Let me put it kindly: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a hateful, corrupt, malignant boil of smug ambition. He has spent the last year getting people killed in an effort to raise his profile and further ingratiate himself with the extreme far right of the Republican Party. As such, I’m pleased to report that DeSantis is having an absolutely terrible week.
On Covid, DeSantis has tried to walk the line between anti-science, conspiracy-obsessed, performatively defiant Republican and a governor who is constitutionally required to not directly encourage constituents to commit suicide. His strategy has relied on flippant, cruel, and very public-facing policy choices like banning mask orders and vaccine passports and trying to force schools open, while also encouraging people to get vaccinated (even if he only delivered vaccines to his rich donors).
Now, his attempt to strike a horrible balance is blowing up in his face.
Covid cases in Florida are skyrocketing, ending the inexplicably glowing coverage he was receiving from national media and drawing more scrutiny to his record over the past year. Those sunny headlines about his handling of Covid (again, inexplicable) and presidential chances have been replaced by scathing headlines like this one:
And then there are idiotic and cynical headlines like this one from idiot cynic Chris Cillizza, but at least it’s not raving punditry about a murderer anymore:
They aren’t just nailing him in the national media, either. In the Miami Herald yesterday, a doctor published a major op-ed ripping DeSantis for his handling of the virus and giving DeSantis urgent advice that he is very likely to ignore. After all, as the doctor noted, DeSantis has been openly and performatively defying science and logic of late, wearing his idiocy on his sleeve to the point that he’s now selling t-shirts that say “Don’t Fauci My Florida” to raise money for his campaign.
DeSantis needs to stop patting himself on the back and tell every Floridian to get real about COVID-19. Until he does that, he’s making my job as a physician more difficult.
Ouch. And now, like other Republicans, DeSantis has spent the last two weeks scrambling to more overtly encourage people to get vaccinated… which is in turn really pissing off the anti-vax nut jobs he’s been courting for the last year.
“Don’t let political correctness get in the way of health choices,” former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said recently of DeSantis’ comments, speaking on “The Right Side with Doug Billings,” a conservative radio host and podcaster.
Another conservative radio host, Stew Peters, last week called DeSantis a “sellout” and suggested the governor was taking bribes, though didn’t specify from whom.
It is in no way a good thing that Covid is surging in the state, but after DeSantis largely avoided criticism during the first few waves, it’s a silver lining to see him take it from all sides this time.
Oh, and then there’s that new billboard up right near the governor’s mansion:
The billboard is the work of a progressive PAC called Ron Be Gone, which is obviously working to stop DeSantis from winning re-election next year and thereby crash his presidential aspirations. It’s the first I’ve seen of any progressive group (let alone media outlet) really play up DeSantis’s relationship with Gaetz, which is a weak spot that must be highlighted whenever possible. Gaetz was DeSantis’s top adviser during his run for governor and helped him staff up his administration in early 2019. Clearly, DeSantis had to have known a whole lot about what Gaetz was getting up to.
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