In Ron DeSantis' Flori-duh, freedom's just another word for fascism

 

This post has been updated with additional content as well as editing of original content for the purpose of flow.
~ CC

As Florida governor Ron DeSantis jackboots his way around the nation to promote his new manifesto (titled, apparently without irony, The Courage to Be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival), it is becoming increasingly clear that DeSantis is confusing freedom with another "f" word, fascism. (Particularly, it seems, where the news media are concerned.)

In my previous post I discussed at great length some of the many reasons that DeSantis is bad for Florida and would, if elected president, be truly awful for the US of A. But the fascist stench from the Sunshine State is not just coming from the governor's mansion.

A not insignificant portion of it is emanating from Mar-a-Lardo, of course, as The Great Fatsby continues to hold court at his favorite gaudy golf motel. Whether he's presiding over dinners or lavish bashes (dee-jaying old show tunes and Celine Dion songs in between posing with a seemingly endless string of siliconed, Botoxed, and egregiously overly-eyelashed courtiers); or holding court with the members of various state rethuglican parties in hopes of increasing his chances in 2024; or participating in the recording of a cringe-worthy "song" to benefit the "political prisoners" who attempted on January 6, 2021 to violently overthrow the U.S. government; or in various ways simply continuing his long tradition of grifting, Donald Trump just won't go away. And he appears to be giving DeSantis a run for his money in the 2024 presidential campaign.

But even that's not the extent of it. For the foul odor of fascism is all over Florida, being disseminated in large part by the state's rethuglican party, via some truly appalling bills that, if not directly supported by DeSantis (a point that isn't completely clear as of this writing) are at the very least in alliance with his dystopian vision for Florida and America.

To begin with, there is the proposed bill that would effectively abolish the Democratic Party in Florida. It's a long shot but, if passed, it would compel more than four million voters to register with a different party or be unaffiliated. From the Forbes link in the first sentence of this paragraph:

State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R) filed the “Ultimate Cancel Act” (SB 1248), a bill aimed at the Democratic Party that directs the state’s Division of Elections to “immediately cancel” the filings and status of any political party that has “has previously advocated for, or been in support of, slavery or involuntary servitude.”

The Democratic Party did have a pro-slavery platform in the 19th century around the time of the Civil War, though it then went on to support civil rights and most Black voters in the U.S. now identify as Democrats...

...While DeSantis has described the state’s Democratic Party as a “dead, rotten carcass,” he has not yet endorsed Ingoglia’s bill, and the lawmaker told WFSU the governor “did not know anything” about the bill’s drafting and he “[doesn’t] know if [DeSantis] knows that the bill has actually been filed.”

But I'm willing to bet that DeSantis is very well aware of the legislation, and is perhaps not so secretly smirking about it. In case you're wondering about the "reasoning" behind this fascist measure, there's a clue in its working title, "The Ultimate Cancel Act." It's pure revenge, on behalf of whiny right-wing snowflakes everywhere, for the greatly exaggerated phenomenon of "cancel culture." From Forbes again:

“For years now, leftist activists have been trying to ‘cancel’ people and companies for things they have said or done in the past,” Ingoglia said Tuesday. “Using this standard, it would be hypocritical not to cancel the Democratic Party itself for the same reason.”

What it boils down to is that according to Ingoglia and the proto-fascist mob, when they engage in public protests against an individual, a product, or a company, they are simply exercising their God-given and Constitutionally-granted freedom of speech, and if they choose to stage a boycott, it's for a righteous cause. When "the left" attempts to so the same, on the other hand, it's an example of "cancel culture," and it constitutes a crime against truth, justice, and The American Way. In any case Ingoglia, and the proposed bill he so proudly flaunts, deliberately gloss over a core fact of American history that everyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the subject knows, and that is explained in just about every report I've read about this matter, including on the Truthout site.

Early in its history, the Democratic Party fought to preserve the institution of slavery and to uphold other vehicles of white supremacy, including Jim Crow laws in the South after the Civil War. Partway through the 20th century, however, the platforms and voting blocs of the two major political parties underwent a dramatic shift; in the years since, Republicans have actively campaigned to disenfranchise Black voters and to suppress any acknowledgment of the ongoing effects of slavery and racism in the U.S.

Indeed, Republicans in Florida, led by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), recently passed laws to restrict educators from teaching factual accounts of Black history in the U.S. — a move that many scholars and activists say is proto-fascist.

Should Ingoglia's indecent proposal not be sufficient to satisfy a fascist's appetite, there is also a proposed bill, SB 1316 filed by Senator Jason Brodeur of Sanford, Florida that would force paid bloggers who write about the Florida governor or other top elected officials to register with the state. Yes, you read that correctly: register with the state.

Specifically, bloggers would be required to register either with the Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics within five days after posting a story mentioning the governor, another member of the Florida Cabinet, or a state legislator. They would also be required to file monthly reports every time another state elected official is mentioned, or face a $25.00 per day fine (up to $2,500.00) for failing to report their activities and compensation. Included in the legislation is language conflating paid bloggers with lobbyists, who are already required to register.

The bill excludes bloggers who write for the website of a newspaper or other similar publication, but contains no exemption for online-only outlets or TV stations and networks. And indie bloggers would apparently be completely at the mercy of this legislation.

So I guess it's a good thing that I'm in Texas, and that, apart from the exceedingly rare but very much appreciated donation, I am not compensated for anything I write on this blog. (Contrary to the long-time claims of certain Scamworld hucksters and fascists in their own right, such as Not-Doctor Leonard Coldwell, the Little Hitler of Scamworld, who for years falsely insisted that I was being paid millions by Big Pharma to defame him and other "natural healers," and who, incidentally, currently lives in Florida himself (Ocala) and has abandoned Donald Trump in favor of Ron DeSantis as the Savior of the American Way. Coldwell, as you may recall if you've been following this blog for a while, unsuccessfully sued me, my fellow blogger Jason "Salty Droid" Jones, and a few other parties back in 2015. The legal drama ended when his own incompetent lawyers, who apparently realized, belatedly, that they should never have taken the case, threw him under a bus.)

As with the proposal to do away with the Democratic Party in Florida, it's not clear at this point if DeSantis supports the anti-blogger legislation, but it certainly seems DeSantis-friendly. [Note: see update below.] For sure, it's democracy-unfriendly. From the Orlando Sentinel, March 3, 2023:

Bobby Block, executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, said the measure goes beyond anything he’s seen in the United States.

“From my own experience, the only places where journalists would ever have to register with the government have been apartheid South Africa, the countries behind the Iron Curtain, the USSR, Zaire, Burkina Faso, and socialist Ethiopia,” Block said. “... I don’t think Florida being in that company of those countries is a good thing.”

The Orlando Sentinel article also notes that this bill is the second one from Brodeur this week that targets the media.

The bill is the second from Brodeur this week that would put extra restrictions on the media.

His other one, SB 1220, proposes sweeping changes to Florida’s libel and defamation law, making it easier to sue journalists by automatically presuming information from anonymous sources to be false and preventing journalists from shielding the identity of sources.

That's right in sync with DeSantis' agenda for the news media.

UPDATE: A few days after this post was initially published, Business Insider reported that DeSantis had weighed in on the blogger bill. At a press conference held on Tuesday, March 6, he claimed that the bill is "not anything that I have ever supported," and that he doesn't "control every single bill that has been filed..."

Finally, there are the Florida rethuglicans' legislative assaults on the transgender community, particularly transgender youth, their families, and medical professionals who provide care for them. Two bills, HB 1421 (filed by House Health & Human Services Chairman Randy Fine, R-Brevard County and Rep. Ralph Massullo, R-Lecanto), and SB 254 (filed by Sen. Clay Yarborough, R-Jacksonville), would make it illegal for doctors to provide treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy to transgender minors. These bills are, at best, a solution in search of a problem; after all, in February, both the Florida Board of Medicine and the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine had moved forward with rules that would prevent doctors from providing these treatments to minors. The proposed legislation, however, would take things further by placing such prohibitions in state law, with dire punishments for violations.

From the WUSF Public Media/WUSF 89.7 web site:

...The House version would require that doctors lose their licenses if they commit violations, while the Senate bill could lead to criminal charges for a person who "willfully or actively participates in a violation."

The House bill also would make changes including preventing health insurers and HMOs from providing coverage for treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgery and would largely block people from changing the sex listed on their birth certificates. Both bills would bar state agencies and local governments from spending money on such treatments...

...the LGBTQ-advocacy group Equality Florida issued a news release about the House bill that said it would "strip families of their medical freedom, put government in control of insurance coverage decisions, and codify a ban on transgender people being legally recognized as themselves."

Representative Randy Fine, whose committee held a panel discussion in February that Equality Florida described as a "sham panel," actually compared gender-affirming care to the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele, the Nazi butcher who conducted horrendous medical experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz. Even worse, Fine used his own Jewish creds to justify this outrageous comparison. (He got a lot of blowback for this.)

The two bills cited above are just the latest in a series of actions by Florida lawmakers and Governor DeSantis' administration that target transgender people, and the LGBTQ+ community at large. Again, that's right in keeping with the state's general march towards fascism.

I could go on and on about Florida rethuglican lawmakers' assaults on freedom and civil rights. But I think you get the drift. In case you want a slightly more comprehensive recap of horrible bill proposals in Florida, though, here's a handy list, written by Thomas Kennedy and shared by Jordan Zakarin on the Progress Report site.

From a larger world perspective, the Florida rethuglicans appear to be in good company, and by "good," of course, I mean atrocious. An opinion piece on the Mother Jones site (March 4, 2023) suggests that Senator Jason Brodeur's blogger registration bill, and several other pieces of legislation by Florida rethuglicans, were inspired by Hungary's authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has become a darling of the American far right. The question of whether Orbán was the inspiration or the legislators dreamed up these dystopian measures on their own is on a par with the question of whether Donald Trump is lying or delusional: in both cases, either possibility is equally awful.

* * * * *

Given the Sunshine State's current political climate, it's no wonder that Florida has become a magnet for far-right groups and individuals, including the notorious former dictator president of Brazil (and election denier/riot inspirer, and, of course, Trump buddy), Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro did tell the Wall Street Journal last month that he plans to return to Brazil some time this month to "lead the opposition" and, presumably face whatever charges are pending against him. Meanwhile, he has become yet another darling of the American Reich in general (even being featured, along with Trump, at the 2023 CPAC clown show), but he seems to have a particular affinity with Florida, and vice versa -- and I suspect it's not merely because of the relatively high population of Brazilian expats in the state. I think a big factor is that increasingly, Florida seems to be a haven for despots and wannabe despots.

In case anyone is tempted to say that I, being in deep red Texas, have no room to rag on Florida, rest assured that I've ragged on Texas plenty as well. I am painfully aware that I live in a state that is aggressively trying to turn itself into a Christo-fascist dystopia.

I wrote about this in September 2021, as 666 (an apt number) new laws, mostly the creations of Texas rethuglicans, took effect. Included among these laws were additional restrictions on abortion (ahead of the overturning of Roe the following year), efforts to further disenfranchise voters who tend to vote Democratic, and laws to make guns even more accessible than they already are.

Much more recently, Texas state Representative Bryan Slaton has put forth a creepy proposal to cut property taxes for married straight people who are committed to breeding. Couples with four children would get a 40 percent tax break, and those with ten or more kids would pay no property taxes at all. In a statement about the proposal, Slaton said, “With this bill, Texas will start saying to couples, ‘Get married, stay married, and be fruitful and multiply." Married couples without offspring could also get a deal -- a 10 percent tax break -- but the married couple must be a man and a woman, and they cannot have been divorced. From the Daily Kos article linked to above:

There’s a high degree of Christofascism going on here, since it’s all about straight marriage, premised on the assumption that you are already homeowners and thus high up enough on the social ladder to be worthy of this state-sponsored beneficence. It’s heavy on the culture war, something that Stalin and Putin didn’t have the luxury of demanding. But that’s certainly where the scheme originates.

In 1944, following a decade of his purges, as well as massive losses in WWII, Stalin decided Russians needed to start replenishing the population. In came the “Order of Maternal Glory,” encouragement of Russian women to become “Hero mothers.” It didn’t really matter to Stalin if they were married or not—he just needed the production.

Along with some snazzy medals (first-class to mothers who bore nine children—they didn’t all have to still be alive; second-class to mothers of eight; third-class to mothers of seven) the Hero Mothers also got perks, including childcare assistance, boosts to their pensions, and priority access to foods and other goods that were in constant short supply. The award existed until 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved. Most of the former republics ended it.

Putin revived the plan in 2022, with some modifications: Moms can get a monetary reward of the rubles equivalent of approximately $16,000 -- but for 10 children, once the 10th child turns one year old -- and all of the other children have to have survived.

And now we have a similar type of proposal in Texas. Here's more about it from Jef Rouner at the Houston Press, focusing on the probable motivations of the legislator who proposed the bill.

Slaton’s bill likely has more to do with his extreme religious views. Slaton, who is a former minister, is one of the state’s most fervent conservative culture warriors when it comes to painting regressive polices as Christian dogma. It’s Slaton who has proposed banning minors from all drag events, something that could potentially outlaw trans people from being around children at all, depending on how the law is written or interpreted. Slaton has spent much of his time in the state legislature tacking on various anti-LGBT amendments to bills as part of his ideological crusade.

Granted, it's just a proposal so far, but the very fact that it's been brought up is an indicator of where Texas rethuglicans stand in the race to take America back -- back decades, that is, if not centuries.

So yes, the Texas political climate is horrible too. But that doesn't let Florida off the hook.

PS ~ The good news, if there is any, is that DeSantis and gang's far-right/fascist policies and bills are not popular with the majority of Floridians. Here's a rundown from Jordan Zakarin at Progress Report, including a well-deserved scolding of Florida Democrats. On the other hand... Zakarin, along with Jen Cousins, also report that DeSantis' mean-spirited school board is doubling down on their mission to impose their fascist dogma on the schools, making life even more miserable for students, parents, and teachers. As reported on March 13, 2023 on Progress Report, the Florida Board of Education, which is packed with DeSantis cronies, plans (among other actions) to expand the already draconian "Don't Say Gay" legislation up through the 12th grade.