” . . . . A May Pew Research Center survey found that while the rest of the Democratic Party has undergone a dramatic shift on identity, a majority of Black Democrats still believe gender is determined by sex at birth. Forty-four percent of Hispanic Democrats agreed with that sentiment.
In our conversations, Jones, the Black state senator I interviewed, was defiant, calling Wednesday’s rally “a notice” served not just to Republicans in Florida but Republicans nationally. “The fight that you are looking for is not the fight that you want,” he said of Republicans. “While you think it’s 1963, it’s 2023.”
But what if this is precisely the fight DeSantis wants? The outrage it has generated may only fuel his ascension in a conservative climate where anti-Black has been redefined as pro-equality, anti-gay as pro-family and anti-immigrant as pro-American.
Trump tried this strategy of division in the last election, with uneven success, and he lost in the effort.
But could a tweaking of the message and a change of the messenger have even greater effect? Could the Florida experiment be nationalized? Could DeSantis push this strategy to levels that Trump couldn’t, altering the political landscape and ushering in a dystopian era for issues of diversity?” . . . . .
David Lindsay: Excellent essay by Charles Blow. Pay attention to what they are doing, and call them out.
Here is the a top comment I support.
The route to Republican power has always been to divide and conquer with cultural civil war….while simultaneously bamboozling, hypnotizing and distracting voters into NOT paying attention to real issues like healthcare, infrastructure, taxation, worker wages, campaign finance corruption, the environment, good government, public safety (gun control), and the common good. What is Ron DeSantis’ plan to help 336 million Americans ? Implement Florida’s incredibly regressive tax system that disproportionately taxes the poor and middle class while the state’s rich mostly white retirees luxuriate in their Florida castles ? Use Florida’s appalling system of public services as a nationwide model for abandoning the public ? Continue failing to expand Medicaid as he has in Florida, thereby ranking 46th in the rate of uninsured residents who skip going to the doctor because of sticker shock and then get sick and die prematurely ? Make sure he can control the nation’s universities and public schools with administrators personally accountable to his brand of authoritarianism that can can turn back the clock on higher education and whitewash American history ? And as a Republican, I’m certain DeSantis is not fond of Social Security and Medicare. Do American voters want a USA that is more like Florida ? There are no real Republican policies besides dividing and conquering the unrich and gilding the rich. Don’t get duped by DeSantis’ GOP Divide and Conquest 2024 Campaign.