Florida blogger Billy Townsend was delighted to see Ron DeSantis get booted from the Republican primaries after the Iowa caucuses. DeSantis had large ambitions, thinking that the nation wanted his harsh rightwing policies. But he made the mistake of thinking he could run to the right of Trump. There’s no space there.
Billy hopes that voters saw through the hype about “the Florida Blueprint” and DeSantis’s promise to “Make America Florida.”
Before the primaries, in March 2023, he predicted that DeSantis would flounder, and he was right:
The same Florida state “government” of gangsters that destroyed the Florida state education system will invade the United States of America in 2024. Whoever wins this civil war-as-referendum — the gangsters or the country — will control the U.S. Military and federal law enforcement power.
We don’t know who will command Florida’s invasion yet — tiny Emperor Ron DeSantis (with his pseudo VP Jeb Bush) or Florida-ism’s Pope Donald Trump. But it makes no difference. Whoever wins their gross song of ice and fire will then lead Florida’s army of the dead right toward Colorado and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Florida’s political and cultural invasion of the country should be laughable. The Florida “blueprint” has made us a hollowed out shell of a state — pleasantly livable for people with capital (like me) because a few big private interests team up to “govern” our warm spaces enjoyably for customers who can pay. And a few cities, like mine (Lakeland), which is blessed with a money-belching socialist power utility, create a nice and warm urban experience.
But as a state, rather than a vacation destination, retirement home, or temporary crash pad for remote workers and tech bros, we are: extremely high cost, extremely low wage, extremely corrupt, high inflation, nation’s worst education “learning rate,” bad public service, high crime, low birth rate, high and spiking abortion rate, and very very old.
If America fully grasps that Florida Blueprint by 2024, I feel quite certain that we will repulse this absurd invasion-by-mafia. The referendum on Florida should not be a close run affair.
But our worst American billionaires and mouthiest showboating sheriffs like hollowed out states; and they far prefer mafias to unions or citizens mobilized politically around public good.
Florida is their model state for decadent capital cut free from any public oversight, public good, or sense of shared citizenship. And they will try to impose that Florida on everybody else by pretending that Florida is not Florida. Anti-civic capital is often dumb. But it’s heavily armed; and it has great sway — although not total away — over what the public is told.
Crushing Florida’s invasion — explicitly rejecting the failed “Florida Blueprint” at the national level — is crucial to any effort to reform Florida at home. The Florida Blueprint must culminate, in the military sense, as an expansive political force. That’s the sine qua non of Florida’s future…
The MAGA Pope thrashed the Tiny Emperor
Well, MAGA Pope Trump’s GOP smashed the tiny emperor’s irrationally cocky army of Pushaws and private jet jockeys as easily as Trump gropes unwilling women. (Sorry Trumpers, he is who he is. I can’t make your citizenship choices for you. But you will own them. Expect no moral mercy or understanding from me this time around.)
Trump’s formally adjudicated sexual abuse and Capitol Lynch Mob leadership aside, his defenestration of DeSantis is a useful first step. It’s good for Florida and America.
Even better, when America as a whole saw the “Florida Blueprint” personified by Gov. High Heels, America as a whole rejected Gov. Pudding Fingers thoroughly and humiliatingly, with the national contempt growing almost by the moment. Watching DeSantis in the polls has been like watching the Enron stock price circa October 2001 (go Google it, youngs).
Yes, in large part, that’s because he’s personally very weird and off-putting and cruel in the way that people who torture cats are weird and off-putting and cruel.
But it was also because Florida, as a model for America, got a thorough thrashing — including by Trump himself. Of all people, Florida Man Bonesaw Jesus himself attacked the Florida Model of “governing” a week or two after I published my piece.
He sounded just like me. LOL. I’d bet a lot of money his gross people read my stuff.
The GOP primary campaign ended that day, with the Trump campaign’s unanswered dismantling of Florida as an expansive idea. A loooooonnnnnng, slow humiliation ensued, tempered only by extensive luxury travel.
In some ways Trump is now running as the ultimate Florida man — full of gross indulgence and utterly devoid of any concern for the state where he lives. Only a Florida Man would have the chutzpah to run against Florida from Florida when the party he owns has been in power here for a generation…
Anyway, ya’ll will generally share my mirth for now in laughing at DeSanctimonious. We can do that together. Trump gives you permission.
But then you’re all gonna try to convince yourselves it’s fine to line up behind a more senile version of the Zieglers writ large — the Capitol Lynch Mob leader with a terrible economic record, a jury-adjudicated sexual abuser, a criminal openly running on “retribution” and “dictatorship on Day 1,” who you all know would rape your wife and daughter and force them to have an abortion after getting rid of Roe v. Wade.
If you are enjoying the news from Florida, open the link and keep reading.
DeSantis, like many autocrats, has a lot of yes men and women around him. And he governs in a state with a provincial, extremely right-wing majority. And because Flor-uh-duh is so far away from cultural centers like California and New York, he thought that the rest of the country was as backward as his state is–that the rest of the country would share his love for tyranny and his antipathy for immigrants, people of color, actual (and unblemished) history, freedom to read, public schooling, modern science (including vaccination), LGBTQX persons, and women who think they should control their own reproduction. But the truth is that the culture as a whole has moved far, far, far past these backward, provincial troglodytes. The rest of the country took a look and said, “OMG. No Thanks. Hard Pass.” Make America Florida? Uh, no thank you. To put it mildly.
So, did Desantid (spelling intended) get the message that voters sent him so decisively? Nope. He is blaming his waste of 168 million in campaign funds on having shut the media in general out of his early campaign rallies. So, it wasn’t his ideas and his personality that people rejected. The fault lay with a tactical error.
This is so like Donnie believing that he actually won the 2020 election.
But this is what happens when autocrats surround themselves with toadies, isn’t it? They lose the ability to be at all self-critical and self-reflective. They start believing their own PR (or, less politely, their own BS). And they become incapable of learning.
Oddly, Donald Trump is able, simultaneously, to know that something is false and yet to believe it. That’s because he is literally insane. I used to have a house on a marsh, and the middle of the night, one would hear the mad, bone-chilling cackle of loons. Trump is a LOT crazier than that.
I know it’s off the subject, but where was your house on a marsh? I never heard loons “cackle”.
I had a house in Rockport, on Cape Ann, in Massachusetts. Behind me was a saltwater marsh, in front of me, the ocean. If you had ever heard loons, you would not forget the sound. It’s unearthly.
I used to say that those loons, at night, sounded like someone was strangling a madwoman in the attic (alluding, ofc, to that motif in Victorian fiction).
I have indeed heard loons, most delightfully in Nova Scotia on a morning canoe float on a lake
Oh, NICE!!! xoxoxxo
I loved the sound. It had this lonesome quality, like a coyote howling or a train whistle in the distance.
cx: actual (and unmythologized) history
“Who defiled your religion”
This is one of the most bizarre of the many bizarre aspects of the Trump phenomenon. Looking around among public figures in the United States, it would be difficult indeed to find someone LESS Christlike than is Donald Trump. Throughout his entire life, he has exemplified IN EXTREMIS each of the seven deadly sins (pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth). Christ was humble. Trump is breathtakingly narcissistic. Christ was abstemious. Trump is a serial predator and rapist who cheated on all his wives. Christ overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple. Trump has run one scam operation after another for his entire career. Christ taught that we will be judged by how we treated the lowest among us–the hungry, the poor, the stranger. Trump cut poor kids from the school lunch rolls, gave tax breaks to his fat cat buddies, and tried to get his Secretary of Homeland Security to order the Border Patrol to SHOOT unarmed asylum seekers. He also wanted moats with alligators to be installed on our borders. So that these creatures could kill and eat brown-skinned toddlers? Christ, in his teachings, constantly referred to the scriptures. Trump could not name a single phrase from the Bible and thought that there was a book called Two Corinthians. (As in “two Corinthians walked into a bar”? LOL) Christ taught that we should love our enemies and turn the other cheek. Trump spends half of every rally now spouting the list of the folks he’s going to get even with once he has power again. And so on. Christ and Trump. What a study in extremes!!! Trump is everything Christ was not and vice versa. Anyone who calls himself or herself a Christian and supports Trump is an utter moron.
Trump is a vile, disgusting, lowlife POS.
That’s the part I truly don’t understand. How do so-called “Christians” not see how un-Christlike Trump is????
Bob, I don’t know if you are a Christian, I doubt it, because Christians know that we are ALL sinners and require God’s grace. You seem to be using one of communist Saul Alinsky’s rules.
Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
This doesn’t work on people who are aware of what is going on. Nice try.
You carp about what Donald Trump threatens to do when he gets elected, meanwhile democrats have weaponized the legal system to go after Trump in vile ways, making us look like a third-rate banana republic. Congrats.
P.S. Since I can’t reply to some of your comments for some reason, I’ll tell you here. Diane Ravitch is posting articles full of ad hominem attacks. Period. Everyone can see it.
All I can say is that God is going to need one gargantuan dollop of Grace in the case of Trump, or do you agree that adultery, for example, is a cardinal sin? Trump is an unrepentant serial adulterer. And rapist.
Trump was not convicted of rape by the jury. The judge came after the fact and said, “That is what they meant”
I think adultery is heinous, and I also think Clinton getting sucked off in the Oval Office by a barely 21-year-old intern was heinous. The serial adulterer of “Camelot” is still revered and lauded by your party. Face it; your side doesn’t give a rip about rape, adultery, sniffing little girls (Biden), or showering with your daughter (Biden); you just want to hold Republicans to a standard that YOUR side doesn’t recognize. We will choose the best person for the time, and Trump is it.
You have as much venom for squeaky-clean Romney and Desantis, so your moral our age rings hollow.
Well hey, you and I agree about Clinton. Another POS.
I also think that Kennedy was an abomination. A rapist who got us into the Vietnam quagmire at the cost of how many lives? A terrible person. I have written about that here many times, unlike Repugnicans who claim to worship Christ but actually worship Glorious Leader Who Shines More Orange than Does the Sun.
JFK was not a rapist. He was afflicted with satyriasis. He didn’t need to rape women. They stood in line for their turn.
He went to the desk of his 17-year-old intern, took her hand, led her upstairs, leaned her over a bed, and had sex with her. All without saying a word. She was underage, and so this was rape.
Years ago Trump was interviewed by Barbara Walters, who asked him about the fact that he was having an affair with Marla Maples while still married to Ivanka. And here’s what your hero said: that by having babies, she had ruined her body and that he was a very rich man and didn’t have to put up with that because he could have anyone he wanted.
This is what this POS said of the woman who and carried his children. He is a person of the very lowest character. A disgusting, vile worm.
One of the horrific and telling things about that interaction with Barbara Walters is that it shows that Trump is so lacking in any sort of moral compass that he thought it was perfectly OK to say such a thing, that people wouldn’t be aghast, hearing it. And evidently, a lot of Repugnicans aren’t. They are just fine with such a guy, such an utter piece of filth, representing and leading their party.
Oh, and by the way, Kaplan felt he had to clarify what the jury in fact found. Technically, under the definition in New York law, he said, it wasn’t rape, but the jury found that what Trump did meets, Kaplan said, the ordinary, standard, everyday definition of rape. The jury, he said, found that Trump was a rapist, according to the usual, standard definition of the term. And of course he is. The rapist at the head of the Repugnican Party, worshipped by people who call themselves Christians. You can’t make up stuff this disgusting and absurd.
Trump the adulterer who pays pornstars to sleep with him while his wife is recuperating from childbirth?
This is what Trump was convicted of:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/e-jean-carroll-called-minutes-after-trump-allegedly-raped-her-friend-testifies-2023-05-02/
On Monday, Carroll wrapped up her third day on the witness stand, where she recounted the alleged assault and responded to pointed cross-examination by a lawyer for Trump, who questioned nearly every aspect of her account.
Carroll told jurors last week that Trump put his fingers into her vagina, which she called “extremely painful,” and then inserted his penis.
What do you call that, Jacqueline? A friendly gesture?
The jury did not convict Trump of rape. They convicted him of sexual assault and awarded Carroll $5 million because Trump defamed.
Since he continued to defame her, and did so repeatedly in front of the jury, a second jury awarded her $88.3 million.
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/09/trump-trial-e-jean-carroll-seesawing-emotions
I call it a lie. She is a shame to all legitimate rape victims. She and Rachel Maddow are going Shopping!! Sick
Your capacity for self-deception is truly remarkable, JH.
Jacquiline, let’s assume that you are right. Trump didn’t actually “rape” her. Let’s assume he did not force his penis into her vagina. What the jury concluded, based on calls she made to two friends at the time, is that Trump put his hand under her dress, grabbed her genitals, and inserted his fingers into her vagina. You are right: technically, that’s not rape, and people should not call it rape. What would you call it? Do you think it is appropriate behavior? Would you object if a man did that to you? Really, as women, how do you feel we should respond to this behavior?
And is it your opinion that sinning is OK then because Grace? ROFL.
We must forgive Donnie his little peccadillos like attending the parties held by his long-time buddy Jeffrey Epstein.
TOW nailed it. Trump is a leading candidate for the most unChristlike person on the planet.
Poor, poor Donald. The legal system has been weaponized against him forever. How many businessmen do you know who have been through 3,500 lawsuits and 6 bankruptcies?
Now, poor fella, he has to pay the E. Jean Carroll woman almost $90 million for grabbing her by the p—-y.
And in the next few days or weeks, a judge in NY is going to fine him even more for a lifetime of business fraud.
And how unfair is it that the FBI found all those top-secret documents in his bathroom and closet?
I tell you, it’s just unfair!
Jacqueline, can you identify any post on this blog that contained as hominem attacks on anyone?
I insist on civility!!
As a person who tries Christianity as hard as I can, I must protest the idea of universal grace as a justification for persisting in sin. Trump knows this is a strain of Christian attitude, so when he needed the evangelical vote, he invited some guys to Trump tower and told them he was born again. He reportedly scoffed at them in private thereafter, but we have no confirmation of this.
The problem with citing the idea of universal grace to justify sin is that it is the basis of perfectionism, which claims that the individual is incapable of sin after receiving the blessing of God. Then there is the problem of human determination of goodness. We are pretty much unable to do anything other than measure our own or other’s behavior against some ethical rules, whether we accept Christianity or not.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-secretly-mocks-his-christian-supporters/616522/
Than you for this entertaining profile on “tiny dictator” DeSantis. Trying to recover from his fall from grace, DeSantis is biding his time waiting to see if Trump goes to jail. If that happens, Ron is ready swoop in and pollute the country with his failed “Florida blueprint.” He is still trying to be seen as presidential material, but his ambition outpaces his talent and appeal. Spending Florida’ s money is his true talent. DeSantis is “all in” on supporting Greg Abbott’s border debacle, and he is sending his own Florida rag-tag gangster crew there so Ron can get media attention be seen as a deserving “strong man.” He is ready to step in if Trump goes down.
On social media more people are voicing more concerns about DeSantis. They are critical of his wasteful spending and his failure to curb the extreme increases in home owner’s insurance. Many feel DeSantis should pay attention to the job he was hired to do and stop using the state as a stepping stone to his bigger ambitions.
Given that both Biden (unfairly) and Trump (fairly) have low approval ratings, is it possible that third-party candidates might play an important part in this race? That’s one thing I fear.
The danger is that third party candidates would siphon sway enough votes so that neither candidate has a majority in the electoral college. Then the decision would be made by the House of Representatives, where each state gets one vote. That magnifies the unfairness of the Electoral College. The least populous state would have the same vote (1) as the most populous vlstate. Trump would win.
That’s a truly frightening prospect!!!
Billy Townsend is a GIFT to Florida.
Florida is such an awful state that it has the highest rate of people migrating there from Democratic-controlled states. That state government there is not dominated by public employee unions a la California is what this blog’s far Left readers are furious about.
You have a problem with public employee unions? Obviously you do, whether you admit it or not. How dare those public employees belong to a powerful union, the nerve of these peons. (sarcasm alert). I am furious that Florida is dominated by a far right wing reactionary Neanderthal…….DeSantis. Of course the GOP hates all unions, especially public employee unions and teacher unions.
I was a union electrician for many years, fourth generation in the IBEW, and now I’m a teacher. My husband and son tell me that the guys on the job are actively supporting Trump and have become conservative. There have always been conservatives in the trades, but they usually didn’t speak openly for fear of reprisal. Thanks to Obamacare the healthcare insuarance, fought so hard for by generations of tradesmen, has gone to hell. Now, I admit that there are hardcore communists in leadership that will lie, cheat, and steal to get a democrat elected, but they can’t go in the voting booth with you, and I think we will be able to overcome the cheat with our numbers this time.
This article would be two paragraphs long if it weren’t for all the ad hominem attacks against Trump, DeSantis, and the voters. Sadly, this is the intellectual level Diane Ravitch and Bob Shepherd prefer.
Trump is not a conservative any more than Hitler was a German conservative in 1933. He blew up the national debt. He supports those who threaten American conservatism internationally. He is a Trumpist first, and his demand for personal loyalty has driven the Republican Party so far from being the party of fiscal responsibility and National defense that it would be humorous were it not so frightening.
I have never known Diane Ravitch to engage in ad hominem attacks. And it’s not an ad hominem attack if it is the person whom you are attacking. I will gladly argue any of Trump’s positions on issues, but I will also say quite clearly, unequivocally, that he is scum, that the man (using the term loosely) is a POS. That’s not an ad hominem attack because it’s not an attempt to divert attention from some issue. It’s an appraisal of the “man.”
The Article that Diane Ravitch posted is full of ad hominem attacks, not just against President Trump, as are many of the articles posted here. I thought that Obama was an anti-semite and hated his country, in other words, scum. I believe that Biden is a child-sniffing, rapist, racist, and plagiarist who has a problem telling the truth, in other words, scum. I don’t have to say all that to argue against their open-border policies, their socialized medicine scheme, or their racist D.I.E. Nonsense. I also sat patiently through their presidencies. I wonder what the left will do this election after they lose. Will it look like 2016 with the pussy hats and phony Russian Collusion hoaxes paid for by Hilary and the DNC, or 2020 when they spent the summer rioting and burning down cities? I guess we’ll see what insurrection tools your side uses this time. We know that you won’t accept the will of the people, that’s for sure.
My prediction: Trump will have a BIGLY (his childish pronunciation of big league) loss. Why, because the country has moved far, far beyond racist, sexist, ignorant, criminal traitorous, backward, old mob boss types like him. Most Americans are now wise to him. They know him for what he is, starting with rapist.,
Ahh, but the polls say otherwise, Bob. 😬 I think you are in for a ride awakening unless we have a repeat of the shenanigans in 2020.
p.s. Biden was accused of rape by Tara Reade, and she can actually remember the day and year it took place and has contemporaneous witnesses, unlike the wackadoodle Jean whatshername. Jean whatshername has accused many men of rape and told Anderson Cooper that women enjoy rape fantasies.
I bet you said the same thing before the last midterms, JH. How did that work out for you? ROFL. An utter rout.
Yes, the midterms sucked, and the country is paying for it, unfortunately.
I know how hard you took it when Hillary lost. There was a weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth seldom seen outside of Hell. It was beautiful to see and great for the meme makers, though.
If all is fair, I’m sure we will win. Do you think that Biden is up for the debates?
The latest jobs reports that the economy is booming and outperforming those in Europe and Asia. Thank you, President Biden!!
amen
I never supported Hillary Clinton. I held my nose and voted for her because the alternative was ghastly, unthinkable. A Russian stooge in the Oval Office. Thank god people like Milley and Esper and eventually even Barr and Bolton stood up to the traitorous orange buffoon.
We were soooooo fortunate that The Idiot was so ignorant and incompetent–didn’t know how anything worked, and so was not able to carry out MOST the horrific notions he had, like SHOOTING INNOCENT ASYLUM SEEKERS. But he did get some through–like abandoning our allies the Kurds, who had helped us defeat Isis, and leaving them to be slaughtered by Assad and the Russians.
BTW, when Diane says that Trump cheated on all of his wives, that’s not an ad hominem attack. That’s just reporting of the facts. There’s your glorious Christian hero for you. ROFL.
A long, long time ago, I worked for a foundation for which Diane was a board member. I remember saying to a colleague way back then, “Diane Ravitch does not suffer fools gladly.” Since that time, she has mellowed considerably. But even then, she did NOT engage in ad hominem attacks. When she discussed issues, she discussed issues. When she had a low opinion of someone, she said so. These are separate things. For a negative statement about someone to be an ad hominem attack, it has to be an attempt, rhetorically, to change the subject from the issue at hand to the persons involved. I have never known Diane to do this. She is far too diplomatic and bright to indulge in such behavior.
Example of ad hominem attack: I urge you not to vote for this school funding bill supported by Senator Snidely. Why? Well, I have it on good authority that he is cheating on his wife.
Whether a school funding bill is a good thing has nothing to do with whether Snidely is cheating on his wife. So, diverting attention from the bill to Snidely’s philandering is an ad hominem attack.
Glad I could sort that out for you.
Now, if there is a Trump or DeSantis policy that you would like to discuss the “merits” of, please do.
So, an attack on Trump, as in
Trump is a POS.
Is not an example of ad hominem.
It’s only ad hominem if the attack is substituted for argument with regard to an issue. It’s a matter of confusing personalities and propositions. If Hitler said, “Grass is green,” that doesn’t make “Grass is green” less true.
Bob: This example seems related to the genetic fallacy. Hitler says the grass grass is green, and Hitler is evil, then the grass is not green. Did you mention this fallacy a while back?
Yes. I did. You have a good memory.
And my point is that Diane Ravitch is far too clear a thinker to indulge in such fallacious argument.
MAGA is an organized political party that pretends to be the Republican Party, that Trump’s MAGA hijacked.
Still, MAGA fascist thugs are not conservatives. From what I’ve been reading, it looks like almost half of real conservatives still voting Republican reject MAGA and their traitorous god.
When Traitor Trump is gone, his MAGA organization will still be there. It’s not going to vanish.
DeSantis, like Haley, Abbott and other power hungry fascists pretending they are conservatives are standing in the wings ready to race on stage if called upon to lead MAGA — once Traitor Trump is gone and he will be gone one way or the other. Trump’s chronicle age is 77, but his biological age us 10 to 11 years older.
“Trump’s biological age: He’s older than BIden – COVID diagnosis tells why”
https://nwasianweekly.com/2020/10/trumps-biological-age-hes-older-than-biden/
The question is, will MAGA’s rank and file accept whoever is called upon to lead them when the traitor is gone. Traitor Trump is a god in MAGA’s programed minds.
Will the Christian Nationals anoint another fascist god to take Trump’s place? Will MAGA’s rank and file accept anyone else?
I think that the answer to that question is, “Yes.” These people are not particularly critical. They don’t have the faculties for critical analysis. They will take the next strongman who stands up after The Idiot. Historically, these strongmen have not always been the brightest. Mussolini was probably the brightest, and he wrote potboiler novels. Definitely lowbrow.
You sound like a lunatic who hates his country. As a lifelong Conservative and a person who voted for Trump twice and originally wanted Ted Cruz to be the nominee ( who you also hated 🤣), you don’t get to pick our nominee. I think democrats would do well to worry about the problems in YOUR party, such as putting forward a senile old man twice!!! You also have the anti-semite problem, the we can’t and won’t teach disadvantaged minorities to read problem, the we can’t and won’t defend the border problem, the we’d rather 100,000 Americans a year die from fentanyl, including George Floyd than do anything about the drug cartels problem. Yes, democrats have plenty to be worried about in their party. The conservatives are fixing our RINO problem by sending them to you. You can have them; they were always democrats anyway.
You say you are a Christian, but if you have voted twice for Trump, you have voted for the antithesis of Christ. Twice
I love my country. That’s why I hate Putin’s dog, Trump. He is a traitor. And a con man. And a liar. And he has the blood of a lot of Americans on his hands because he thought it would serve his reelection interests to pretend that Covid was a nothing burger. He is a profoundly ignorant and a fool and a career criminal. Because I love my country, I don’t want Putin’s dog anywhere near the Oval Office. I want him in prison where he belongs.