I have the most tolerant wife in the world. Last August, she let me spend $1,525 of our money on a half-page ad in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune bashing evil Republicans. This month, goaded by the nonstop campaign of hate from Gov. Ron DeSantis and Moms for Bigotry (liberty is the last thing on their agenda), I did it again, except I escalated to Florida's largest-circulation paper the Tampa Bay Times and it cost $2,205. That's two nice vacations I owe her.
For the record, we're not rich; I could only throw this spitball because my mom died at 92 in January and as her executor I found she made me the beneficiary of a small IRA. Obviously I'm fortunate to be able to afford to shoot my mouth off beyond posting here and on Spoutible and batting roughly .500 in getting letters printed in the Herald-Tribune (I live in Bradenton, next door to Sarasota).
My ad there was tied up for a month because the legal department balked at possible libel—I wasn't allowed to say the governor "doesn't give a crap about" the people of Florida or call his surgeon general "an anti-vax quack."
To my chagrin, it also landed with a fizzle, yielding some nice thanks and thumbs-up at Daily Kos and via email but surprisingly none of the hate mail and death threats I'd anticipated. (I included my email address and said "Come at me, bros.") Upon reflection I decided no one must have bothered to read its dense 500 words of text.
Hoping to do better, I made this second ad shorter and punchier (150 words) and blasted MAGA Nazis without naming any individuals, though I had everything from DeSantis's vicious policies to wingnuts' cheering for Kyle Rittenhouse in mind. Submitting and getting approval took just three days, with the only legal demand being "Paid Advertisement" not once but three times across the top.
The Tampa Bay Times is owned by the nonprofit journalism group the Poynter Institute, but is a for-profit enterprise—the reason that, though it tops all Florida papers with America's eighth largest circulation, it cut its print edition to only Wednesdays and Sundays when advertising plunged in the pandemic. I feared my one-time ad would cost the "open rate" of $7,560 which I couldn't afford, but the sales rep who promptly contacted me (I had to give my email to download the media kit) said the $2,205 rate—$440 cheaper than a Sunday ad—would apply.
By 3 p.m. on the day it appeared, I'd received 30 cheers or positive emails but again zero abuse or argument. Do Republicans skip or stop reading after one sentence they don't like? Are they functional illiterates like Donald Trump, whose staff had to prepare presidential briefings in the form of pictures mostly of himself? Or—my theory—do they simply ignore any pushback, opposition, or reality?
You can read the ad on page 6 of the July 5 e-newspaper at tampabay.com, or for convenience's sake below. Feel free to spread it around. My only regret is that I didn't expand my signature with "64, white, cis, straight, pissed off."
In case you haven't noticed …
When they say "woke," they mean Black.
When they say "Soros" or "globalist," they mean Jewish.
When they say "parents' rights," they mean Christian zealots' rights to overrule all other parents, ban books, and dictate lessons.
When they say "freedom," they mean freedom to inspect your son's genitals and log your daughter's periods. Freedom to indoctrinate and impose an agenda, just like they accuse their opponents of doing.
Freedom to restrict voting and overturn elections. Freedom to deny medical treatment so women die and kids kill themselves.
Freedom to wield the power of the state and applaud vigilante violence against anyone who disagrees or looks different.
Today's Republican Party serves exactly three groups: the NRA, untaxed billionaires, and bigots who want white supremacist theocracy.
To say you're a Republican is to say you have exactly two values: privilege and hate.
Paid for by Eric Grevstad, Bradenton, Florida
Update 1 p.m. 7/6/23: Finally one hate mail about “killing baby’s and destroying our once great city’s”! The score is 43 to 1.