Summary
Florida State Rep. Hillary Cassel, a Democrat representing Broward County, switched to the Republican Party due to concerns about the Democratic Party’s stance on Israel, progressive extremism, and disconnect from “everyday Floridians.”
Cassel’s move follows Tampa Rep. Susan Valdes’ similar defection earlier this month, bolstering Republicans’ supermajority to 87 members in Florida’s 120-seat House.
GOP leaders welcomed Cassel, while Democrats criticized her decision as a betrayal of voters and party principles.
Cassel, first elected in 2022, has been a key Democratic voice on property insurance issues.
This should automatically result in impeachment. Representative democracy only works with good faith representatives.
It should be fuckin criminal, and result in automatic and immediate new election.
Republicans are literally running fake democrats to steal power from democratic voters to further their fascistic agendas.
It is a dire assault on our democracy, with the same level of threat and danger, that Jan 6ers represented, but far more subtle and far less prone to triggering the massive outrage that it should.
“Progressive extremism”? Does anyone understand what progressivism is? What did she want done in Israel? Total elimination of the Palestinians?
I’ve heard that term several times from some bothsiderists that were making excuses to not vote, or vote Republican, claiming both sides are “so extreme” now.
I asked for examples of how Democrats are “too extreme”. It usually boils down to trans or how people were protesting Israel’s treatment of Gaza. Probing deeper on actual policy, it really came down to a bunch of nothing.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. FL politics is an absolute shit show. I used to work with the DNC there, but stopped in 2019 due to seeing how corrupt and ineffective it is. While I was doing that, multiple state reps made mention that bills written by democrats don’t even get read.
One would literally need to be a Republican in FL in order to have your bills even acknowledged.
Let’s see how she votes before throwing stones. If a bunch of people register as Republican but vote for leftist policy, it’ll certainly be interesting.
Edit: read the article AFTER writing what I wrote above. Turns out she’s just a Zionist. Fuck her. Throw boulders.
It’s almost as if it was planned all along!
“Vote Blue No Matter Who”
Is your suggestion that people vote in the cancelled election differently? Even if there was an R to vote for, should they have voted for the outright R instead of being tricked?
No, vote for people representing your own values, not based on team. Neither the dnc or gop have any workers interests or values. Vote blue no matter who is as fascist and doomed to fail as any other anti democratic nonsense.
It’s a false dichotomy between values and being strategic. Doing both requires flexibility of action.
None of the viable candidates on the ballot were people that completely represented my values in virtually any election I’ve voted in. Indeed, I suspect some of my values are a small enough minority of the country that they simply do not stand a chance at winning democratically without a major shift in the opinions of the general population.
“Vote blue no matter who” isn’t really literal, in the the sense that I wouldn’t vote for a republican if somehow one actually reflecting what I think was actually running. It’s a heuristic, reflecting the fact that the dems have throughout my lifetime consistently been closer to my views than the Rs however slightly and really only useful in cases like obscure downballot races where I am unable to locate much information about what the candidates actually want but must still try to determine which is preferable without real information about them.
Nobody even got to vote for this person this election cycle, that’s why your comment doesn’t fit in this discussion. You just went off on an unrelated talking point. This is a result of different failures of the democratic process than what you’re trying to start the discussion about.
Based on how you used the word in this post, I don’t think you know what fascist means.
Using the word “authoritarian,” would have been better, but then I would just think you’re dumb for failing to understand the purpose in telling people to vote against the publicly and openly fascist party.
