In the end, it wasn’t culture war feuding over restricting LGBTQ+ rights, thwarting Black voters or vilifying immigrants that finally broke Republicans’ DeSantis fever in Florida.
Nor was it his rightwing takeover of higher education, the banning of books from school libraries, his restriction of drag shows, or passive assent of neo-Nazis parading outside Disney World waving flags bearing the extremist governor’s name that caused them to finally stand up to him.
It was, instead, a love of vulnerable Florida scrub jays; a passion to preserve threatened gopher tortoises; and above all a unanimous desire to speak up for nature in defiance of Ron DeSantis’s mind-boggling plan to pave over thousands of unspoiled acres at nine state parks and erect 350-room hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts.
The outcry when DeSantis’s department of environmental protection (DEP) unveiled its absurdly named Great Outdoors Initiative last week was immediate, overwhelming and unprecedented. The Republican Florida senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott penned a joint letter slamming an “absolutely ridiculous” proposal to build a golf course at Jonathan Dickinson state park in Martin county. The Republican congressman Brian Mast, usually a reliable DeSantis ally, said it would happen “over my dead body”.
in case there’s STILL any doubt that desantis is a sock puppet with oligarchs’ collective hand up its ass…
so glad i moved out of that inflamed hemorrhoid of a state
Don’t underestimate his getting absolutely destroyed on a national stage by Disney in a fight of his own choosing. His plan to shut down their “wokeness” and take control of their park backfired spectacularly.
DeSantis got outmaneuvered so easily and completely by their lawyers it made him look like a clown.
Still, really a shameful indictment of the country that he was demolished by expensive lawyers instead of by the First Amendment for targeting them based on speech.
While I agree, I’ll take the wins where we can get them.
What we’ve seen as a trend with Hershell Walker, DeSantis, Vance and a few others that Trump’s special immunity to pushback or what some call the “soft bigotry of low expectations” doesn’t extend far beyond him.
With luck, the MAGA movement of “ignorance uber alles” will perish with him. Ideally, it will perish in November.
Huh? Republicans care about the environment now?
My grandfather was a lifelong Republican but also a great lover of the outdoors and the national and state park systems. The idea of putting up golf courses on park land would have sickened him. He wanted people in the future to have the same opportunities he had to enjoy camping, hiking, etc.
I don’t know why Rubio and Mast chose this moment to publicly fall out with DeSantis, but among the rank-and-file Republican voters there have always been individuals who cared about conservation.
My grandfather was a lifelong Republican but also a great lover of the outdoors and the national and state park systems.
The parks system was created by a Republican, but still, in recent years the GOP has been the party of resource extraction and climate change denial. It seems odd for them to pick an environmental issue, of all things, to beat Desantis over the head with.
The one thing that just about anybody inside or outside the U.S. can agree on is that we have the best national parks, and the most unspoiled natural beauty across entire swathes of land. This doesn’t happen by accident. A love of nature transcends political affiliations. If anything I would say despite the social stigma of Democrats being “tree-huggers”, it’s actually conservatives and Republicans who have a vested interest in preserving and maintaining national parks and nature conservatories. Hunting and fishing in particular are big pass times in red states, so it makes sense that Republicans care deeply about the environment.
Climate change denialism only takes root in conservative circles because it’s abstract enough to not be directly observable and is at direct odds with things like fossil fuels production that are major economic drivers in predominantly Republican controlled states. Although I think conservatives are finally waking up to that fact and are refusing to be spoon fed bullshit anymore. Hopefully not too late to reverse course.
The one thing that just about anybody inside or outside the U.S. can agree on is that we have the best national parks, and the most unspoiled natural beauty across entire swathes of land.
Second-largest country on the planet checking in, with 90% untouched wilderness so deep that people routinely get lost for days a 10-minute drive from town.
Desperately trying to pin blame elsewhere for a misadventure that was very demonstrably his own, he continued: “This is something that was leaked. It was not approved by me, I never saw that. It was intentionally leaked to a leftwing group to try and create a narrative.”
His implausible comment denying accountability hung out to dry his own inner circle, notably his communications director, Bryan Griffin, who barely a week earlier was enthusing on X about an “exciting new initiative of the State of Florida … expanding visitor capacity, lodging, and recreation options in state parks”.
The nazi claimed he didn’t know the nazis in his admin were nazis.
“The DeSantis administration is very tightly controlled and micromanaged from the top down, so the thought that he wasn’t aware of this or didn’t support it, or that somehow the people in those agencies would have pushed a huge plan like that without the governor’s knowledge or support, it’s just ludicrous,” said Aubrey Jewett, political science professor at the University of Central Florida’s school of politics, security and international affairs.
“People just don’t freelance and come up with these things on their own. This was a totally self-inflicted political wound, a political error by Governor DeSantis and his administration. There’s just no reason to pursue a policy where you pave over state parks to build golf courses and hotels, right? There’s no demand, nobody was asking for this, and they just decided they were going to do it anyway. It was politically tone deaf.”
The nazi thought he could be a nazi when no one was asking him to be a nazi. Even though a lot of his supporters are nazis.
Oh, Ronnie, you poor little lad. You tried to be the new face of fascism only to fail spectacularly. Dry your tears and here, have a cup of pudding that you can eat with your fingers. That’s not weird, who told you that?
“ … Republican Florida senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott penned a joint letter … ”
Oooh! Is this the part where the fascists start to autocannibalize!?
