Altered State: DeSantis was decisive, not divisive, at first. Then COVID-19 pandemic hit | Opinion

This is the fourth of a series of editorials examining the race between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis for the Republican presidential nomination.

By now, many Floridians may have a dim memory of the man they elected governor in 2018 — the little-known Ron DeSantis, a conservative congressman who grew up in the Gulf Coast town of Dunedin, population 36,000.

That early-model DeSantis, who defeated his Democratic opponent Andrew Gillum by just 37,000 votes in this then-swing state, campaigned on America First principles and Trump-lite issues.

But what a difference a pandemic and White House ambitions can make. They gave birth to the divisive tactics — his dismissal of COVID mandates and his attacks on immigrants, LGBTQ+ issues, education, Black history and “wokeness” — that he would exploit to advance his political career.

Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber is one local politician surprised by DeSantis’ transformation.

“The Gov. DeSantis at the beginning of COVID couldn’t have been more different than the one who has since emerged,” Gelber told the Editorial Board.

Gelber says he had a front-row seat to what he considers DeSantis’ eventual mishandling of COVID , which killed 87,000 Floridians. Other states had comparable death rates, but none rejected COVID precautions more than Florida, where the governor made a cottage industry out of creating the “Free State of Florida,” where some public places, businesses and schools stayed open, while others shut down to stop the spread of the virus.

“Back then, my city may have been the community that should have been most worried about the coronavirus. After all, 10 million people a year crowd onto our small 7½-mile island to vacation and party,” Gelber wrote the Board.

In the early days of COVID in Florida, DeSantis and his office approved measures his city implemented to address the spread — “many of which the governor mocks today,” Gelber said.

DeSantis initially acted like most governors: He shut down public schools and prohibited visitors in nursing homes. He expanded testing capacity, closed public parks and he told us to stay at home.

But then DeSantis got political, exploiting the health crisis rather than managing it.

DeSantis eventually mocked the very practices he had championed in the early days of the pandemic: Initially, he issued an executive order directing incoming visitors to be quarantined for 14 days upon arriving in Florida; he established checkpoints on state roadways where travelers, mainly from New York, could be required to present their vaccination papers.

At the height of the pandemic and with predictions from then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo that infections would worsen, DeSantis approved and in April 2020 attended the opening of makeshift hospitals at the Miami Beach Convention Center and Tamiami Park. Fortunately, the hospitals went largely unused, but DeSantis spent millions on them and moved quickly to open them.

Gelber recalls, “As is needed of political leaders during a crisis, he put aside partisan differences and let the public know we agreed on a course of action, at least for a while.”

Others noted DeSantis’ metamorphosis:

“The COVID-19 pandemic was indeed a turning point for Gov. DeSantis’ tenure in Tallahassee,” Telemundo 51 and NBC6 political analyst Mike Hernandez told the Editorial Board.

“The Republican who had campaigned on a relatively moderate platform that included a cleaner environment, improving education, expanding access to health plans and diversifying the state’s economy in 2018 turned to the right by relaxing masking and social-distancing restrictions when health experts recommended the opposite,” Hernandez said. “It seemed that every recommendation made by the CDC, NIH and virologists he proudly went against.”

DeSantis about-face

DeSantis began to build a formidable platform to tell people they didn’t need to moderate behavior and to rage against those who did. He promoted outlier theories, arguing that we should just let the virus spread to create a natural “herd immunity.” He attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, Trump’s chief COVID advisor from 2020-2022. DeSantis issued executive orders prohibiting local mask mandates. He wanted public schools reopened, even when the pandemic picked up steam again. He ridiculed mask usage, even selling beer koozies containing the sophomoric slogan, “How the hell am I going to be able to drink a beer with a mask on?”

He appointed a state surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who actually advised against vaccinations. DeSanti sued the cruise industry for trying to reopen with a vaccine requirement for customers. And he threatened lawsuits, even against the Special Olympics, because they dared to want their athletes and spectators to be tested and vaccinated.

DeSantis created a more-caustic persona, similar to Trump’s that he could sell to voters across the country.

To those of us looking back to 2019, DeSantis’ gubernatorial career had started promisingly enough.

While these days, Black Floridians feel that DeSantis has given them the back of his hand, it’s hard to believe that on his first Friday in office, DeSantis and the newly elected Florida Cabinet pardoned the Groveland Four, a group of four Black men who were wrongly accused of rape in 1949 and then murdered, tortured or incarcerated.

Then DeSantis flew to South Florida to suspend Broward Sheriff Scott Israel over the widely disparaged police response to the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School a year earlier and abruptly named the little-vetted Sheriff Gregory Tony to replace him.

Activist Parkland father Fred Guttenberg was pleased: “Anyone who follows me knows I call things as I see them,” he tweeted. “It is also known that I worked against @RonDeSantisFL. That said, I must say that overall, he is having an impressive start as governor.”

Then came COVID and DeSantis and his team’s decision to turn how he dealt with COVID-19 in Florida into the foundation of this presidential campaign.

Given the hard-right pivot DeSantis has made, it’s ard to believe that his March 2020 executive order mandating visitors entering Florida quarantine for 14 days included the declaration: “Whereas, as Governor, I am responsible for meeting the dangers presented to this state and its people by this emergency . . .”