On November 8, 2022, a hyped-up Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, fresh off his reelection, celebrated his crushing defeat of the Democrat-of-convenience, Charlie Crist, by gleefully proclaiming:
"We will never ever surrender to the woke mob! Florida is where woke goes to die!"
It was the high point of Desantis’s political career. While Florida was trying to slit “woke’s” throat, Ron killed his current and future presidential aspirations with a run of such lavish excess and modest achievement it should be called “The Idiot’s Guide to Running a Presidential Campaign.”
After his for-the-ages failure, the naked emperor slunk back to Tallahassee. Once back home, the politically emasculated martinet discovered that political reputation has the shelf-life of unchilled fish. In addition, his mates in the state government learned that ‘anti-woke’ was hurting them — not just the victims of their political sadism.
In March 2024, the Republican-dominated Florida legislature rejected four anti-woke measures that DeSantis had lobbied for. The bills that died would have:
- banned rainbow flags from public buildings.
- banned the removal of Confederate monuments.
- required transgender people to use their sex assigned at birth on driver's licenses — something the state Department of Motor Vehicles already mandates.
- forbade local and state government officials from using transgender people’s pronouns.
We should not attribute this new-found decency to a religious conversion. The anti-social warriors are as likely bigoted as they ever were. But their fear of a powerful governor is evaporating. It has being replaced by an awareness that Florida voters — even some of the conservative ones — are not all unmitigated shits willing to visit hate on their neighbors. And these enlightened voters are making noise. As the Washington Post reported:
But the pushback is growing.
Parents and others have organized and protested schoolbook bans. Abortion rights advocates gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot in Florida in November. A bill that would have established “fetal personhood” stalled before it could reach a full vote.
Judges are also canceling some of DeSantis’s marquee laws, including the “Stop Woke Act.” A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled Monday that the law “exceeds the bounds” of the Constitution’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression.
Even Ron DeSantis has acknowledged reality. He keeps calling reports of Florida banning classic books a hoax. And he still embraces Florida home-grown, but dark money funded, academic morality police “Mom’s for Liberty.” But he has acknowledged that the state might have gone too far by removing certain books from school shelves. And he has suggested laws on book challenges should be “tweaked” to prevent “bad actors” from having too much influence.
Note: Ron should ask himself whose script those bad actors are reading. And until politicians leave school book choices to teachers and librarians, the wrong people will always have too much influence.
Florida will not change overnight. That would require too many people to admit they were wrong — something conservative politicians cannot do. However, MAGA seems to have overestimated what percentage of the electorate is unquestioningly onboard with heartless opportunism.
Democratic State Senator Shevrin Jones stated the obvious when he commented on DeSantis’s crash landing.
“When his presidential race ended, I think that a lot of his influence and power died at the same time, And I think that people in Florida and across the country, including Republicans, are starting to see that the culture wars are getting us nowhere.”
Is Jones right about Floridians and other Americans? Are some Republicans starting to see that the culture wars are getting us nowhere? I suspect the answers depend on geography. Republicans outside of the Bible Belt may turn down the dial on legislated hate. But the Christian nationalists may be so fanatical in the fundamentalist states — and in such safe seats — that their anti-woke legacy will last awhile. (Am I right? Agree or disagree, I welcome your opinion in the comments.)
Florida straddles both worlds. Northern Florida neighbors Katie Britt’s Alabama — the home of ‘one cell is a person’ nutters. But Central/Southern Florida is home to many Northerners and Midwesterners whose ideology may not be as religiously absolute.
Two local elections have already given drowning Democrats a straw. Democrat Donna Deegan won the mayoralty in Jacksonville — a city that Republicans had led for 26 of the previous 30 years. And the Democrats flipped Florida House District 35 in a January special election.
It is premature to say that Florida is in play for the Democrats in the November general election. But if the swing states inch leftward as Florida appears to be doing, that will be good news for Biden, liberals, and democracy in America.
