends, a nice house, and a governor who is in her right mind.
Their money is staying in Michigan too.
I’m sure she is not alone.
How many prosperous gay couples have decided to spend their money in a saner state?
How many Black families have decided to give the Florida theme parks a miss, and spend their vacations someplace where they are less likely to be targets?
How many older Americans have decided to stay where they are once they retire?
How many snowbirds are wintering in their home states now?
How many people from across the pond, who were planning on a trip to Miami, or Orlando, or maybe the Keys, canceled those plans, and are heading to the Bahamas, or the Canary Islands, or EuroDisney?
DeSantis wants to be president, so he’s appealing to people in Iowa, Texas, Wyoming and New Hampshire.
As a result, he is alienating people in Massachusetts, New York and Michigan, not to mention England, Germany and Sweden.
Which is probably not good for the sunshine state.
How long will Floridians allow DeSantis and his ilk to convince them to cut their own throats?
How long before Florida becomes Appalachia with theme parks?
How long before the Republicans run out of scapegoats, or the voters see through their lies?