Saturday, August 20, 2022

Ron DeSantis and the "Florida of the North"

 


FL Gov. Ron DeSantis, running for his second term, came to Pittsburgh yesterday to help out another GOP gubernatorial hopeful, the insurrectionist, theocrat and anti-Semite, Doug Mastriano. Now, some people might think damn, why does DeSantis want to do that? Isn't he concerned some of Mastriano's bad political karma is going to rub off on him? After all, this is someone who clearly is intending to run nationally, but local faith leaders in PA. are out condemning this. He might not even be helping himself in Florida, right?

I genuinely don't think that's it though. He didn't come to Pennsylvania, one of the contested states in the 2020 election, to hang out with an insurrectionist theocrat in spite of the optics. He's doing it because of the optics. Remember, when there were Nazis running around Orlando, this is the man who was absolutely not going to baited into trash-talking them. 


What DeSantis seems to be counting on is that if he seems to be the not-Trump alternative, he can wallow in the Trump base all he likes and the mainstream press will find reasons to proclaim him different and normal compared to Trump, just because he doesn't look freakish and can talk in proper sentences. Embracing the hateful bigots will be forgiven or even forgotten. After all, didn't Trump weather his Charlottesville comments and the support he received from militia folks? (And aren't Alex Joens, Laura Ingraham, and others starting to definitely sound more than DeSantis-curious?)

It really looks like Republicans, like Kari Lake in Arizona, just aren't going to be overly fussed about whether they are seen as friendly to anti-Semites. And if someone makes an issue of it, why! It's the hateful media's fault for pointing it out! 

As GOP firebrands (for a value of "firebrand" that means "incendiary assholes) like Marjorie Taylor Greene make clear, the theocrat vote is an anti-intellectual, anti-education, and anti-reality vote, and that's who Desantis wants to get. He and Mastriano both have destroying public education in their sights. And DeSantis has already showed a willingness to embrace Qanon-level crazy, via his Surgeon General/.

I'm deeply concerned about Mastriano's stated desire to turn Pennsylvania into the "Florida of the North"--even if I am a bit reassured by the current polls. But what DeSantis is banking on isn't the GOP candidate's success in PA, but in his, and his supporters, not going anywhere. And them remembering that time Ron came on up to "help". 


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