Steve Bousquet: To ‘make America Florida’ would be disastrous

It’s the full-throated rallying cry for the Ron DeSantis presidential campaign: “Make America Florida.”

What a concept: DeSantis has been so effective at governing the third-largest state that as president, he would replicate that success on a grand scale.

But there are problems. Number one, it’s grammatically awkward (one verb, two nouns). Number two, it sounds like a cheap imitation of “Make America Great Again.”

Number three, it would be disastrous.

So in other words, copy everything DeSantis has done here to the other 49 states, so the whole country could experience the same misery we’ve been living with here for four-and-a-half years.

Authoritarianism. Bullying.

Trump — without the charisma.

Shaming and marginalizing minorities. Declaring war on drag queens.

Unprecedented secrecy. Contempt for Florida’s once-vaunted “sunshine” and public records laws.

Appointing political cronies to run our colleges and universities.

Hiring anti-vaxxers to shape public health policy. Banning mask mandates.

Suspending elected officials from office who have broken no laws. Turning a blind eye to political scandals like the “ghost” candidate schemes that produced actual criminal charges in state Senate races.

Violating the Constitution. Signing laws to suppress the vote.

Gerrymandering congressional districts for partisan advantage at the expense of Black voters.

Fostering censorship in our schools. Rationalizing slavery. Declaring war on Disney because it dared to question him.

Staying silent while Neo-Nazis proudly wave flags with his name on them in Orlando and Tampa.

Choosing judges based on whether or not they belong to the Federalist Society.

Blocking cities and counties from enacting their own green environmental policies with more wind and solar energy.

Misusing taxpayers’ money to chase down undocumented immigrants in Texas and flying them to Martha’s Vineyard.

Sending Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents on politically motivated immigration missions, tarnishing FDLE’s prestigious reputation in the process.

Opposing an increase in Florida’s minimum wage that voters approved. Signing a law to permanently weaken or abolish public employee unions.

Make America Florida. People here know what that means.

It means stifling dissent; encouraging more people to carry concealed weapons; eviscerating a woman’s right to an abortion; creating his own police force; having armed police officers round up suspected illegal voters at gunpoint; criminalizing health care for transgender children and adults; and attacking local government home rule.

Sure, let’s make America Florida, a state that ranks at or near the bottom in housing affordability, teacher salaries, access to health care and unemployment benefits. A state where millions of people are weighed down with some of the highest car insurance and homeowners insurance rates in the country. And where expanding Medicaid is out of the question.

Is that the kind of America everyone wants?

This list of DeSantis’ misdeeds only begins to scratch the surface. But there are success stories that he has not emphasized enough that, in a different time, might resonate with Republican voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere.

The problem is, it’s not the divisive culture-war stuff the MAGA base wants to hear.

Under DeSantis, unemployment remains low, the state is fiscally sound and he has lowered taxes — albeit more for billionaires than for the middle class.

He got the bridge to Sanibel Island rebuilt quickly after Hurricane Ian last year. That rebuilt bridge might have been a nifty metaphor for a DeSantis candidacy. But building bridges just doesn’t have the in-your-face combativeness of “Never Back Down.”

To have a sitting governor run for president — especially one who implausibly won his second term by 19 points — ought to be a source of pride, even if you don’t agree with him.

When Jeb Bush ran for president in 2016, people across Florida went to Iowa and New Hampshire to campaign for him. It didn’t do any good, but the point is, they were proud to be seen with him.

Who’s flocking up there now to campaign with the distinctly unappealing DeSantis?

Nobody.

As we watch the slow-motion self-destruction of the DeSantis presidential campaign, we can take solace in the fact that he’ll likely never have the opportunity to make America Florida.

His widely anticipated flop as a candidate for the White House will be a repudiation of the way Florida has been run since 2019.

That may be good news for the rest of the country, but not for Floridians. For when he finally folds his tent, he’ll be back.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Steve Bousquet is Opinion Editor of the Sun Sentinel and a columnist in Tallahassee and Fort Lauderdale.

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