DeSantis faces pushback as voters tire of war on woke

[diegobueno]

DeSantis faces pushback in Florida as voters tire of war on woke

Conservative lawmakers rejected a host of new culture wars proposals in the legislature
by Lori Rozsa

The bill banning rainbow flags from public buildings in Florida sounded like a sure bet. State Rep. David Borrero (R), the legislation’s sponsor, argued that it was needed to prevent schoolchildren from being “subliminally indoctrinated.” That rationale echoed other measures championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) as part of his “war on woke.”But instead of sailing through the Republican-dominated legislature, the DeSantis-backed bill died a quick legislative death, making it only as far as one subcommittee.

It wasn’t the only culture war proposal from conservative lawmakers to end up in the bill graveyard during the session that ended Friday. One rejected bill would have banned the removal of Confederate monuments. Another would have required transgender people to use their sex assigned at birth on driver's licenses — something the state Department of Motor Vehicles is already mandating. A third proposed forbidding local and state government officials from using transgender people’s pronouns.

Some of those ideas have come up in the past and may surface again next year. But the fact that the bills failed, even with public support from DeSantis, marks a change from the days when the GOP supermajority in Tallahassee passed nearly everything the governor asked for.

Florida has firmly cemented itself in recent years as ground zero for the nation’s culture wars. The Sunshine State is the birthplace of conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty, the original law restricting LGBTQ+ discussion in classrooms, one of the strictest abortion laws in the country and legislation that has led to the banning of more books than in any other state in America.
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 the governor recently admitted the state might have gone too far in trying to remove certain books from school shelves, suggesting laws on book challenges should be “tweaked” to prevent “bad actors” from having too much influence.
Democrats and other DeSantis critics say the laws that the governor has pushed will continue to shape public life in Florida for years to come, and they don’t expect the Republican supermajority in the state House to suddenly abandon conservative causes. But they do sense a shift.
“When his presidential race ended, I think that a lot of his influence and power died at the same time,” said state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a South Florida Democrat. “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.”

Pushback from within

In the past year, the Florida GOP has been rocked by a sex scandal involving the party chairman and infighting between DeSantis and Trump supporters.
GOP voter registration numbers continued to surpass Democrats, but the party lost two local races they were expected to win: the mayor’s office in Jacksonville, and a closely contested special election to replace a Republican state representative near Orlando.
The legislative seat flipped blue in January when Democrat Tom Keen defeated his Republican rival, a conservative school board member who raised more than twice as much money and promised to fight “the woke agenda.” Keen campaigned on lowering property insurance rates and protecting access to abortion.
DeSantis, who was largely absent from the state while he campaigned for the GOP presidential nomination, has urged lawmakers to “stay the course.” But his doomed presidential bid changed political calculations in and out of the state.
Many lawmakers credit Republican Senate President Kathleen Passidomo for some of the shift. Passidomo stopped several culture war bills from progressing in the Senate, including one that would have punished local officials who oversaw the removal of Confederate monuments.
DeSantis strongly supported the bill, arguing that it is problematic to apply a “hyper-woke 21st-century test” to historical figures.
“It’s totally appropriate for the legislature to say, ‘You know what? We’re going to stop this madness,’” DeSantis said at a news conference in Jacksonville in February, two months after the city pulled down a controversial Jim Crow-era monument called “Women of the Southland.”
Among the public speakers who supported the monuments bill at a Senate hearing was a man who said he wanted to protect Confederate statues to “push White culture, white supremacy.”
Democrats walked out of the hearing, while Republicans on the committee — some of whom visibly recoiled at the white-supremacy remarks — approved the bill. But Passidomo refused to bring it to the full Senate. “I'm not going to bring a bill to the floor that is so abhorrent to everybody,” she said.
The Senate president also rejected most of the 10 bill priorities the state Republican Party outlined in a legislative wish list, saying the party didn’t dictate what lawmakers should do.
DeSantis did not respond to a request for comment but said Friday at an end-of-session news conference that he was satisfied with what was passed by the legislature this year. Sponsors of the bills protecting monuments and outlawing rainbow flags also did not respond to requests for comment.
DeSantis did see some of his priorities pass. The legislature approved a law that the governor pushed prohibiting sleeping in public. And a ban on “woke meat” — food products cultivated in a lab from animal cells — easily got the green light from Republican lawmakers.
“You need meat, okay? Like, we’re going to have fake meat? That doesn’t work,” he said at a news conference in February, rejecting arguments that banning it could stifle innovation.
Even DeSantis’s budget requests faced pushback this year. The governor wanted an additional $5 million for his controversial migrant relocation program, but lawmakers only agreed to current spending levels. He also tried to add $57 million toward the recently reestablished Florida State Guard. Legislators signed off on a lower amount — $18.5 million, and added a requirement for detailed spending reports from the agency.
“What we saw this session was that bills that were either DeSantis ideas or retreads from last year really didn’t get anywhere,” said the state House’s minority leader, Fentrice Driskell. “I think in large part it’s because DeSantis has lost steam. He lost on the national stage, and that emboldened the Republicans in the legislature to feel like they don’t have to go along to get along with this guy anymore.”

Tired of woke

Parents in Miami-Dade County founded Moms for Libros last year as an antidote to Moms for Liberty, the Florida-based group promoted by DeSantis.
The founders of Moms for Libros — Moms for Books — say they got together to battle what they see as censorship in schools. Their ranks have grown in the past year, and they say their messages — promoted in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole — are resonating even with parents who initially supported DeSantis’s education bills.
“A lot of the conservative Cuban American parents I talk to say they thought it was just about keeping sex out of schools,” said Vanessa Brito, co-founder of Moms For Libros. “But when they learn what was really happening, like when they heard that a book about Celia Cruz was taken off the shelves, they are very concerned. Having the government come in and tell you that your kids can’t have a book about Celia Cruz, that caused an uproar.”
The book, “Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa,” was temporarily removed from Duval County schools last year.
Brito said she talks to parents who are starting to object to the state’s growing list of rules and laws pertaining to education. In one incident that made international headlines, a Miami-area school required students to get parental permission to attend an “extracurricular activity” that included a talk by Florida historian Marvin Dunn, a Black scholar who has chronicled racist incidents in state history.
“Republican, Democrat, independent, people just don’t want books banned in our country. So it was just a collection of bad ideas that imploded on DeSantis,” Dunn said. “And now he’s actively trying to back off of these policies that have caused so much confusion in the state and in the education system at all levels.”
School officials said they were only following the new laws; DeSantis said they were being “absurd” and told them to “knock it off.”
“The vagueness of the laws have led to full-blown censorship, and people now see that happening in real time,” said Brito, who voted for DeSantis the first time he ran for governor in 2018. “And from what I’ve seen, they’re getting tired of ‘woke this, woke that.’”
The governor has also seen his “anti-woke” agenda challenged in court. In addition to the recent ruling on the “Stop Woke Act,” federal judges have halted enforcement of a law DeSantis signed last year that targeted drag shows. A different court declared that a rule from the state health agency that would ban Medicaid payments for gender-affirming care is unconstitutional.
DeSantis did nonetheless score a legal victory when a federal appeals panel sided with him over the Walt Disney Co. in January in regards to the state takeover of the entertainment giant’s special taxing district. But even with that win, the consequences of the feud have been far reaching, with the company canceling plans to build a $1 billion employee campus in Florida.
Pocketbook worries mount
Since his return from the campaign trail, DeSantis has been flying around the state holding news conferences several times a week. He’s talked about congressional term limits, making retail theft a felony and cracking down on rowdy spring breakers. He’s also sent more state law enforcement officers to the southern border in Texas and ordered the release of grand jury records from the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Political analyst Susan MacManus said voters in Florida are paying more attention to pocketbook issues than culture war laws, and state lawmakers — most of whom are up for reelection this year — need to pay attention. Republicans who may have been following DeSantis’s lead on laws that target the LGBTQ+ community and Black history are hearing different concerns when they return to their districts.
“There’s a concern I’m hearing more and more from people, and in the media, that Florida is becoming too expensive,” said MacManus, professor emeritus at the University of South Florida. “We’re seeing stories on the nightly news about people moving out of the state because the cost of living is too high here.”
With homeowners and auto insurance costs that are more than triple that of other states, MacManus said Republican and Democratic voters have more pressing concerns than culture wars.
“These legislators are coming back and, and their families and friends are saying they should be doing something that is going help us,” MacManus said. “The woke things may be interesting to some Republicans, but there are bigger issues.”
Mike Fasano, a lifelong Republican who served in the House and Senate for 18 years and is now the Pasco County tax collector, said most culture war issues are not on the minds of families struggling to pay rising property and auto insurance costs.
“I don’t think families, whether they’re Republican or Democratic or independent, are sitting at the breakfast table talking about which books should be banned,” Fasano said. “They’re talking about how they’re going to pay their rent or mortgage and the electric bill and the premium on their homeowners insurance.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... gislature/

[Belle]

The usual partisan media is barracking for the federal government and its hard left ideologies. How do you think this contributes to a 'free and fair' fourth estate? Instead of a nuanced discussion about all these issues there is the standard response; woke good, conservatives bad. And yet, staggeringly and hypocritically, the Left accuses conservatives of 'threats to freedom and democracy'.

The biggest so-called 'threats' come from a media which is only interested in advocacy for one political party. All autocrats know and knew that and quickly rush/ed out of the blocks to establish their own 'brand'. This latter is exactly what's happening in the USA.

Any hysterics about 'threats to democracy' need to be met head-on with some intellectual honesty and soul-searching (for a change) about the roles of BOTH parties in providing those 'threats'. Since the NYT and WAPO see existential threats to a Trump Presidency (which I still say won't happen), then we can only expect them to grow more shrill and partisan.

Transpose those 'discussions' at the breakfast table about how 'books should be banned' to a similar discussion about how "we can't use certain words and utter certain sentences at school". It's all on the same continuum as book banning. And it's the people who are already educated, successful and affluent in the state of Florida (and elsewhere) who will be the agents of these 'luxury beliefs' which are driving the ordinary people mad. Those dependent upon the state will fall for anything as long as they hold out their hands long enough for them to be filled. This isn't going to last and is totally unsustainable.

The Left willingly employs the tropes of the Third Reich only when it suits them. This provides a very poor substitute for sociological and economic progressivism. Your election will be fought on bread and butter issues ("it's the economy, stupid") but for this you need competence of the type delivered by Ron DeSantis.

We have many of the same problems here in Australia, just not quite so loony. Yet.

[diegobueno]

The usual partisan media is barracking for the federal government and its hard left ideologies.

So the federal government of the United States itself is "hard left" and must be opposed? As a patriotic American I must protest. The United States government is based on the rule of law, not the rule of personality, something the modern day GOP has forgotten. What they call "the deep state" is actually the set of institutional safeguards to keep the executive power in check.

The biggest so-called 'threats' come from a media which is only interested in advocacy for one political party. All autocrats know and knew that and quickly rush/ed out of the blocks to establish their own 'brand'. This latter is exactly what's happening in the USA.

I have to agree with you here. The Rupert Murdoch controlled media are only interested in advocacy for one political party. Their standard response is "conservative good, woke bad" . Woke is only an issue in relation to the Right's attempts to suppress it through legal means.

The kids on campuses who shout down conservative speakers or even otherwise liberal speakers who don't share the same view on a particular issue are obnoxious, but they don't have the power of the state on their side, which is why they resort to shouting people down.

Ron DeSantis, and I only focus on him because he personifies what Republicans are doing all over the country, is using the power of the state to legislate his own political view into law, and now even conservatives in Florida are seeing why this is harmful. This is what the article I posted is about. Imagine these as actual enforceable laws:

1. A ban on rainbow flags. So now the state can dictate what kind of flag you can fly?
2. A ban on removing confederate monuments. A good portion of Florida's population were enslaved under the confederacy. Their concerns should be disregarded?
3. A law to dictate which pronouns can be used. Really? This is what the state should be enforcing?

Book bans in public schools is already a thing in Florida, and now people are finding out what this really means. Hispanic voters, many of them conservative (a lot of people in Florida are descended from refugees from Cuba) are finding out that books about hispanics are being banned. Black students are having to read that enslaved people benefited by learning valuable work skills, or that some slaves were paid.

Even conservatives are questioning the wisdom of Florida spending state money to ship migrants from out of state (Texas) to another state (New York or Massachusetts).

Once the citizenry of Florida comprehends the full implications of the radical right-wing policies being enacted in their state, they will rise against it, and are beginning to do so now. DeSantis, now a proven loser on the federal level, will soon be a total loser in his home state.

[Belle]

Your government is hard Left because it has infantilized the people by going after one cohort on behalf of another. Analogous to asking the playground bully to bash up the kid who pokes his tongue out at you. There are other characteristics, inter alia:

The big bad 'wealthy' - don't worry, we'll look out for you (er, no you won't). The 'MAGA people they're bad and we're good. Don't know what a woman is? Look no further than cow-towing to uber-minorities whilst calling huge swathes of ordinary Americans 'deplorables'. Want to say something on campus or in the media? We'll shut you down. Be quiet; this place is only for progressives - the rest of you are bad people; racist, sexist, homophobic, on and on it goes. Parents don't want their kids mutilated in under-age gender reassignment? We'll see about that! Since when do parents have rights over their children? They don't. Lastly, I reject hatred in all its forms and that's what characterizes the modern hard Left. Jordan Peterson has blitzed it: pathological compassion which only thinly disguises envy and resentment. And they are tokenistic to the point of satire.

Identity politics took off like a rocket under Obama and Biden has ramped this up on steroids - his puppet masters, that is. I don't think I've seen a more divisive, dystopian ideology in the western world in my lifetime. (Thank goodness there is now a significant rump of public intellectuals calling out DEI corruption, trans re-assignment and identity fetishization - and not before time.) It is peak decadence and evidence of a society collapsing from within. Trying to bring the state of Florida back to a position in the centre is now "radical right wing". That only demonstrates that, for the Left, not being of the Left makes you 'far right'. I know people who are far right (not many) and I reject their ideas as too much one way. When electioneering on behalf of my conservative daughter-in-law at the last federal election, the spouse and myself found that we had more in common with our centre Left confreres on that polling booth than the extremist Left and the minor extremist parties. We talked about our similarities as the folks arrived to cast their vote, sharing our experience over coffee and cake. The main difference between us is that they looked to the state to maintain their living standards and we look to the individual.

Many millions support Ron DeSantis; a decent family man (enough to turn the left apoplectic as this did in Australia from the jump with Morrison) who reflects the reality for many parents (and grandparents, like me) who have watched religion thrown out of schools and replaced by 'trannies' and gender ideology. Don't know what a woman is? Why not confuse ALL school children in their daily lessons. It's beyond dystopian. DeSantis was always a threat to the left because of his Christian values but, above all, his competence. He's a good man and I only wish to god he was in Australia to shape things up. Many people have moved to Florida and Texas from California because of the appalling shape of that latter state. Poor leadership and incompetence is always at the forefront in such circumstances. I follow these issues closely through wide reading, podcasts and op eds. (It was entertaining recently to see Dr. Phil and David Mamet laughing at Bill Maher when he said Gavin Newsom was a smart, good man!! And Dr. Phil came back with a stunning one-liner in response to Maher's off-the-charts naivete on 'Real Time'; "yeah, well if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle".)

My final point: demonizing 'the rich' has always angered me. Ben Shapiro correctly observed recently that the Left (it's only ever them!) wants 'the rich' to pay more tax; "well, I'm rich and I pay heaps of tax", he observed. And tax on existing assets - that's not the same as INCOME tax nor should it be treated as such.

[diegobueno]

Well, that's such an all-encompassing rant, there's nothing there to hold on to and respond to.

I do have to snicker at the idea that DeSantis displays "Christian values". It seems to be doctrine among modern evangelicals to negate the teachings of Christ in their treatment of others.

[diegobueno]

Your government is hard Left because it has infantilized the people by going after one cohort on behalf of another.

I just noticed this. Are you really saying that Donald Trump is on trial because the Biden administration is persecuting him? Do you really believe that? Are you really that gullible? Because this is what the hard right media which you seem to devour would have you believe.

In the world of reality, President Biden took pains to put the handling of Donald Trump's many crimes at as far a distance as possible. He appointed a milquetoast middle of the road man as attorney general (Merrick Garland), who after much investigation and deliberation appointed a special prosecutor, Jack Smith. Smith, after more investigation and deliberation, finally issued the charges regarding Trump's participation in the January 6 insurrection to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump also faces charges for other crimes he committed from state governments in New York, Georgia and Florida. These all involve real crimes. Do you really think a president should be immune from prosecution from crimes he commits in office? If you do, you should know that you're advocating for a dictatorship.