As Florida suffers with another dreadful COVID surge, DeSantis focuses on reelection | Opinion

There are two dates at the top of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ head: June 17, 2022, and Aug. 23, 2022. These are, respectively, the filing deadline for Florida statewide office and the statewide primary election next year. The chaos that DeSantis is unleashing on the state revolves around ensuring that he doesn’t allow anyone to get to his political right on any issue and close off the potential of a bruising and potentially losing reelection bid next year.

Why?

Because he wants to be president of the United States, of course.

In the last few weeks, DeSantis has demonstrated his willingness and ability to utilize the organs of power he controls (including a supine GOP-led legislature) to promote himself, his chaos agenda and his donors’ interests. Infections by the delta variant of COVID-19 are overrunning the state. Hospital beds are filling up and will soon be unavailable to anyone not already in them.

Floridians not monolithic

In his attempt to ensure that he faces no significant challenger next year, DeSantis is writing the obituary for his own governorship and future aspirations. Florida may vote Republican in statewide elections, but that does not equate to Floridians being monolithic or willing to stand by as friends, family and children succumb to a much more transmissible version of COVID.

By exercising his executive authority, DeSantis is also telegraphing that he has sworn allegiance to the new Republican Party. Local control? For me, but not for thee. Economic growth? Not if you’re running a tourism-dependent company (hi, cruise lines.) Dedication to public service? Only in television commercials and campaign events. Personal responsibility? Vaccines are for suckers. Just wait to get sick and we’ll spend taxpayer money on $1,500 per dose therapy that makes a donor richer.

In the coming days, weeks and months, Florida will unfold this way. We’re already seeing a significant increase in COVID infections. Unlike previous variants, delta appears to affect children and the unvaccinated far worse. As millions of Florida school kids prepare to go back to school, those 11 and under will have bullseyes on their backs. Mask-less kids and teachers are a happy hunting ground for a novel pathogen who cares nothing for politics and only for its own reproduction.

As infections mount, so will deaths. The elderly, the young, the immune-compromised and the unvaccinated will suffer most as a forest-fire of virus rampages through their communities. Even among the vaccinated, the ability to catch and transmit delta is already far worse than we saw in 2020.

Another hurdle

The spiking death toll will cause a corresponding spike in public fear. Employers will not reopen their offices over Labor Day as was expected. Large public events will require proof of vaccination. Those that don’t, such as SEC football games, will become super-spreader events. Large gatherings of friends and family will be put on hold until everyone is comfortable that we’ve cleared yet another hurdle.

All this fear will have cascading economic effects as restaurants, bars and coffee shops see fewer customers. Amazon will boom again because it’s safer to have that toilet paper delivered to your door than go to the big box store. If schools are forced to close, working-class families will have to make the Hobson’s choice of leaving their kids home alone during the day or having parents go to work. Tens of thousands of Floridians, and maybe more, will be back to relying on state and federal relief to help.

If schools are forced to close, Florida’s students, still contending with the disjointed education they received in 2020 and 2021, will fall further behind. The simple answer of “go to school online” will serve only those families and districts with the infrastructure and equipment to accomplish that objective.

For the next year, though, Gov. Ron DeSantis is willing to subject his constituents to this life and death gauntlet. Because it’s not about the good of the state or its citizens and businesses. It’s all about Ron. He’s willing to watch the deaths mount and morgues fill past capacity for his own personal and political gain. He’ll shake his head as stories of children lost to COVID and blame it on the socialists, the communists and the experts.

When he looks in the mirror at night, DeSantis doesn’t see a reflection. When his children look at him, DeSantis wants them to believe he’s the best, and strongest man they can imagine. He’s not. He’s a wraith, carrying away the future of too many Floridians.

They will not forget it.

Reed Galen is a co-founder of The Lincoln Project.