Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has blocked:
1) school mask mandates (instead parents may choose if their child wears a mask to school or not);
2) school closures;
3) lockdowns;
4) vaccine passports
and more. And (I’m not making this up) DeSantis sells “Don’t Fauci My Florida” on T-shirts and drink koozies (https://secure.winred.com/ron-desantis/storefront/) on an Internet storefront. (What next? Free “Don’t Fauci My Florida” T-shirts for parents who have lost a child to COVID?)
As of August 1, DeSantis’ policies put Florida at the top in per capita COVID hospitalizations. Not a record to be proud of. At present, hospitals are putting patients in hallways, cafeterias, and parking garages.
Texas governor Abbott has followed much the same path as DeSantis. On August 8, a Dallas County judge said:
“[There are] . . . zero ICU beds left for children. . . . That means if your child' is in a car wreck, if your child has a congenital heart defect or something and needs an ICU bed, or more likely if they have Covid and need an ICU bed, we don't have one. Your child will wait for another child to die. Your child will just not get on the ventilator, your child will be CareFlighted to Temple or Oklahoma City or wherever we can find them a bed, but they won't be getting one here unless one clears.”
Aside from the obvious—the shock, the ignorance, the science-denial, the sheer disregard for the welfare and lives of human beings; the hollow slogans of freedom while people die—there’s something more troubling, more ominous.
DeSantis and Abbott ARE DOING THIS BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE IT WILL HELP THEM GET RE-ELECTED.
Which means either of two things, neither of them reassuring.
1) The majority of voters approve of their policies; they think the governors are doing the right thing. In which case, red alert, the Trump crazies are in the majority.
2) The majority of voters disapprove of their policies; they think the governors are acting recklessly, even criminally. In which case (assuming the governors expect to win anyway), the governors expect gerrymandering, voter suppression, and threats of violence to swing the election their way.
“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” – Woody Allen
Of course, there’s a third way: fight like hell for your right to vote, to be heard.
And (maybe) don’t be afraid to talk about rigged election.
Because it just may be a clever form of gaslighting for the other side to cry election fraud so often. It prompts us to say, “No. The elections are fair. The results are accurate. There is no fraud.”
Yes, but “the results were accurate” merely means every vote was accurately counted. But what about the people who were prevented from voting?
It’s like Trump using the term “fake news” so often that he owns it. So, news commentators rarely called what he had to say “fake news”, much less “lie”. Rather it was “inaccurate” or “there is no evidence to support what Trump said” or something similar.
And did Trump’s saccharine, jingoistic “I love America” nonsense prevent those who really love America from saying so? Because if I want to save the country from climate change, if I want everyone to have access to adequate health care, affordable living, and a living wage, then isn’t that loving America? Loving America isn’t giving tax breaks to the already wealthy while some people can’t afford their medications.
If DeSantis and Abbott win their next election, either 1) the inmates are in the majority, or 2) we didn’t do enough to ensure a fair election.
I hope 1) isn’t true, and that 2) doesn’t happen.