DeSantis 2024: Make America Florida - How fucked are we? I saw this on my way home today

[quote]Start with DeSantis. Last April, when vaccines were new and not nearly so politically polarized, the governor got the Johnson & Johnson shot, reportedly because he preferred a single shot to two. He didn’t get jabbed in public (“I’m not sure we’re going to do it on camera; we’ll see,” he told reporters. “If you guys want a gun show, maybe we can do it, but probably better off not”) but he did disclose that he’d gotten it, and then criticized the FDA for pausing distribution of J&J later that month.

[quote]Now, however, DeSantis won’t even say whether he’s received a booster shot. “So that’s something that I think people should make their own decisions on,” he said last week. “I’m not gonna let that be a weapon for people to be able to use. I think it’s a private matter.

[quote]What’s going on here? One possibility is that since getting his first shot, DeSantis has become fervently, genuinely anti-vaccine, which would be pretty silly, because evidence is only mounting that the vaccines are both effective and safe. A second is that he has no personal objection to the vaccine but has decided to forgo the booster nonetheless, because he understands the anti-vax mood in the noisiest parts of the Republican base, and he wants to claim that mantle. The more likely scenario is the one that the conservative journalist Jonathan V. Last lays out: “You’re not supposed to remember this, but DeSantis is a smarty-pants, Ivy League elite lawyer who is playacting as a populist crusader … DeSantis almost certainly got the booster.” In short, he wants to claim the anti-vax mantle without foolishly endangering himself.

[quote]DeSantis is apparently going through these contortions because he is positioning himself for a 2024 presidential run—which would put him in conflict with former President Donald Trump, who sees the GOP nomination as rightfully his own. Trump, who has taken a pro-vaccine stance (the shots were mostly developed under his administration), quickly fired a shot across DeSantis’s bow. “I watched a couple politicians be interviewed, and one of the questions was ‘Did you get a booster?’” he said. “Because they had the vaccine and they’re answering like—in other words, the answer is ‘yes,’ but they don’t want to say it, because they’re gutless.”

[quote]This is a classic Trump attack: petty, entertaining, and authentic. Vaccines are one of the few issues on which Trump and his base have serious differences, and Trump has stuck to his stance despite backlash. But most of the time, Trump and his supporters are in lockstep. He doesn’t have to cater to voters, because his voters like both what he says and the way he says it—those are, in a sense, one and the same. As Jindal himself wrote in 2018, “Mr. Trump’s style is part of his substance. His most loyal supporters back him because of, not despite, his brash behavior.”

[quote]And though Trump is incorrigibly dishonest, he doesn’t have to pretend to be something other than what he is to win over voters. When Trump said in 2016, “I love the poorly educated,” he was perhaps overly blunt, but he wasn’t fibbing. The imitators, however, do not have his common touch, so instead they try to ape it. Their pantomime comes across as condescending. If they had come sincerely to the positions they’ve taken, they would be wrong, but because they seem disingenuous, they are also pathetic.

Make America Florida??? What does that even mean?

These idiots have no idea what they are asking for -- a country full of sunburned nuts, wealthy crazy old people that can't drive, and meth heads, living in unstable condos, or in trailer parks. I can't see anyone wanting to live in that nightmare.

Make America Florida sounds like sarcasm to me. However, I do think it is possible that DeSantis could win.

Calm down, Op, you could make a sticker with your name on it if you like, because you and Ron DeSantis have about a equal chance of being the next President

"Make America Florida" would doom his chances, though. It's a laughing stock.

This is excellent. Literally the best thing we could ask for. Trump vs DeSantis- let them battle it out and their moronic zealots m might destroy each other and take their party to hell with them.

I was worried about Romney, or anyone with a brain, steering that Carnival cruise of Covid and meth madness back on course. But let them continue with their irrational bull shit- it's unsustainable. We all suffer the externalities of their idiocy, but it will end them.

I hope you're right R4 & R5, I know you can buy campaign stickers on ebay and Amazon but he's gaining supporters like crazy.

"but he's gaining supporters like crazy. "

Hahahaha! He is not. He would need to get Trump's support and that ain't gonna happen. Trump hates DeSantis

Don't be surprised if Trump runs with DeSantis as his VP.

We'd be so fucked.

The problem is neither party actually tries to address basic voter needs. So then the cultural issues end up being what people vote on.

R10 you could be right but I'm sure DeSantis would rather run without Trump.

@r10, Ok, Chicken Little troll, I'll try to keep my surprise in check

[quote]Hahahaha! He is not.

I should have worded that differently, R9. DeSantis is gaining support from major donors.

The media need to start telling the stories coming out of Florida’s gestapo politics and can the Florida man news. This is serious stuff.

How many grannies have been killed between DeSantis and Scott? Florida is a mess. Tell the personal stories and not the stupid headlines.

I’m terrified that DeShitus is a shoe in.

^ There's a spider in your bathroom... That ought to finish you off

Some people deserve to have their tires slashed.

he's definitely winning imo.

enjoy these last 3 years of civilization.

[quote]The problem is neither party actually tries to address basic voter needs.

How very both sides of you, r11.

R19 We hate chicken little Marys like you.

[quote]Campaign finance filings show Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s running for re-election, raised just over $67 million in 2021 — totaling more in a single year than 2020 and 2019 combined. His campaign raised $3.7 million in 2020, and $5.5 million in 2019. Along with $10 million in contributions from the beginning of this year, DeSantis has raised almost $87 million overall for his 2022 re-election bid compared to the roughly $60 million he raised for his 2018 campaign.

One more time, Trump raised a shit-ton of money, trump had a lot of support, Trump lost, by a lot, because he's a jerk and the majority of America isn't going to want another Putin ass-kissing President. Especially after the Jan. 6th stunt

Ohhh I wish I could live in that fantasy world R23.

It will NEVER happen as long as Trump has a breath and a diaper.

@r24, Stop trolling, everything I said is true. The only fantasy here is your fake fear fantasy

Some Americans have a hard on for fascism. I swear they want us to have our very own Putin.

I'm afraid we're in for a very rough decade...between Russia and Ukraine, and what's happening here. But, I'm a born pessimist and rarely see the silver lining.

Things to keep in mind:

[quote][bold]Between Janu­ary 1 and Decem­ber 7, at least 19 states passed 34 laws restrict­ing access to voting[/bold]. More than 440 bills with provi­sions that restrict voting access have been intro­duced in 49 states in the 2021 legis­lat­ive sessions. These numbers are extraordin­ary: state legis­latures enacted far more restrict­ive voting laws in 2021 than in any year since the Bren­nan Center began track­ing voting legis­la­tion in 2011. More than a third of all restrict­ive voting laws enacted since then were passed this year. And in a new trend this year, legis­lat­ors intro­duced bills to allow partisan actors to inter­fere with elec­tion processes or even reject elec­tion results entirely.

[quote]Unfor­tu­nately, the momentum around this legis­la­tion contin­ues. So far, at least 13 bills restrict­ing access to voting have been pre-filed for the 2022 legis­lat­ive session in four states. In addi­tion, at least 152 restrict­ive voting bills in 18 states will carry over from 2021.

Like many in the GQP DeSantis has been on the Russian payroll over the past few years.

@r28, Pessimists suck all the oxygen out of a room, so stop it

[quote]Each law was enacted by a Republican governor or by Republican-controlled legislatures voting to override Democratic governors' vetoes.

Not trying to suck up the oxygen in the room...just being realistic. People have to face this and wake up. I hope I'm wrong. Nothing would make me happier than to be wrong on this.

Democrats are too busy advocating for trannies in bathrooms and banning plastic bags and taxing everything while people can barely afford to live. Republicans can easily end up controlling Congress and the White House in 2025. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Restricting access to voting has nothing to do with it. Democrats are hugely unpopular.

Well DeSantis has an actual brain in his head. He is self made, and well educated . His COVID leadership was far superior to the other governors of large states . He would be way better than Trump and Biden . The media hates him because of these reasons .

The no plastic bag policy in NYC is infuriating. Most people in New York are walking around carless and don't have the ability to store reusable bags in their pockets. That shit should be relegated to the suburbs where they drive those giant gas guzzling SUVs and have tons of room in their trunks to store reusable bags.

Troll alert @R36. LOL, you guys don't even try anymore.

His covid leadership was merely to lie and cover up numbers.

Don't all the trolls on here have better sites to disrupt than DL? I think we've got the lazy ones working here

Is R36 serious with that nonsense?

r2, this could be the basis of a social media campaign to torpedo DeSantis' run; 'Make America Florida Again' and referring to DeSantis as "Florida man'.

He looks like Fred Flintstone in a suit and tie.

You guys are all head in the sand MSNBC liberals, so I’m going to inject some reality into the thread:

Mainstream conservatives aren’t as into Trump as you all would like to think. We know you desperately want him to run because he’s an easy villain who leans into his pettiest and most basic impulses and he’d be very easy to beat.

DeSantis is Trump without the BS. Republicans (like me) LOVE him. If some of you weren’t so brainwashed by whatever Dems tell you to think, you’d be honest about the appeal of DeSantis. He was proven right at every turn in his handling of COVID. He made tough, unpopular decisions that ended up being completely correct. Think about it. Florida’s economy (and that of other R states) was among the least impacted. The lockdowns devastated the blue cities, and now data proves that the lockdowns did little to nothing to stop the spread. It was all political.

He stands up to lies of the MSM. He doesn’t engage in every stupid culture war issue, and when he wades into one he’s smart and knows the details. He appeals to independents. He has an actual record to stand on.

It is DeSantis’ time. Nobody really wants Trump to run other than MSM pundits (obviously), Dems who need a supervillain, and people who have something to gain from Trump running, be it status, money, access, power.

I predict DeSantis will stand up to Trump in the primary and win. That “base” of Trump people are really just standard republican voters who want the policies without the bullshit.

Trump knows he will lose if he runs, so I do not think he will.

Meanwhile Dems will want to nominate Bernie. We’re dead in the water.

[quote]You guys are all head in the sand MSNBC liberals

Yawn.

Also, R43, this thread is about DeSantis, not Trump.

[quote]so I’m going to inject some reality into the thread

That, r43, is the ultimate in Sure, Jans.

From March 16:

[quote]Ron DeSantis Is Gambling on Out-Trumping Trump

Bump

Worth repeating:

Where is a sharpshooter when you need them?

His weight shows he has poor impulse control. You know there's skeletons in that closet, girls (and maybe bois, judging from his hissing bitchiness) with tales to tell about Greasefatnis.

I really like this lady:

This needs to be a bigger story:

[quote] Ron DeSantis' net worth at the end of 2020 was less then 350k. His net worth now is 52 million. How did he make over 51 million in a year?

Also, this is why so many MAGA support him. This is how they envision their fortunes turning if only they can get the "others" out of the way...

Trump is a homegrown New Yorker and they deserve all the blame for allowing him to ever get as far as he did.

<- He's white trash from Queens. He can't go home again and he knows it.

[quote] so I’m going to inject some reality into the thread

The ultimate sin on datalounge

R53 - “ Trump is a homegrown New Yorker and they deserve all the blame for allowing him to ever get as far as he did.”

Excuse me R53? You need to shut your ridiculous pie hole. I’m an elder, born and raised in New York City, and let me tell you something Mary, we (the sane majority), hated that mother fucking grifter from day 1.

R56 - You're right. My brother lived in NYC in the 70's and had several (social) connections to DLT and that fat crook was a huge joke over 40 years ago. Midwesterners are such huge suckers.

[quote]Ron DeSantis' net worth at the end of 2020 was less then 350k. His net worth now is 52 million. How did he make over 51 million in a year?

Funny, R52.

On the off chance that that isn't a joke, aside from the astronomical dollar amount, financial disclosure reports for 2021 haven't been filed yet because they aren't due until June/July.

This is from June 2021:

[quote]Gov. Ron DeSantis’ net worth grew nearly 20 percent in his second year as the state’s top executive. With his only listed income a taxpayer-funded salary of $134,181, DeSantis reported a net worth of $348,832 as of Dec. 31, 2020, up from $291,449 at the end of 2019, [bold]according to a financial disclosure posted Monday on the Florida Commission on Ethics website. State elected officials face a loose July 1 deadline to file annual disclosure reports, which typically detail their finances as of the end of the prior year.[/bold] Late filers have until September to submit reports before they face fines — $25 a day, with a cap at $1,500.

[quote]The forms require disclosure of an estimated net worth, assets valued at more than $1,000, liabilities of more than $1,000 and information about income. In addition to his salary in 2020, DeSantis listed assets of $235,000 in a USAA account; $105,755 in a government thrift savings plan, a type of retirement savings and investment plan; and $30,302 in the Florida Retirement System. The USAA account grew by $29,500 from the previous year, while the money in the state retirement system was up a little more than $16,000 and the former congressman’s thrift savings plan grew by $7,985. DeSantis also paid down a Sallie Mae student loan by $3,605 during 2020, with a remaining balance of $22,225 as of Dec. 31.

If denied the nomination, Trump will intentionally destroy DeSantis. "If I can't win, no one can!" Good times ahead.

Here's the source of r52's claim... a totally reputable website from India.

I bet he wishes he could pick stocks like Pelosi... a true Nostradamus.

@r56, You are absolutely right. I distinctly remember New Yorkers warning America about what a scum-bucket Trump was

You just know R43 is the mother of all scat queens.

Just how fat is Defacto that he thinks this fat tub of shit is hot and manly?

[quote]Yes, I know it's too early to panic

Then, stop.

R63 I never said that…

^ We all know you think it and beat off to it

R66 maybe…. 😅

[quote]this fat tub of shit is hot and manly?

Hot & manly? He looks like Mayor Quimby, they even wear the same suit, the only thing DeSantis is missing is a sash that says Governor.

[quote]like the wacky state he leads, DeSantis seems to be a “crazy story” factory. Every few days, you’ll see a new story about DeSantis’ latest antics or half-baked policy initiative, as he constantly strives for the spotlight and hopes for a reserved seat on the GOP express from Crazytown to the White House in 2024.

[quote]Some of the attention-grabbing is comical, and a lot of it is crude. Much of it also seems reflexive, as if the governor is a puppet and his own ambition is pulling the strings. DeSantis doesn’t lead; he follows.

[quote]On Wednesday, during a speech in West Palm Beach, DeSantis fired up a crowd of supporters when he referred to President Joe Biden’s administration as the “Brandon administration” before breaking into laughter. The crowd got the joke. It started chanting “Let’s go Brandon,” a phrase that has become right-wing code for “Fuck Joe Biden.”

[quote]Yet, having said all that, you almost have to feel sorry for him. DeSantis is obviously so desperate to be president that he is pandering like mad on multiple fronts as he tries to stay in the good graces of the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party ahead of his re-election bid next year. DeSantis is being pressured, almost daily, by right-wing trolls to lurch further and further toward them. It’s hard to know if the trolls want to support him, or if they’re just messing with him to exercise their muscles.

[quote]The governor goes along with it, because he apparently has no core beliefs other than the unshakable conviction that he should sit in the Oval Office.

They want to turn America into a Middle Eastern country.

no rights for women, minorities or gay people. No abortions or birth control. No safety laws/regulations of any type,

no social safety net. No public schools, no protections for the citizens and no descent from the public

They want us all to become slaves.

The NYT signaled that they don't support a 2nd Biden term with their authentication of the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Their editorial about America's free speech problem is an additional clue that they are ready for a change in direction for Democrats.

I've wondered, my own self, why this NYT editorial promoting the false "cancel culture" panic has upset me so much.

I think part of it is this: I have fucking LOVED the NYT. Worked there. When it's great, nothing comes close.

But it has fundamentally misread this moment.

As the right has become more explicitly an anti-Democratic ethnonationalist movement, the NYT (unlike, say, WaPo) has seen its fundamental duty to be a paper for "both sides."

It sees its fundamental flaw in 2016 as not grokking the Trump fan.

Its coverage of the Trump WH was too often a version of "that naked Emperor show has a beautiful suit. "

In short, the NYT went deep into its instincts: both-sidism; respect for authority; a view that Trump-is-normal; that their job is not to call strikes as strikes.

I saw this as, mostly, a Dean Baquet problem. And I was hopeful (though wary) that his replacement will right the ship.

But this editorial--approved, I have to assume, by AG Suzlberger, the publisher--suggests the problem is deep in the org.

I personally really like AG. He's a lovely guy and smart.

But I think he is running a paper adrift and in crisis.

And this editorial was like them screaming out: Yeah, mother fuckers, we're quadrupling down on our both-sidist views.

It breaks my heart.

There is so much great work there. Right now, heroic NYT journalists are on the frontlines in Ukraine.

But cover America like you cover Ukraine!

It's OK. It's good to report the truth.

I predict Ron Death Sentence will continue to get Chris Christie fat by late 2023, then he'll miraculously "lose the weight" just like Pompeo did. Diet and 20 minutes of exercise a day for a couple of months and he'll lose 100 lbs. (and we all know it's bullshit, he'll get lap band surgery--just like Josh Hawley's pecs and nose are real too)

let's hope this becomes true.

We are at the point where the republicans don't have a shred of decency. And the NY Times wants to support them as much as they are able to.

The NY Times is shit. Quite frankly it's been shit since the Iraq war. Some of you have been making excuses for them. STOP IT. Shame on you morons

DeSantis is Demented. Enough said. :-/

I just listened to a news story about the success of the Rightwing education movement. It noted how well-organized the movement is across the nationwide, raising huge sums and organizing hundreds of thousands of people nationwide. They are going to school Board and government meetings all the country, influencing policy and electing people to office. On the Left, only a few tiny, unfounded organizations are active to counter this. They are outmatched at all levels. The Right has a digital megaphone 📢, and the Left has a whisper at best.

Yes, R77.

From what I'm seeing, most of these people don't have kids in the school.

elderly + bored + crazy = vengeance they've wanted for decades

Yes, but that’s nuance. And we know the American media and public don’t do Nuance

r10 that ticket would be perfect for DeSantis because win or lose, he wins. He either remains Gov of FL in 2025 or become VP to a one-term president. Anyone in his shoes would take that deal in a heartbeat.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Florida is lost

Bad news, R81.

But I'll look for confirmation from a more reputable source than The Daily Fail.

It’s consistent with other polls

National poll

I don’t think Ron’s going to be our first president from Florida.

Interesting that the first page of Google results are all right leaning organizations and pollsters like the two here and a few even further to the right.

And then ABC says something completely different. Dis/Information is all over the map

[quote] The ABC News/Ipsos poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel, found that 62% of Americans oppose such legislation, while 37% support it.

Florida is a lovely state pity about the Floridians.

[quote]Bad news, [R81]. But I'll look for confirmation from a more reputable source than The Daily Fail.

The Daily Mail is questionable but they did cite their source as being [italic]"Commissioned by local political action committee Floridians for Economic Advancement"[/italic]so I looked it up and may have found it.

Demographics:

[quote]61% Female

[quote]39% Male

[quote]18-29: 13%

[quote]30-44: 16%

[quote]45-54: 14%

[quote]55-64: 15%

[quote]65+: 42%

[quote]White: 57%

[quote]African-American: 29%

[quote]Hispanic: 9%

Poll Question:

[quote][bold]Should students in Kindergarten through 3rd Grade be taught about sexual orientation in the classroom by their teachers?[/bold]

[quote]18% Definitely Yes

[quote]18% Somewhat Yes

[quote]20% Somewhat No

[quote]32% Definitely No

[quote]12% Unsure

I don't know if other questions were asked.