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Florida is down so bad | Florida's Troubles Continue to Mount (open.substack.com)

submitted 1 year ago by trashhalo@beehaw.org to c/politics@beehaw.org

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The author argues that Florida is struggling in many ways recently. Ron DeSantis' handling of the COVID pandemic led to many preventable deaths in Florida, contradicting early articles praising his response. Now DeSantis is known more for his anti-gay and anti-science stances rather than effective governance. His campaign for president seems doomed to fail due to his lack of charisma and poor performance as governor. The author expresses sympathy for Florida residents dealing with the fallout of climate change, disasters, and poor leadership.

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[–] VoxAdActa@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

is this seriously what we’re arguing?

No.

I'm arguing that voter suppression cannot possibly account for the 65% of registered voters in Florida who did not vote one way or the other for DeSantis's second term.

I'm arguing that a substantial portion of voters in Florida were, if not DeSantis fans, fine enough with DeSantis to not bother going out to vote against him.

I feel like you're arguing that all of the non-voters would have voted against DeSantis, but did not because they are systematically oppressed. That 14 million citizens were actively denied the right to vote and the Florida gubernatorial election was stolen by voter suppression. If that's not what you're claiming, then we don't have anything to argue about; if that is what you're claiming, I'm going to need more substantial evidence that Florida's democracy is in the same state as Myanmar's and Zimbabwe's than what has been so far provided. If anywhere close to 14 million people in one state are being actively prevented from voting for DeSantis's opponent, that would probably be the biggest scandal, with the biggest cover-up, in American history by a wide margin. It makes the Business Plot look like the schemes of a grade-school playground clique.

1 million people being disenfranchised is awful. It does not prove that the 65% of registered voters who did not vote were directly oppressed by the government and denied their rights, and such a claim would be entirely hyperbolic, and would only serve to obscure the fact that a large majority of Floridians are fine with DeSantis and the GOP. I get that it's more empowering to believe that we can fight a few public entities engaging in voter suppression to free Florida from their minority rule, as opposed to believing that we'd be fighting to change the opinions of over 10 million individuals who literally don't care about us and who wouldn't bat an eye if we were all hunted down by DeSantis's private brownshirts.

I'm not trying to fight those people, or change them. I fled before Fox News told them it was time to "cut the tall trees", and I advise everyone else to do the same.