The Paradise Progressive is an effort to cover, analyze and comment on news affecting the Paradise Coast of Southwest Florida that is overlooked, ignored or avoided by local traditional media. It does this to fulfill the role of a free and independent press in a democratic republic.
As the Washington Post states: “Democracy dies in darkness.” But we say: “Liberty lives in light.” Our goal is to shine a light as best we can to dispel the darkness.
The Paradise Progressive is not affiliated with any political party or organization. It was begun on Dec. 20, 2018. The Paradise Progressive can also be viewed on its Facebook page, which features links to other Florida-related postings, and on its website, ParadiseProgressive.com. Videos related to political activities in Southwest Florida can be seen at The Paradise Progressive YouTube channel.
April 27, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28
This week sees the beginning of a special session of the state legislature. Theoretically, lawmakers are going to discuss artificial intelligence, vaccine mandates and maybe, just possibly, redistricting.
Redistricting is actually the big one. This is a mid-decade effort to redraw the state’s congressional district boundaries to benefit Donald Trump and his MAGA faction of the Republican Party.
The original cartoon by Elkanah Tisdale published in 1812 that gave rise to the term “Gerrymander.”
Make no mistake: this mid-decade gerrymandering is unconstitutional at both the state and federal levels. It is a blatant effort to rig the midterm congressional elections in Trump’s favor. In fact, it is so overt and so obvious that I’ve dubbed it “The Big Rig.”
I’m David Silverberg and I’m running for the Florida state Senate in District 28. The district covers Collier and Hendry counties and Lee County east of Rt. 75, including the community of Gateway.
Since I’m not in the legislature now, I can only watch Tallahassee’s doings along with all other Floridians.
But one of the reasons I am running is to prevent these kinds of power grabs and despotic overreaches.
The Big Rig violates two constitutions.
The first is the United States Constitution, the law that governs the entire country.
Under that Constitution, Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, calls for an “Enumeration” of the American population “within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct”—i.e., as Congress determines. Over time, this became more widely known as the Census and its collection has been steadily honed, refined, and improved.
Having a regular, dependable, predictable census was a tremendous benefit to the United States. It not only apportioned seats in Congress—and every other office—it was used for tax purposes, resource allocation and informed governance. All parties could agree to it and abide by its findings.
But most important of all, the decennial census is enshrined in the founding document of the nation and no one questioned that—until now.
In the absence of a law prohibiting it (and even if there was a law, he’d probably ignore it), Trump is trying to engineer an end-run around the Constitution in order to force a preordained electoral outcome in the midterms. As part of this he’s also trying to discredit the last Census.
So far his efforts have sparked an intense backlash. Texas, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina have rigged their maps to please Trump but California, Virginia and Utah are redistricting to counter it. Indiana rejected The Big Rig altogether.
Besides the partisan advantage that Trump is trying to gain to stay in power, The Big Rig unnecessarily divides the country, shakes its institutions and exacerbates existing partisan tensions. It’s an act of bad faith, bad intentions and bad thinking.
Now, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his legislative pawns are going to try to rig Florida’s districts.
That brings us to the other Constitution, that of Florida.
In 2010 the people of Florida passed the Florida Fair Districts amendments to the state Constitution. They were intended to prevent partisan gerrymandering in Florida’s electoral districts. Article 3, Section 20 states, plainly and simply: “No apportionment plan or individual district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent; and districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice; and districts shall consist of contiguous territory.”
It is exactly this that Gov. Ron DeSantis and his enablers and accomplices in the legislature (what I call “Big Tallahassee”) are going to try to violate and overthrow in this special session.
This effort is unconstitutional on a state level. It is also unnecessarily harmful, hurtful and divisive. It will not benefit Florida. It will create ill will and distrust over the long term. It will also tie up Florida governance in litigation for years because anti-gerrymandering groups will instantly sue the minute new maps are presented. It will create uncertainty throughout Florida government, upend local governments and simply cause chaos when there’s already too much chaos anyway.
As a state Senate candidate I want to uphold both the national and state constitutions. They need to be respected and honored. The kind of rampant unconstitutionality we’re seeing on the national and state levels is unacceptable. I will fight that kind of desecration every way I can if elected to office in Tallahassee.
But I also believe in offering solutions, not just criticisms.
If elected to the state Senate, I intend to introduce the Digital Districting Act, ensuring that when redistricting next occurs (2030, according to the Constitution), the legislature must consider a map drawn by computer based purely on Census data, without regard to party, incumbency, race or language.
It won’t require that the map necessarily be adopted, only that it must be considered. I would hope that it will provide a model and baseline for fair, unbiased redistricting.
Will it pass? Who knows? But I believe the effort needs to be made.
In the meantime, I’ll be watching the tangle in Tallahassee just like all my friends and neighbors.
We may have to endure this now but if elected to the Florida Senate from District 28, you can be assured that I intend to do something about it so that it never happens again.
There is no doubt that Floridians want clean water. (Illustration: AI for Silverberg4Florida.com/ChatGPT)
April 22, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28
Water isn’t Republican or Democratic, or conservative or liberal. It’s something essential to human life regardless of race, creed, religion or national origin. Clean, fresh water needs to be protected and cherished.
This is particularly true in Southwest Florida and state Senate District 28, consisting of Collier and Hendry counties and Lee County east of Rt. 75—which I am running to represent.
This is being published on Earth Day 2026, a day when we should all be particularly mindful of our relationship to the planet and the natural environment on which we depend.
If elected state senator representing this district, I am determined to protect Southwest Florida’s waters from depletion, pollution and destruction.
Why?
All of what we take for granted as modern human life here in Southwest Florida—our buildings, roads, businesses—are built on a thin layer of concrete and asphalt imposed on a foundation of sand and swamp.
Without human intervention, this is an environment hostile to human life. Without human order and technology, people simply could not live amidst the extreme temperatures, the swarms of mosquitos and ravenous wildlife, all of it drenched by tropical downpours when not baked by tropical heat.
A plentiful supply of clean, fresh, drinkable water makes possible our life in this “built” environment. Without it, not only would we have no form of hydration, the plants and animals of this region could not flourish. Southwest Florida would be an arid, burnt, desert and unlivable for humans and most anything else.
Our fresh, drinkable water comes primarily from underground aquifers. The aquifers are replenished by seasonal rains and tropical storms. It is absolutely essential that these aquifers be protected from pollution and depletion. If they’re polluted or degraded, there’s no going back.
Last year we had no major tropical storms to bring water from the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico to the aquifers. As a result, as this is written, Southwest Florida is in the midst of an intense, extreme drought. Wildfires are breaking out and no one can tell where they’ll flare next. Homes have been evacuated. To the north of the 28th District, the City of Cape Coral has imposed restrictions on water use and irrigation due to depletion of its Mid-Hawthorn Aquifer. Unless there’s replenishment the rest of the region could face the same constraints.
The aquifers are precious and must be kept pure.
But it’s not just aquifers that sustain life in Southwest Florida. The region’s lakes, streams and the massive wetlands of the Everglades are also critical to human and animal life. What is more, they’re foundational to the region’s economy, lifestyle and habitability.
Most people are vaguely aware of their presence. But it isn’t until something goes wrong that many people fully recognize the importance of these waters in their daily lives.
That’s what happened in the fall of 2017 and spring of 2018 when massive algal blooms occurred both in the Caloosahatchee River and the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve long called this incident “The Big Bloom” and it had a devastating effect on the region’s economy and local life. People were driven from their houses by toxic algae in the air. The economy, tourism, jobs, and property values took tremendous hits.
We have to fight the pollution that poisons our waters and gives rise to harmful algal blooms and that is what I intend to do as state Senator, based on the best scientific findings and clear, convincing evidence.
We also have to realize that pollution and degradation goes beyond just our region and extends throughout the state. Water quality needs to be addressed holistically and comprehensively. I look forward to working with senators and representatives across the state—and across the aisle—as we tackle these issues.
Obviously, protecting the purity of our waters is tied to the reality of climate change, federal action and oil exploitation. These are issues that I will be discussing in future statements.
Perhaps my intentions were best expressed by another Floridian:
“We will fight toxic blue-green algae, we will fight discharges from Lake Okeechobee, we will fight red tide, we will fight for our fishermen, we will fight for our beaches, we will fight to restore our Everglades and we will never ever quit, we won’t be cowed and we won’t let the foot draggers stand in our way.”
Those are great sentiments, I share them completely and they’re what I intend to do if elected to the Florida Senate.
By the way, those are words spoken by, of all people, Ron DeSantis, when he gave his inaugural speech as governor in 2019.
DeSantis certainly seems to have dropped the torch and lost the urgency of those words in the years since. I have not. He and his allies are now the “foot draggers” delaying progress.
But in November, with the votes of the people of Southwest Florida and my election, that foot dragging won’t continue. We will never ever quit, we won’t be cowed and we will always guard the purity of Florida’s precious water.
Before and after photographs of the crosswalk in front of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in August 2025. (Photo: Florida Phoenix, with permission of Ryan Anderson)
David Silverberg, candidate for the Florida state Senate in District 28, pledged today that if elected he will introduce a bill called the “Colorful Crosswalks Act.”
“There’s no reason that communities can’t show their pride with multiple colors in their crosswalks as long as it’s compatible with public safety,” said Silverberg. “My Colorful Crosswalks Act will make that possible and spell out the details.”
Background: Last year Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Department of Transportation prohibited all “surface art” at Florida intersections, a form of expression that had been permitted since 2017. In August and September 2025 state workers began painting over multicolored crosswalks across Florida despite protests and resistance from residents and city governments. This included a multicolored crosswalk in Orlando honoring the victims of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting.
“The prohibition of colorful crosswalks was a petty and intrusive act of overreach by what I call ‘Big Tallahassee,’” stated Silverberg. “It was yet another attempt to stamp out freedom of expression by this governor and his cohorts and suppress home rule. If elected I intend to do all I can to encourage freedom of expression and community pride, not suppress it.”
Silverberg is running to represent the 28th Senate District of Florida, which includes Collier and Hendry counties and Lee County east of Route 75.
Silverberg is a Naples resident and retired journalist.
Freedom of speech in Florida, with respect and appreciation to Norman Rockwell. (Illustration: AI for Silverberg4Florida/ChatGPT)
April 13, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28
Most people don’t know this but until now America had a secret superpower.
That superpower was the relationship of its federal, state and local governments.
They were like the three legs of a stool, each one contributing to the strength of the whole. Each one could provide support for the others and fill in if gaps appeared.
This was especially true when it came to disasters and nowhere more so than in Florida.
If a local government couldn’t cope with a disaster—like a hurricane—then the state government could step in. If the state government needed assistance, it could count on the federal government. Each form of government, by being autonomous and making its own decisions, by functioning in a democratic fashion according to law, and by cooperating together, created a remarkably strong whole that served the needs of all the people, especially in emergencies or under duress.
Until now.
Unfortunately, the stool has been broken. At the federal level Donald Trump bullies and threatens all other governments in his quest for complete domination and dictatorial power.
In Florida a governor seeking to rule in the Trump mold, an ambitious, ideologically-driven attorney general, a rapacious chief financial officer and an extremist legislature are waging war on “home rule,” the ability of town, city and county governments to make their own decisions.
Overruling home rule is usually called “preemption,” in the sense that state government preempts local government powers and takes decisionmaking out of their hands.
I call it “Big Tallahassee”—and it’s been going on far too long.
If elected state Senator from the 28th District, the area including Collier and Hendry counties and the Lee County area east of Route 75, I intend to do everything I can to protect, strengthen and respect local governments, not just in my district, but in all of Florida.
We just had an example of Big Tallahassee bullying right here in the 28th District; the state took away the City of Naples’ power over the airport within its city limits. The city will no longer name the commissioners on the airport’s board. Instead, they’ll be elected by the surrounding county.
This was proposed in House Bill 4005 by Florida House Rep. Adam Botana (R-80-Estero), whose district doesn’t include the City of Naples. He had no relationship to the airport. He just decided to strip the Naples city council of its authority and the rest of the Republican legislature and the governor went along with it. Naples’ desires were simply ignored and overridden.
(Botana is being challenged this year by Meg Titcomb, whose website, VoteMegTitcomb.com, will soon be operational.)
Other examples of Big Tallahassee overreach are passage and enactment of bills preempting local governments from planning land use changes after disasters (Senate Bill (SB) 180, 2025), stopping local governments from trying to reduce harmful environmental emissions (Committee Substitute (CS) /House Bill (HB) 1217, 2026), prohibiting local governments from using non-gasoline power tools (SB 290, 2026), or from seeking diversity in hiring decisions (CS/CS/SB 1134, 2026).
Big Tallahassee even stopped local governments from mandating heat breaks for workers (CS/CS/HB 433, 2024)—and that’s really saying something in Florida’s sunbaked fields. I swear, Big Tallahassee would have denied water to Jesus on the way to Calvary.
I’m not the only one saying this. On Sunday, April 12, in the Naples Daily News, in an op-ed titled “Naples is losing its constitutional right to local control,” authors Gregory Fowler and Stacy Vermylen pointed out that, “Taken together, these actions point to a clear shift. Home rule is no longer functioning as a broad constitutional right. It is becoming a shrinking space in which cities can act only where the state ban has not yet intervened.”
Even legislation with relatively benign intent, like the Live Local Act, which was introduced and shepherded to passage by Sen. Kathleen Passidomo in 2023, has preemptive provisions—prompting the Sarasota County Commission to challenge it in court.
So far, these preemptions have had three overall purposes. The first is to end home rule and strip local governments of the power to make land use decisions, like determining their own zoning and preserving the natural environment.
The reason for this is simple and obvious: developers, their legislative puppets (and in many cases legislators who are also land speculators, realtors and developers themselves) don’t want any interference as they pursue profits by paving over Florida. They truly don’t care what we local residents want, think or need.
A second purpose is to prevent any effort to prepare for the effects of climate change. Big Tallahassee, following Donald Trump’s dictates, denies that climate change exists. But it’s not enough that they themselves deny it, they want to force everyone else to deny it and ignore it—and this particularly means crippling local governments that are more alert, aware and awake to the dangers climate change presents.
Nowhere is this truer than in Collier County, part of the 28th Senate District I’m running to represent. With its over 20 miles of shoreline along the Gulf of Mexico, Collier County’s beaches are ailing and eroding, after being battered by repeated hurricanes, sea level rise and salt water intrusion.
But if Collier County ever tried to change its zoning or planning in order to cope with this, it would be stopped by Big Tallahassee.
The third reason for preemption is to aid Donald Trump’s efforts to turn back the clock to fossil fuel use and stop any kind of renewable energy. Trump is insisting on fossil fuels, fossil wars, fossil pollution and fossil costs—no doubt to pour fossil cash into his own pockets.
Big Tallahassee is completely on board with this. What else are we to make of a law that prohibits local governments from requiring use of electric leaf blowers or any other non-gasoline landscaping equipment to tend its lawns? Big Tallahassee is seeking a new Florida fossil age and it’s trying to send all of us the way of the dinosaurs.
It’s time we were no longer led by dinosaurs with fossilized thinking.
If elected to the Florida Senate I intend to do everything I can to preserve, protect and defend the integrity and autonomy of our local governments.
I can’t say I’ll be able to stop all preemption but I can certainly say that I’ll be on the look out for it. I’ll fight it any way and any time that I see it. I want the people of Florida to have a say in how they’re governed; that’s just Democracy 101.
When it comes to the City of Naples, I will certainly explore ways to rescind HB 4005.
The next assault on home rule will come in a special session of the legislature that is likely to be held in the coming weeks. In that session Gov. Ron DeSantis and his cohorts will attempt to end property taxes.
They’re painting this effort as an anti-tax way to improve affordability for Floridians. But that’s because they don’t dare criticize the real reason Floridians are in an affordability crisis—Donald Trump’s wars, tariffs and mismanagement of the economy.
So don’t buy their bull: it’s a trap and a con—and another assault on home rule and Florida’s local governments.
If property taxes are eliminated, local governments will be starved for revenue along with the policemen, firemen and school teachers they employ. Local services—think of your water supplies and sewerage, repairs to roads and bridges, even things like marriage and business licenses—will be crippled. Public schools, already under assault by Big Tallahassee, will be further damaged.
What is more, ending property taxes will only mean that everyday Floridians will ultimately pay more, adding to their affordability woes. The revenue lost by ending property taxes will need to be made up somehow. That will likely be in the form of sales taxes. Those taxes will hit everyday Floridians hard, while billionaires with huge mansions taking up large tracts of property will get off Scott-free and avoid paying their fair share to support the services and facilities that make their lavish lifestyles possible.
Ending property taxes is a bad idea hatched by Big Tallahassee to crush home rule and local governments. Floridians should fight it and I certainly intend to do so.
America’s strength has always been in its local governments where people have the most say. We shouldn’t let Big Tallahassee bully and order our towns around. If elected, I can’t promise a perfect outcome—but I can certainly promise a vigorous effort.
Florida should be run by and for Floridians; not developers, not speculators, not dinosaurs—and certainly not for the convenience and profit of Big Tallahassee.
I hope you agree and you’ll join me in this fight. Please volunteer and donate and in November vote for David Silverberg for state Senate from District 28.
It is a concentration camp because it concentrates detainees and inmates in a single location, whether for processing, deportation, punishment or incarceration. No one can be sure what’s happening there because outside observers cannot get in. American citizens—even as young as 15 years old—have been detained there without due process, a hearing or a chance to establish their innocence.
There have been reports of cruel and unusual conditions and appalling treatment that doesn’t meet basic American standards of justice or incarceration.
As if the injustice, indignity and injury of Alligator Alcatraz were insufficient, the monstrosity in the swamp has already cost the state of Florida over $600 million in taxpayer dollars, which the governor and his accomplices do not know if they can get back from the federal government.
Even if the state gets reimbursed for its past expenses, Alligator Alcatraz is costing Florida a million dollars a day to operate. That’s money coming straight out of our pockets at a time when we’re struggling to put food on the table and gas in the tank.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the money being spent on Alligator Alcatraz is coming from funds designated for emergency management—responding to and cleaning up disasters like hurricanes. This state money is now extremely important because the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been gutted for funding and personnel. Donald Trump wants the states to handle emergency response and even wants to do away with FEMA.
Given that, there’s no telling if there will be federal funding help us if the worst happens this hurricane season in Southwest Florida. So every cent needs to be reserved for state emergencies—not thrown away in a swamp.
Nor are the direct costs of this concentration camp the only concern; there are also the ancillary costs of defending it in court from its many legal challenges.
Additionally, there is no telling how much money went to contractors in sweetheart, no-bid deals and grotesque overcharges—like $92 million for porta-potties—and continue to go there.
Alligator Alcatraz was hastily constructed without the consultation or consent of the people of Florida. It is the brainchild of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who promoted and took credit for it. It was created without any regard to its impact on the sensitive environment of the Everglades or its effect on the people of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians whose lands are adjacent to it.
The history of concentration camps is not reassuring: if not closed, Alligator Alcatraz is likely to go from a temporary facility to a permanent installation, and its capacity will likely expand. It will devolve from holding migrants with criminal records, to imprisoning innocent immigrants, to jailing US citizens, then dissidents, then political opponents, then factions in the ruling regime. And its mission will transition from detention to incarceration to death.
A dangerous progression: A patch worn by guards at Alligator Alcatraz bears an ominous similarity to a Nazi SS ‘Totenkopf’ insignia from World War II. (Photo: Miami Herald and historic archives)
What is more, Alligator Alcatraz is the first concentration camp in a string of concentration camps that the Trump administration is building to create an American gulag on the Soviet model. There’s Deportation Depot in north Florida, the Lonestar Lockup in Texas, the Speedway Slammer in Indiana and the Cornhusker Clink in Nebraska. On top of these are warehouses being obtained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directorate of the Department of Homeland Security to hold the people it purges in cruel and unusual conditions.
Alligator Alcatraz is not making Americans safer. If it were really just for rounding up criminal aliens then its mission would be fulfilled by now and it would be dismantled.
Instead, Alligator Alcatraz and the gulag system of which it is a part is a clear and present danger to all Americans, regardless of citizenship status. It threatens all Americans all the time and is an attack on our freedom and fundamental rights.
There is the possibility that if Donald Trump tries to overturn the results of the 2026 midterm elections and Americans protest in large numbers, they will be rounded up and held in this American gulag.
If elected, the very first bill I will introduce to the Florida Senate will close Alligator Alcatraz.
Nor do I want Alligator Alcatraz merely closed—I want it scraped from the face of the earth and replaced with a restored Everglades environment.
There is the possibility that Alligator Alcatraz might be closed by court order. This already happened once but it made no difference as the state appealed the ruling. There’s no telling how long the court process is going to take to resolve these issues.
If elected, I’ll not only introduce legislation to close it, I intend to investigate the contracting waste, fraud and abuse that went into its building and operation. I will work to claw back any ill-gotten gains and return them to taxpayers and hold guilty parties to account.
To his great credit, Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly has just committed to closing Alligator Alcatraz if he’s elected governor. I applaud that position and endorse it. If Jolly wins his race and I win mine, I will do all I can in the Florida Senate to assist and support his efforts to close this camp.
As Alligator Alcatraz was the first concentration camp in a would-be Trump gulag, so it should be the first to be removed. Its termination will lift a dangerous threat to every American, whether native-born or immigrant.
Alligator Alcatraz is a moral stain, a financial drain—and it cannot remain.
April 8, 2026 by David Silverberg, candidate for Florida Senate, District 28
Like every Floridian, I’m being squeezed from above and below.
The “above” is the price I’m paying at the grocery checkout and fuel pump because of insane presidential decisions by Donald Trump: a war started without my knowledge or consent; gas prices skyrocketing because of his bad planning and lack of forethought; ridiculous tariffs that are turned on and off like a light switch, prompted by his whims and rages.
It’s not just me saying this. Sean Snaith, the Director of the Institute for Economic Forecasting at the University of Central Florida told an Orange County Commission meeting yesterday, April 7, that the “biggest cloud of uncertainty” facing Florida’s economy is the Iran war. Just as people were recovering from a previous round of inflation, “now here we go again with some costs of living being impacted by the conflict here with Iran.” Snaith said.
“The impact we’ve seen immediately [is] certainly at the gas pumps. We’ve seen it in the price of oil, price of natural gas. We’re starting to see it work its way through the economy, these higher prices,” he said, noting that all forms of transportation have already been hit, with everything from airlines raising their baggage fees to delivery companies adding fuel charges for shipping packages.
Thanks a lot, Donnie!
The “below” is the cost imposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and an extremist Republican legislature—what I’m going to call “Big Tallahassee” from now on— driving up the prices of everything that we all need to live.
It’s not as though I’m living extravagantly or using hundred-dollar bills to light cigars. I’m trying to be frugal and sensible and keep my expenses within limits. Every other Floridian I know is trying to do the same.
But Big Tallahassee sees the everyday Floridian as its enemy and is doing everything it can to make us all poorer, sicker and sadder. It’s waging war on the state’s economy and every Floridian’s wallet.
Big Tallahassee’s war against all immigrants, whether documented or not, is bleeding Florida of the critical labor it needs for construction, farms and basic services at reasonable costs. That means higher prices in the grocery cart and just about every other business activity.
Big Tallahassee’s refusal to face climate change and help Floridians prepare for the worst that can happen is driving up insurance rates at the very time that we need more helpful insurance we can rely upon.
Big Tallahassee won’t face climate reality so living in Florida becomes riskier and more dangerous every year and insurance companies either leave the state, charge higher premiums or fail to pay out when the worst happens. And in its last session, Big Tallahassee batted away all Democratic proposals to relieve or help homeowners cope with what is increasingly becoming a crushing burden.
Even if new insurers have entered the state, there’s no telling if new mom-and-pop insurance companies will be able to pay out in the event of a disaster—and their newness and small sizes lead them to charge higher premiums, putting another burden on Florida policyholders.
On top of all this, Big Tallahassee’s hatred of foreigners and Donald Trump’s threats, insults and attacks on the rest of the world are driving away the international tourists and seasonal residents who pumped money into Florida’s economy.
So Floridians are being crushed by these two sides of a fiscal vise.
I am determined to do everything I can to end this squeeze if I’m elected to the Florida Senate from District 28.
There was a time when life in Florida was not only affordable, it was inexpensive. It’s what brought retirees and lots of other new arrivals to the state. It made possible a reasonably comfortable lifestyle to those of less than extravagant means. It also created a prosperous middle class and let immigrants start businesses and flourish, lifting everyone.
But now, Trump’s lunacy and Big Tallahassee’s wars on Floridians are creating a Florida that’s divided into billionaires versus everyone else. No doubt in many of those billionaires’ minds, they see a Florida divided into masters and servants, with themselves as the masters.
This is not a good outcome. It’s not an American outcome. It’s not a fair outcome.
If elected to the Florida Senate in District 28 I am determined to do everything I possibly can to make Florida affordable again. That includes close scrutiny of the insurance industry and its rates, premiums and payouts. It means facing the reality of climate change and helping Florida families and businesses build in resilience so that insurance rates can come down. It means ending the war on immigrants and labor, so that it costs less to produce Florida’s food, goods and services.
It also means resisting Donald Trump’s crazy and destructive decisions and tendencies rather than sucking up to his hatred, prejudice and rage. We may not be able to stop the war in Iran from the Florida state capital but where we can we must protect Floridians.
This is what I hope to do if elected. If we all work together, I actually believe we may succeed. I hope you’ll agree and join me by donating, volunteering and in November, voting, for David Silverberg for Florida Senate District 28.
I am running for public office, seeking the Florida Senate seat for District 28, covering Collier, Hendry and Lee counties. This encompasses the towns of Naples, Marco Island, Immokalee, Ave Maria, Gateway, LaBelle, and Clewiston—and the Alligator Alcatraz concentration camp.
You should now consider this a partisan website and blog, committed to advocacy rather than non-partisan coverage and analysis.
This is nothing I ever anticipated doing. Indeed, if I were pursuing a political career, I would have started this effort last year.
But, as the Declaration of Independence put it, “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them”—the American people— “under absolute Despotism,” it is time to take action, even if that action takes one outside a previous sphere of activity.
Donald Trump and, in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, have invariably been pursuing the object of reducing the American people and the residents of Florida to a state of absolute despotism.
Our political system still affords us the means of resistance. One of those means is the pursuit of elected public office. For the past eight years in The Paradise Progressive blog I have used logic and language to cover and expose their “abuses and usurpations,” particularly relating to the region of Southwest Florida. The moment has come for me to pursue the power of public office to take that resistance to new levels and battlefronts.
These “abuses and usurpations” are reaching a critical point, indeed one where the very existence of the United States and the future of Americans as a free people is at stake.
Nationally, Donald Trump, reigning as though he were a monarch and ignoring the laws, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, has committed the nation to war without any consultation or consent. Every time Americans have to fill their gas tanks they’re being robbed by a war they had no say in starting. When you watch your wallet drain as your tank fills, that’s Trump at the pump.
He has so mismanaged the economy that everyday Americans are being reduced to poverty despite their most strenuous efforts and hard work.
His actions have robbed Americans of their freedom from fear by sending a masked, murderous, motley mob of mercenaries into towns and cities to terrorize and abuse them.
In Florida, Ron DeSantis, reigning in the style of Donald Trump, has waged war on learning and thought, on science and public health, on public education and teachers at all levels. He and his enablers are waging war on the very water, air and soil that makes life in Florida possible for everyone regardless of their political affiliation, beliefs, or national origins. He has attacked institutions and industries that previously welcomed and depended upon visitors from all over the world and disparaged and insulted innocent people of foreign origin.
In a state that is one of the most environmentally vulnerable in the world, he and his extremist legislature have deliberately and purposefully denied and dismissed the clear and present challenges of climate change, to the detriment and danger of all Floridians.
He and his political followers have also sought to eliminate the autonomy and authority of the state’s local governments, especially when it comes to land use and management, in an effort to override responsible planning and governance.
The ultimate end of these actions will be an oppressed nation and a Florida that is poor, paved and polluted.
For all these reasons and many more, I will try to change the current course of events through the system in place.
That’s why I’m running for state senator in District 28. My campaign website is Silverberg4Florida.com. And yes, I’m taking donations (a link is on the site).
My heartfelt thanks to the people who have already made this possible.
In the days ahead I will be elaborating in this space on my reasons for running, the solutions and actions I intend to pursue, and the end state I hope to achieve for Florida and the nation.
This campaign is a race to restore decency, dignity and democracy to Florida and the life we all lead. It’s a race to conserve our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our freedom from fear, and our pursuit of happiness. It is a campaign to make Florida affordable again. And it is a campaign to end Alligator Alcatraz.
The path to victory is steep. The odds are long. But I believe the journey is worth making.
The state of the stampede in Florida’s 19th Congressional District. (Illustration: AI for TPP/ChatGPT)
March 6, 2026 by David Silverberg
For an ordinarily quiet corner of Florida, the 19th Congressional District certainly generates a lot of ferment when a seat is open—and the stampede to succeed Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) reflects it.
The 19th covers the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island.
Last October when the race was last covered by The Paradise Progressive, there were nine Republicans competing for the Republican Party nomination for Congress and one Democrat.
As of this writing, there are still nine Republicans but one has dropped out, one seems to have disappeared and there’s a new entrant. On the Democratic side, there are now two candidates seeking their party’s nomination.
Where’s Chris?
Chris Collins (center) leaves a New York courthouse following his conviction for insider trading in 2019. (Photo: AP/Seth Wenig)
By far the most active Republican congressional campaigner is Christopher “Chris” Collins, 75, who has been sending campaign mailings to Republican voters and running numerous television advertisements, including a very pricey one during the Super Bowl.
But despite the significant amounts of cash this campaign is already spending, there are no records of it or of his candidacy on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) website tracking federal candidate expenditures for the 2026 election.
Under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 candidates for federal office are obligated to file quarterly reports of their fundraising and contributors, including the specific names of individuals and organizations donating and the amounts. Collins filed as a candidate with the Florida Department of State in June 2025. If he started raising and spending campaign money last year he should have begun filing reports then.
The Federal Election Commission’s spreadsheet of candidate finances as of March 4, 2026. Chris Collins’ campaign is missing. (Chart: FEC)
The Paradise Progressive reached out to the Collins campaign to ask directly about its absence from FEC records but received no response. A similar query to the FEC also failed to receive a response.
If Collins or his campaign failed to file their required reports they could be subject to investigation, audits, fines and other penalties.
It wouldn’t be the first time Collins has been in hot water.
Unsurprisingly, in his campaign literature and advertising Collins never mentions his 2019 guilty plea to insider trading—and his conviction and imprisonment.
Instead, Collins is touting his record as the first congressman to endorse Trump in 2016—and that’s pretty much it. All the issues and policy positions listed on his website are national and his positions are pro-Trump. He pounds the message home with every communication, whether print or broadcast. His TV ad features a clip of Trump saying: “Chris Collins, right from the beginning, he said, ‘Trump is gonna win.’ Now, I love him.” Collins’ mailing touts a “100% pro-Trump voting record” and he calls himself a “successful businessman & job creator.”
The label “successful businessman” might not quite stand up to scrutiny, in light of his prior history.
As previously recounted, Collins is a convicted inside trader who was tried and sentenced to 26 months in prison in 2020. He only served two months and nine days of the sentence—in federal prison in Pensacola—before being pardoned by Trump.
It’s also worth mentioning the exact nature of the crime, the trial and the punishment. (The full press release with the detailed story from the US Department of Justice is available for reading and download at the conclusion of this article.)
From 2013 to 2019, Collins represented New York’s 27th Congressional District, the area around Buffalo, NY.
While in office he recruited investors for an Australian company called Innate Immunotherapeutics, which was developing a drug to treat multiple sclerosis. It was the company’s only product and its entire fortune was based on it.
On June 22, 2017 Collins was attending the Congressional Picnic on the White House lawn when he received an e-mail that the drug had failed its trials.
As the DoJ press release stated: “The negative Drug Trial results were highly confidential, and, as an insider who owed duties of trust and confidence to Innate, CHRISTOPHER COLLINS was obligated to keep the Drug Trial results secret until Innate publicly released them.”
Instead, 16 minutes after he received the e-mail, Collins called his son from the White House lawn and told him to sell their stock. The son passed on the inside information to relatives and other parties, saving around $800,000 in losses when the stock plummeted 92 percent the next day.
Insider trading this blatant did not go unnoticed and Collins was charged while he was campaigning for re-election in 2018. He won that race, took office in January 2019 and mounted a combative, Trump-like defense against the charges. However, in September he resigned the day before he pleaded guilty. As part of his punishment the Security and Exchange Commission barred him from serving as an officer or director of any public company.
Collins purchased a home on Marco Island and told a judge in 2019: “I’m now a Florida resident and will be FL for a while as the press settles down and moves on.”
Apparently Collins decided the press had settled down and moved on or that Southwest Florida Republicans were too ignorant or indifferent to a criminal record for it to matter. Perhaps taking a cue from a presidential felon, he decided that jail time was no impediment to election.
Beyond his past, it bears mentioning that nowhere in his literature, ads or website does Collins focus on or mention issues specific to the 19th District and Southwest Florida. There’s no mention of water, or insurance, or—most notably—affordability, the difficulty of Southwest Floridians to keep up with constantly rising prices.
Collins is attempting to coast to victory solely on his loyalty to Trump. Obviously, he is hoping that takes him over the finish line in the Republican primary election on Aug. 18.
Fratto falls
Johnny Fratto from his 2024 campaign video in District 26. (Image: Campaign)
John “Johnny” Fratto, 46, is the first candidate to officially call it quits.
In 2024 Fratto sought the seat of incumbent Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.) in the neighboring district but was crushed in the primary. His chief moment of fame came with the release of an energetic but barely coherent rap video touting him as a “bloodline mafioso.”
Last year he declared his intention to run in the 19th. According to the FEC, he raised $630.51 and spent $1,168.90 as of the end of 2025.
However, this candidacy didn’t last long.
On Wednesday, Feb. 25th, Fratto announced that he was suspending his campaign and endorsing fellow Republican Madison Cawthorn, 30, a former representative from North Carolina. Fratto said that Cawthorn, who has a criminal record, crushed his competitors in a debate in Naples, sponsored by the Women’s Republican Club of Naples, according to Jacob Ogles, writing for the news site, Florida Politics.
Fratto is instead going to concentrate on his latest entrepreneurial startup: MAGA Beer.
The beer is noteworthy not only for its political promotional approach but for what it reveals about the Make America Great Again mindset. As it states on its website: “MAGA Beer isn’t just a drink, it’s a time machine back to America’s golden era.”
And when was that “golden era?” According to MAGA Beer, “In the 1980s, America was bold, proud, and full of ambition. It was the era of muscle cars, blue jeans, backyard barbecues, small-town diners, and Friday night football games. The beer industry was at its peak, with brands like Budweiser and Coors defining the working-class American experience. That’s the spirit we’re bringing back.”
It does indicate somewhat where MAGAs want to go but those who actually lived through the 1980s might have a different view. Survivors of the decade might also remember a recession, 14 percent inflation, Federal Reserve prime rates of 20 percent, a savings and loan crisis followed by a market bubble and a stock market crash.
That’s a lot to get into the taste of a beer. But who knows what ingredients can be thrown into a vat these days?
The loss of Lady Liquid Death?
Catalina Lauf at a natural foods exhibition in 2023. (Photo: Campaign)
Catalina Lauf, 32, is no longer on the Florida Department of State’s list of congressional candidates for the 19th District, creating uncertainty about the viability and continuation of her candidacy. However, there has been no formal announcement of suspension of her campaign.
Lauf gained some attention on Jan. 11 when she accused the “liberal leadership” of WINK-TV of firing popular meteorologist Matt Devitt at the behest of “RINO hack, possibly a closet DEM” Jim Schwartzel, a competing Republican candidate. She stated Schwartzel owned WINK, which he adamantly denied.
While her website is online it appears inactive and lacks any policy positions on any subject. Nonetheless, she has posted on Facebook, where she announced endorsements from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-13-Fla.) on Feb. 11, Rep. Burgess Owens (R-4-Utah) on Feb. 6 (he subsequently announced his retirement), and Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) on Jan. 22. FEC figures show her raising $433,749.57 and spending $218,005.45 as of the end of 2025.
Attempts to reach the Lauf campaign for clarification of the campaign’s status by this author were unsuccessful.
The nuclear entrant
Richard Youschak. (Photo: LinkedIn)
As though to fill the gap created by the withdrawal of Fratto, on Jan. 29, Richard “Ricky” Stephen Youschak III, of Fort Myers, filed to run.
There’s no campaign website, policy positions or public statements from Youschak. A LinkedIn profile and Facebook postings mention a Richard Youschak III who graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville last May with an advanced degree in nuclear engineering. While he’s listed as a candidate in the Florida Department of State website and there is a candidate by that name in the FEC, there are no campaign contribution filings.
“Growing up, I lived in the Sanibel – Fort Myers area and attended Canterbury School,” states the LinkedIn profile. He earned a private pilot’s license and is an avid flyer. “When I’m not building hours in my Texas Aircraft Colt, I enjoy hiking, diving, and exploring Florida’s forests and coasts.”
A Democratic duo
While District 19 Republicans will have nine candidates to choose from in the Aug. 18 primary, as of this writing, Democrats will have two.
Howard Sapp (Photo: Campaign)
Howard Sapp, 60, is a lifelong Fort Myers native with a distinguished local lineage: the nephew of activist Fort Myers Councilwoman Veronica Shoemaker and son-in-law of former Lee County Commissioner Melvin Morgan.
A retired air traffic controller, Sapp graduated from Fort Myers High School and then earned a bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry from Edward Waters College in Jacksonville. He then went on get a second bachelor degree in theological studies from Northwestern University and is a credentialed minister.
Sapp is currently chief executive officer for the Source of Light and Hope Development Center, a non-profit support center for at-risk youth in foster care, and he’s long worked on community building and improvement. He ran for the Florida House District 78 covering Fort Myers in 2024 and was defeated by Republican Jenna Persons-Mulicka, 59.9 percent to his own 40.1 percent. As of the end of last year he had raised $35,700 for his campaign, according to the FEC.
Remarkably, of all the candidates and certainly in contrast to all the Republicans, Sapp is putting his campaign’s focus on local issues: cost of living, affordable housing, clean water, quality education, reasonable insurance and effective healthcare. He wants to restore the integrity of federal agencies like the Department of Education, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He supports unions and opposes workplace immigration raids.
He’s the only candidate to explicitly take a stand in favor of women’s right to choose abortion and have access to low or no-cost contraception.
Victor Arias (Photo: Author)
Victor Arias, 65, is an attorney in Fort Myers.
He was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in the Douglas Housing Projects in Manhattan, New York. Rising from the projects, he earned his bachelor of arts degree from Hamilton College in Clinton, NY and his law degree in the State University of New York Buffalo Law School. He moved to Florida and was admitted to the state bar in 1991.
For seven years he served as school board staff attorney in Lee County and also in St. Lucie County.
Given his familiarity with school issues, in 2024 Arias ran for Superintendent of Lee County Schools after that was made a partisan, elected position in 2022. He was defeated by Republican Denise Carlin by 68 percent to 32 percent. He has not filed any campaign finance reports in 2025.
On his campaign website, Arias states that he’s running “to cut the red tape for veterans, protect Medicare for seniors, defend the water quality that drives our economy, and bring real representation to Florida’s 19th District.”
A forum featuring Howard Sapp and Victor Arias, moderated by this author, is scheduled on Tuesday, April 7, at 5:30 pm, at the Bonita Springs Public Library, 10560 Reynolds St, Bonita Springs, Fla.
To read the full text and download the Department of Justice release:
“Former Congressman Christopher Collins Sentenced For Insider Trading Scheme And Lying To Federal Law Enforcement Agents”
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) will stepping down next year after eight years in office—and 39 people are running to replace him.
That’s according to the Florida Department of State as of Feb. 18. The cutoff date for candidates to qualify for the ballot is June 12 and there’s no telling how many more people will declare themselves candidates by then.
Of course, of the 12 Republicans, 11 Democrats and 16 candidates from other parties, non-party affiliates and write-ins currently declared, only a very small handful are considered serious, credible contenders for the seat.
Among these is Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.). He is certainly the leading contender for the Republican nomination.
For the past four years Donalds has represented the 19th Congressional District of Florida, a coastal area running from Cape Coral at its northern end to Marco Island in the south.
Because this is the home of The Paradise Progressive and Donalds is the highest-ranking federal official in Southwest Florida, he has been the subject of considerable coverage in these pages, and that coverage can now help inform all Florida voters about the person who is seeking to lead them.
This article focuses only on Donalds, what kind of governor he would be and what policies he might pursue, rather than personal issues or scandals.
It is, as anything looking into the future must be, highly speculative; a sort of “thought experiment” as Albert Einstein would have called it.
The Republican race
The Republican assumption in this race is that the primary election, taking place on Tuesday, Aug. 18, will decide the contest.
Because Republicans have over a million-voter advantage in registrations, the candidates are clearly calculating that the primary will be the decisive election, with the general election on Nov. 3 a mere formality.
Accordingly, to date the Republican campaigns are clearly aimed at a narrow base of extreme, committed Make America Great Again (MAGA) party members who are certain to vote and who respond to Donald Trump-like appeals.
As a result, in imitation of Trump, the campaigns have been petty, personal and insulting. Candidates have attacked opponents’ failures, crimes and weaknesses. They are questioning each other’s loyalty to Trump himself, allegiance to his agenda and belief in his infallibility.
What is missing in this approach is virtually any discussion of running Florida, how the state will be managed, what policies will be pursued and how to handle the challenges it will face in the future.
Donalds has massive advantages in this race, chief among them Trump’s urging him to run before he declared in February 2025. Trump’s Feb. 20 X-post at that time was a “complete and total endorsement” after years of snubs, indifference and neglect.
Donald Trump’s endorsement of Rep. Byron Donalds on Feb. 20, 2025.
Trump’s blessing opened the endorsement and money floodgates.
That flood included endorsements from 17 members of the Florida congressional delegation, 27 sheriffs, three quarters of state Republican legislators and numerous donors—perhaps most importantly, Elon Musk.
It also included a cascade of cash. The campaign reported raising over $45 million during 2025.
Clearly, there’s a belief by many in the state that a Donalds victory is all but assured and they want to bask in his favor.
So what would Florida likely be like under Gov. Byron Donalds?
Goodbye Tallahassee, hello Mar-a-Lago
The Tallahassification of Mar-a-Lago. (AI for TPP/ChatGPT)
For all intents and purposes, under a governor Byron Donalds the capital of Florida might as well move from Tallahassee to Mar-a-Lago.
As Donalds puts it in his first priority listed on his campaign website: “Enact the Trump Agenda: Byron is committed to implementing President Trump’s agenda to Make America Great Again.”
Make no mistake: Donald Trump will be governor of Florida in all but name. That’s because Donalds has pledged his fealty to Trump so completely, extravagantly, and excessively that the idea of a shred of independence or autonomy or even a stray individual thought is unimaginable.
That’s not to say that Trump is likely to be deeply involved in the day to day running of the state. He’s got a whole world to run—and he’s still trying to prove that he won the 2020 election. It’s doubtful that he has much interest in insurance rates or water purity beyond the confines of property that he actually owns outright (Mar-a-Lago, Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, and Trump National Doral in Miami, plus adjacent properties and affiliated branded properties).
But it’s also unimaginable that Donalds would make any major move, take any major initiative or even breathe in any way contrary to the desires of Trump. What is more, this is an impression that Donalds himself has nurtured and promoted, especially with a non-stop stream of Trumpist social media posts, particularly on X. He has mounted an indefatigable and unrelenting defense of all of Trump’s most extreme excesses.
For MAGAs this will no doubt be cause for joy. They will be dwelling in the belly of the beast, a Trumptopia that is even more purely ruled by him than the nation he currently dominates. But it also means they will be even closer to the man himself and his rages, unpredictability, and sheer meanness and feel them even more acutely than elsewhere.
For those who oppose his hatred, prejudice and rage—or who are the targets of it—there will be no recourse, salvation or haven in the Sunshine State. A governor Donalds is unlikely to ever make an effort to protect them. The state will no longer effectively be independent—and woe to any state politician who dares to think anything other than Trumpthought or exhale a breath of heresy from Trump doctrine. Certainly no such heresy on any subject is likely to come from the governor himself.
A foreigner-free Florida?
The new welcome to Florida under a governor Byron Donalds? (AI for TPP/ChatGPT)
Given his blindly loyal Trumpism and reflecting his and the Florida Republican Party’s anti-foreigner sentiment, as governor Donalds will likely continue and intensify the state’s efforts against all foreigners of all origins and legal statuses on all fronts.
From the time he rode down the elevator in Trump Tower in 2015 Trump has been anti-foreigner. His first and most infamous declaration was that Mexicans were “rapists” and “criminals” and he has not deviated from those perceptions during his entire time in public life.
Trump considers immigration (other than by white, eastern European women he marries) as an invasion that has to be stopped and reversed. Accordingly, upon taking office his second time he began a nationwide purge, not only of undocumented migrants, but of immigrants of all kinds from virtually all other countries (especially, as he once put it, “shit hole” countries).
He is certainly seconded in this by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, of whom Trump once reportedly said “If it was up to Stephen, there would only be 100 million people in this country — and all of them would look like him.”
Certainly, both the legislative and executive branches of Florida’s government have enthusiastically joined this effort to date. Indeed, where there has been disagreement between the governor and the legislature it has been in differences over the severity of their anti-migrant, anti-foreigner measures. Florida has also been the most enthusiastic state in the union in forging bonds between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, with all of its 67 counties and its cities signing 287(g) agreements, sometimes under duress from the state’s governor and attorney general.
Ironically, this comes in a state that before Trump was one of the most diverse in the nation and benefited from foreign contributions and investment. In Florida, especially Miami, immigrants and refugees from around the world flocked to find refuge and built businesses and communities that reflected their origins and enriched the state. In the state’s groves and fields migrants—many undocumented and minimally paid—picked its fruits and vegetables. They also built its buildings, staffed its hotels and resorts and were the sinews of a robust economy.
Beyond businesses and labor, foreign tourists and visitors were a key element in the state’s tourism industry, filling hotels, buying tickets and flocking to Disney World and Universal Studio in Orlando. Even here DeSantis pursued an anti-woke cultural crusade that succeeded in attacking the Disney corporation to the point where the company chose not to make a billion dollar investment in new facilities.
Donalds has proven himself a willing standard-bearer in Florida’s fight against foreigners of all sorts.
When the city council of Fort Myers in his district hesitated to sign on to the 287g program, Donalds was quick to condemn them.
“These officials that don’t understand their role, which is to implement a federal and state law, not circumvent and create sanctuary cities,” he said in an interview on the conservative NewsMax channel. “They simply need to be removed from office. They’re not going to follow the law. It’s that simple.”
He also ostentatiously defended the actions of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directorate of the Department of Homeland Security.
On Jan. 21, after American citizen Renee Good was killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis, Donalds posted on X: “What Democrats are doing to obstruct, impede, and sabotage ICE is treasonous. The American people granted President Trump a mandate to deport illegal aliens and Make America Safe Again. As Governor, any Florida official who blocks these lawful actions will be removed from office.”
After Alex Pretti was killed by ICE agents on Jan. 24, Donalds told NewsNation: “Nobody wants to see any American lose their life like this…But we also have to be honest about what’s happening in Minneapolis. You have paid agitators. You have a coordinated operation going on in Minneapolis for the sole purpose of doxing ICE officers, impeding ICE officers, stopping them from following and executing federal law.”
While he denied saying that Pretti was a paid agitator he said, “I’m not saying that. I’m saying that what people are seeing on their phones and on news networks around the country is the result of paid protests and paid agitators.”
Ironically, for all its Trumpist loyalty, the state that created the Alligator Alcatraz concentration and detention camp to facilitate Trump’s anti-foreigner effort is also being shortchanged by that president. Despite spending $600 million to build camps and round up, detain and deport migrants, when it came to promised federal reimbursement, Florida’s state government is belatedly discovering another aspect of Trump management—his infamous welching on promises and commitments.
As governor Donalds will no doubt spend whatever he thinks—or is told—it takes for the state to curry Trump’s favor and carry out his wishes, no matter how extreme, harsh or unconstitutional. However, like so many others he will likely discover for himself that a Trump promise isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Still, Florida taxpayers are unlikely to ever hear him complain or make an effort on behalf of the hard-earned dollars they pour into state coffers.
Public de-education
The future of Florida’s public schools and universities? (AI for TPP/ChatGPT)
Florida public education is unlikely to find a friend in a governor Byron Donalds. Indeed, it looks like it will be facing an enemy.
Public education is not something that is top of mind in the current gubernatorial race. Only Republican candidate James Fishback has mentioned it and that only to pledge that he would mandate student uniforms and local businesses should provide student meals.
Public education is being squeezed from all sides in Florida. The current governor attacked it as part of his anti-“woke” crusade and reached down to remove, replace or endorse opponents of local school board members he didn’t like. Republican politicians inveigh against it. At every legislative session measures are introduced to restrict or regulate it, whether that applies to classroom content, teacher conduct or state funding. A private voucher program for parents to send children to non-public or parochial schools that came at the expense of public education was voted into being by the legislature and left Florida with $400 million in unused vouchers. Teachers are viewed with suspicion by vocal MAGA parents and even the teachers’ expressions of personal opinion—like heretical statements criticizing the late Charlie Kirk—have been cause for investigation and suspension.
A governor Donalds coming into this mix would likely add a massively anti-public education force. Donalds can be expected to always side with private, anti-public education activists, favor private, for-profit schools and shortchange funding for public education at every opportunity—and this would come on top of the end of federal standards and funding given the dissolution of the Department of Education.
Teachers’ unions can expect no favor, no support and no mercy from a governor Donalds’ office.
As Erika Donalds put it in a 2022 Fox Business interview: “Teachers unions are the enemy of our children when it comes to their education in America.” There’s no reason to believe that her husband holds any different opinion.
Nor would higher education likely be spared. Accreditation, tenure and board membership of Florida universities were all attacked under DeSantis for a variety of perceived sins, particularly for practicing diversity, equity and inclusion. He put very expensive cronies in charge of colleges, who in turn enriched their friends.
There is nothing to indicate that this would be any different under Donalds and in fact it would likely get worse.
Public un-health?
A child with measles is examined by a doctor. (Photo: World Health Organization/Danil Usmanov)
Florida is arguably the most regressive state in the nation when it comes to public health. Under a governor Byron Donalds it would likely regress to the Middle Ages.
As in the rest of the world, the COVID pandemic of 2020 to 2022 marks a break point in Florida’s history of public health provision. It was a time when a small but extremely vocal minority of people, encouraged by a dismissive President and a complicit governor, turned against science and the whole edifice of modern health protections, favoring instead unproven potions, quack prescriptions and conspiracy theories.
As a congressional candidate and then as a congressman, Donalds inserted himself into local debates over mask mandates (he was against them), vaccination mandates (also opposed), and consistently opposed federal efforts to protect the population at large from the ravages of COVID.
“Biden and the radical Left are coming for your freedom,” he wrote in a fundraising e-mail on Aug. 12, 2021, which warned that President Joe Biden might intervene against a mask mandate ban put in place by Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida. “They’re trying to use the federal government to FORCE Anthony Fauci’s anti-scientific mandates and lockdowns on Florida and take away our ability to make our own decisions.”
While never denouncing vaccines per se, Donalds did what he could to feed vaccine skepticism and fight all recommendations to protect the public from COVID and its variants. (For a full discussion of this, see “The Donalds Dossier: Anti-vaxxer or not?”)
Ironically enough, Donalds himself tested positive for COVID on Oct. 16, 2021, causing Trump to shun him and not even mention him in remarks when he came to Fort Myers that day. (Donalds recovered after a two-week quarantine.)
Nor has Donalds been any kinder to health care insurance and coverage for Floridians, whom he believes don’t need “full-blown, gold-plated” health insurance coverage.
“The biggest thing we need is we need a system where there are catastrophic health care plans … You can have a health care policy around catastrophic care, but that doesn’t really mean you need a full-blown gold-plated health care policy,” he said in a radio interview in October 2025.
He also said at the time that he wanted to get rid of the Affordable Care Act (better known as “Obamacare”)—this in a state that, with 4.4 million enrollees, has the highest number of enrollees in the country.
A big question is whether if elected governor Donalds would keep on the state’s current Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who has been DeSantis’ anti-vaxx, anti-mandate, anti-public health right hand man. Ladapo announced in September 2025 that the state would be abolishing all vaccine mandates for schoolchildren—“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and, and, slavery, okay?” he said of mandates, emphasizing all “are going to be gone for sure.”
It didn’t take long for measles, a previously suppressed disease, to break out in Florida, with one center being Ave Maria University in Collier County. That outbreak is still ongoing and appears to be increasing as of this writing.
So the record indicates that a Byron Donalds governorship would be devastating for Floridians’ health and healthcare—this at a time when previously suppressed or eradicated diseases are making a comeback, widespread vaccination is under attack and public health agencies are being dismantled at the federal and state levels.
In November 2025 Trump reversed a 10-year moratorium he had previously imposed on allowing oil exploration and exploitation in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, along with other sensitive locations. The moratorium was imposed in the runup to the 2020 election to gain the favor of Florida voters.
All of these are assaults on the natural environment and all will acutely affect the state of Florida—and they come on top of challenges to the environmentally sensitive state like climatic warming, intensifying storms and sea level rise.
Donalds is a member in good standing of the climate change-denying contingent in Florida, which includes the past and current governors and the Republican majority of the state legislature, which has gone so far as to outlaw the term “climate change” from state documents.
When asked in 2023 if he thought there was a correlation between heat waves and climate change Donalds simply replied “No, I don’t.” He has opposed what he called “weaponization” of Section 401 and fought efforts by President Joe Biden to stop water pollution.
In the case of oil drilling, Donalds did sign on to a letter along with seven other Florida representatives disapproving of Trump’s action, saying that drilling would interfere with operations at Eglin Air Force Base in the Panhandle. It was his only action to protect the Florida environment from Trump’s drive to encourage pollution, despoliation and exploitation in the service of the fossil fuel industry.
As governor—and as a submissively Trumpist governor at that—Donalds cannot be expected to defend Florida’s natural environment, protect its waters or safeguard its Gulf shores from oil pollution and defilement. He will most likely go along with Trump’s insistence that climate change is a “hoax” and do everything he can to eliminate measures to contain, restrain or prepare for it.
This comes on top of a strong movement in the Florida state government to “pre-empt” local governments’ efforts to take immediate steps to prepare or counteract the undeniable effects of climate change in their immediate areas.
Indeed, the pre-emption movement affects a broader swath of life in Florida. Driven by developers, many of whom are also state legislators, it is designed to eliminate all local barriers to development and exploitation.
Adding to this is an assault on the funding sources of local government by the governor and his allies to end property taxes. Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia is seeking the power to overhaul local budgets and remove officials in the name of his Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight (FAFO, a deliberate play on a profane definition). Ostensibly intended to root out fraud, waste and abuse in local government financial matters, in fact it appears to be an attempt to end all local autonomy.
The logical end result of these efforts and the state over which a governor Byron Donalds would preside, would be a fully paved over Florida, run entirely from the governor’s office at Trump’s direction, with no local autonomy of any kind. There would be no conservation of the natural environment and the air, land and sea would be completely polluted. Natural barriers or wetlands would likely be paved over and no longer protect the population, which would be utterly at the mercy of intensifying hurricanes and rising waters.
Further, Florida would likely cease to be a major citrus-producing state, its trees ravaged by citrus greening, its reliance on citrus imports destroyed by Trump’s tariffs and its groves sold to developers for housing developments.
Ironically enough, Florida’s great natural renewable energy resources, its sun and wind, which might at least mitigate climate change would not only be neglected but would likely be actively opposed by both Donalds and Trump.
Trump is known for his pathological fear and hatred of wind turbines for generating energy. There are currently no wind farms in Florida or offshore, so this is a phantom menace and there certainly wouldn’t be any built under a governor Donalds.
But Florida was making efforts to develop its solar generation capabilities and this too Donalds has opposed.
There can be no clearer statement of his attitudes on this subject than the headline on a 2023 op-ed under his byline for the Fort Myers News-Press: “The Dishonest Fantasy of Wind and Solar.”
“In sum, I’m not opposed to wind turbines and solar panels, but if we seriously want an affordable, reliable, secure ‘green energy’ grid, we cannot rely on the dishonest fantasy of utilizing spiky intermittent energy sources like wind and solar,” he argued. “Instead, we must embrace nuclear power and include nuclear in future green alternative energy discussions. Ultimately, we must base our future energy-related decisions on logic and objective facts—not politics.”
The high likelihood is that this op-ed wasn’t really written by Donalds but by a nuclear energy lobbyist—because in his second term, Donalds signed on as a shill for the nuclear power industry.
In the 2023 Congress Donalds sponsored 14 bills related to the nuclear power industry, mostly deregulating it or in some way favoring it, often in a highly technical manner. None had anything to do with his district, the concerns of its residents, or fell within his usual areas of expertise. (The nuclear industry also didn’t get much for its investment since none of his bills went anywhere.)
Donalds benefited greatly from fossil energy industry political action committees (PACs) and seven of them contributed a total of $25,500 to his campaign in the 2024 cycle. Fossil fuel PACs included those from the companies Sinclair, Valero, Marathon and Exxon Mobile as well as NextEra Energy, a utility infrastructure company, and Duke Energy, an energy holding company. Also contributing was the overall trade group for fossil fuels, the American Fuels and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association PAC.
The race card
Michelle and Barack Obama depicted as apes in a Xerias_X video reposted by President Donald Trump on Feb. 6. (Image: Truth Social via Laura Loomer on X)
If elected, Byron Donalds would be Florida’s first black governor.
It’s not a precedent or breakthrough that he’s playing up. On the contrary, he’s doing all he can to get Floridians to overlook his race.
In an atmosphere where racism is condemned and merit emphasized, this would be unremarkable. However, that’s not the current atmosphere.
On Feb. 6, Trump re-posted a 55-second artificial intelligence-generated video by the extreme X-site Xerias_X depicting former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as apes. The video didn’t end there: it depicted a variety of other Democratic figures as African animals, including US House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-8-NY) as a meerkat or lemur, former President Joe Biden as a baboon and former Vice President Kamala Harris as a tortoise. At the end of the video, all the animals bow before Trump as a lion king.
The animal-politicians bow before Lion King Trump in the Xerias video reposted by the White House. (Image: Truth Social via Laura Loomer on X).
The video was a clear display of Trump’s utter contempt for other politicians, the public, and his blatant, undisguised racism—with the exception of the unfailingly devoted and politically useful cover of Byron Donalds.
But of all the Republicans, the one black candidate, the person who stood most to be offended, whose outrage was most to be expected, was silent. His office released a statement to the Tampa Bay Times that “Team Byron Donalds has called the White House and learned that a staffer had let POTUS down”—accepting uncritically the White House explanation that the posting was the work of a staffer, who remains unnamed to this day.
And that was all there was.
Donalds’ reaction—or non-reaction—is instructive of his likely actions and attitudes if elected governor. Florida’s minorities, of all kinds, will find no aid, assistance or support from this governor if they face challenges or prejudice. Racism will go unanswered. And any Trump excess or outrage will not only be uncritically accepted, it will likely be defended, rationalized and when directed, implemented by this governor.
Indeed, Donalds’ whole political career is built on a gargantuan contradiction that will be unavoidable if he accedes to the highest office in the state.
“I am everything the fake news media tells you doesn’t exist,” Donalds stated in his opening campaign video when he first ran for Congress in 2020. “A strong, Trump-supporting, gun-owning, liberty-loving, pro-life, politically incorrect black man.”
He hasn’t changed positions since making that statement. But increasingly, holding to that Trumpist faith means accepting authoritarian coups, mob and state-sanctioned violence, concentration camps, constitutional violations, mind-boggling corruption, election rigging, dictatorial dominance and increasingly overt and extreme racial prejudice.
Byron Donalds would not be in a position to seek the governorship of a state that was once slave-holding and secessionist, segregationist and lynching-prone if not for the giant steps away from that barbarity over the last 160 years. If not for Emancipation, he would be a slave. If not for Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, he would not be able to vote. If not for the Civil Rights Act, his children would be consigned to second-class schools and separate water fountains. If not for repeal of Florida’s miscegenation law in 1969, he would not have been able to date—much less, marry—his current spouse. If not for the election of Barack Obama, who showed that Americans could accept a capable black man and elect him president, he could not aspire to the state’s highest political office or even the highest office in the land.
Instead, he has embraced a movement and man who wants to go in exactly the opposite direction, to return to a time when in his view America was “great.” But when was that time? Was it before the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision of 1857, which ruled that a black man could never be an American citizen? What is more, this is a president who is ferociously and aggressively turning back the clock and trying to bend the arc of history to an imagined time when prejudice reigned, racial violence was common, and intolerance ruled—and there was no place in that world for an ambitious black man like Byron Donalds.
As a loyal, submissive, Trumpist governor, this is what Byron Donald can be expected to bring to Florida.
Donalds may well win the Republican nomination on Aug. 18. But when Florida voters go to the polls in the general election on Nov. 3, they will have a choice. Assuming the election is held as scheduled, assuming every legitimate voter is allowed to cast a ballot, and assuming that the votes are counted fairly, accurately and reported truthfully, the people of Florida can chart a very different destiny for their Sunshine State—if they dare.
A call for a New American Revolution and New Amendments to the United States Constitution
Presented at the Progressive Voices Lecture Series at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Greater Naples, Feb. 4, 2026 by David Silverberg
Text as prepared
If anyone doubts that Donald Trump regards himself as a king, “they should just look at the artificial intelligence-generated images Donald Trump posted of himself in the past year.” The author making his presentation. (Photo: June Fletcher)
In 1655 the French King Louis the Fourteenth reportedly said, “L’Etat, c’est moi” – “I am the state” (or literally, “the state is me.”).
This past January 8th, President Donald Trump was asked in a New York Times interview if there were any limits to his global power and he replied, “Yeah, there is one thing: my own morality, my own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
Think about that for a moment. He is “The only thing” that can stop him. He didn’t say Congress. He didn’t say the courts. He didn’t say the people. He didn’t say the Constitution. Just himself.
And he also didn’t say international law, which was the context of the question. On that, he said, “I don’t need international law.” Direct quote!
My friends, it pains me to say this but America has just had its Louis the Fourteenth moment.
Let’s take a moment to let all this sink in.
On its 250th birthday, the United States has become exactly what its founders worked and fought and struggled against: a dictatorship, a monarchy – and as I pointed out last year, monarchy doesn’t necessarily mean the title “King.” “Mono” means “one” “archy” means power – one power – and today we are a monarchy just as surely as we were before independence in 1776.
And if anyone doubts it, they should just look at the artificial intelligence-generated images Donald Trump posted of himself in the past year.
Note those crowns!
We’re not yet a complete monarchy. The Constitution has not been formally abolished. We still believe and act as though we have the rights granted us by the Bill of Rights. We’re gathered here tonight legally in the belief that our ability to do so is entirely proper. I believe that the words I’m speaking to you now are protected by the First Amendment.
But the President and all those around him are on a path toward ending that Constitution and those rights—and they make no secret of this. Donald Trump said he would be a dictator and during the course of last year he proceeded to expand his powers and disregard the law, legitimized by a Supreme Court ruling saying he had immunity for his official actions. And then we’ve seen the seizures and shootings on the streets of Minneapolis.
Now, I could spend the entire rest of this talk enumerating his sins, his crimes and his outrages. But I have other things to get to. Rick Wilson, the Florida pundit and Lincoln Project co-founder who remotely addressed a gathering here last year, has published what is essentially a new Declaration of Independence on Substack, that lists all this.
If you want to read this later, I recommend that you take a picture of it and the Internet address.
The essential question that confronts us is: What do we do about this? What can we, as normal, everyday, non-violent, law-abiding citizens, people who don’t hold public office and aren’t in the public eye, do about it?
I have a few thoughts, which I hope you find worthy of consideration.
First, all my suggestions are non-violent and lawful. I still believe in the law and obeying it. American law still provides us with tools for change and great latitude for action. We still have numerous avenues of appeal, redress and change.
Having said that, I believe that the situation and the threat are so dire, we need a New American Revolution. Not a violent overthrow of what we had before but what I’ll call a restorative revolution. We need to restore the rights, the checks and balances and the democracy that existed before Donald Trump usurped them.
But we have to look at the effort holistically.
Remember something: The Trump presidency is not merely an administration in the mold of past presidencies. It’s a political, social and cultural revolution of its own that seeks total control. It aims to utterly oppress, dominate and subjugate Americans and the world to the whims, the hatreds, the prejudices and the rages of one single man. It’s an attack on everything we had before he became president and everything this country has meant for the past 250 years. It’s truly American carnage.
Everyone who values democracy, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the rule of law and who takes action should see himself or herself as part of a new American revolution. This goes beyond Republican or Democratic labels. And it goes beyond any single, particular action. We need to view the demonstrations in Minneapolis and the protests at the Government Center on Route 41 in Naples as connected, they’re all part of the same movement. We have to see the lawsuits and the vigils against Alligator Alcatraz as part of the same effort as the midterm elections and the grassroots organizing that has to be done there.
I would hope that if we see all these individual efforts as a single mass effort, unified with a common purpose, we can be more effective—at least conceptually—than if we only look at those efforts as individual and fragmented. All these actions together have a cumulative effect.
The actions we take are aimed not just at protesting this president’s illegal actions but at reversing their worst abuses and restoring sanity, dignity and decency to our government.
The list of reforms and changes that are needed are long. Anyone can come up with his or her favorites.
We also have to recognize that nothing is quick in a non-violent movement. Whatever their aims, non-violent mass movements are always marathons. They take long-term, persistent pressure on a multitude of fronts. But history has shown that they can work.
But as a start, one goal has to be to end the domestic terrorism of ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement directorate of the Department of Homeland Security, DHS.
On a personal note, from 2004 to 2013 I was editor of a magazine called Homeland Security Today, so I watched the department and this particular directorate evolve.
ICE was created in 2002 by combining the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the US Customs Service. It was intended to prevent bad people and bad things from getting into the country.
So I know what ICE was supposed to be—as opposed to what it’s become.
Every country has to protect its borders and regulate its immigration. That’s a fundamental function. But ICE under the second Trump administration is a violent, lawless, unaccountable force of domestic terrorism, like Mussolini’s Blackshirts or Hitler’s Brownshirts.
ICE was intended to protect the American people from terrorism. Under Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, its mission has become imposing terror and purging the Hispanic and foreign-origin population of the United States.
Sadly, I don’t think it can be redeemed. When sanity returns, its functions need to go to other agencies or a new agency with a different name. But ICE today is too twisted and tainted to remain as is. It needs to be demobilized and dispersed and those guilty of crimes prosecuted and the whole thing overhauled.
So that’s an example of an immediate, practical measure. But I want to look beyond the moment.
There are two revolutionary proposals that I think are particularly important, if less emotionally-charged than the many others people want to pursue. Both are constitutional amendments and could be enacted if the Constitution and its mechanisms remain in force—i.e., if they aren’t abolished altogether, which, by the way, Trump has threatened to do.
One amendment, which would be the Constitution’s 28th, would state that:
“The President of the United States shall be subject to the laws and penalties of the United States in his or her official and personal capacities.”
It is absolutely astonishing that this would have to be passed but when the Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that the president has legal immunity for all his official actions, they opened the gate to the outlaw dictatorship we’re suffering under today. This president is above the law and he knows it and he’s exploiting it. That can never be allowed to happen again. As the Supreme Court’s motto on the lintel of its building declares: “Equal justice under law” and that equality needs to be restored. Everyone—and I mean, everyone—has to be subject to the law.
Another amendment, which would be the 29th, would state:
“No Person shall be eligible to the Office of President who has not served in a prior elected office or held a military position of command. No Person previously found guilty of a crime by a jury of his or her peers, or found guilty of insurrection, or previously impeached and removed from office for high crimes and misdemeanors, shall be qualified to hold the office.”
No more criminals as President! This amendment is intended to ensure that never again can an utterly inexperienced, grossly unqualified, completely unfit individual attain the power of the presidency. Never again should the American people face the prospect of a criminal candidate running—or governing—from prison. It simply says: criminals need not apply.
Those are just a few suggestions.
Now, I put these and other ideas into a website post called “Manifesto for an American Rose Revolution” that went live on January 2nd.
A rose revolution? Why that?
Well, perhaps this is sentimental on my part but I—and maybe everyone in this room—can remember the Kennedy Administration.
And maybe you can remember when Jaqueline Kennedy created the White House Rose Garden.
It was a small area, only 125 feet long and 60 feet wide (38 meters by 18 meters) outside the Oval Office of the White House. But it was a place of beauty, elegance and grace that reflected the First Lady’s own.
The Rose Garden is no more. Trump paved it over to create a hideous patio.
What’s more, having destroyed the garden, he created an exclusive “Rose Garden Club” for his cronies, which costs a million dollars to join.
Well, you know, Trump believes that as President he owns the White House. He believes he can alter or destroy it as he pleases. He demolished the East Wing to replace it with a massive, gargantuan ballroom bearing his name, whose cost keeps ballooning and he has even more desecrations in mind.
But the White House doesn’t “belong” to the person who temporarily occupies it. It belongs to the American people. We’re the homeowners’ association. What’s more, every resident of that house is just a temporary tenant who holds it in trust for the next occupant.
The same can be said of the country as a whole. Trump thinks he owns it.
Folks, the time has come for the American people to take back their house—and their homeland.
And if there’s any one moment that will mark their success, it will be when that hideous patio is dug up and smashed and its pieces distributed as souvenirs and roses bloom again in the people’s garden.
That’s why I think a Rose Revolution is a good idea. The color “rose” is neither blue nor red; it includes a wide variety of shades and everyone and anyone can be part of it.
This is not just about a garden, of course.
Winston Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government—except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.”
The great thing about democracy, and the reason I believe in it so, is that it’s a form of government built on hope and courage and possibilities. We can all remember when Tim Walz thanked Kamala Harris for bringing joy back to politics. Democracy isn’t just about the way people are governed, it’s about enabling the pursuit of happiness—and giving people the hope and tools to achieve it.
By contrast, monarchy, dictatorship, autocracy are built on despair, and submission and hopelessness. In that kind of government there can be no success without the monarch’s approval or—especially with this president—getting his piece of the action. This is a presidency run on threat and fear and extortion.
So a Restorative Revolution, a New American Revolution, a Rose Revolution – whatever you want to call it – is not just about legislation or protests or particular measures, it’s about restoring joy and hope and dignity and decency and democracy and ending a reign of fear and intimidation. It’s about upholding the true values of America and restoring the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And everyone has a role to play.
Now, I know that a single blogger typing in an obscure corner of Florida, throwing out some ideas, is hardly earthshaking. Believe me, no one is more conscious of the odds and the obstacles and the prospect of oblivion than I am. This talk may go up on the Internet along with billion and one other posts and comments and disappear completely into that great blogosphere in the cloud, or the sky, or whatever.
But you never know how history will play out—and this should inform all our actions. The one thing we can be certain of is that if we don’t do anything then nothing will ever be done.
I’m inspired in this by a hero of mine, Thomas Paine.
January 10th marked the 250th anniversary of the publication of Paine’s little pamphlet, “Common Sense,” which can truly be said to have sparked the American Revolution.
Who was Thomas Paine? Well, when he wrote Common Sense he was a nobody. He’d been a failed businessman and husband. He’d done some writing in his native England but of little more than local note. He’d immigrated to America in 1774 and was so sick from the passage that he had to be carried off the ship.
But he immediately grasped the potential of America and he had hope and could see the possibilities in change. He hated monarchy and oppression and he conveyed it to all the English inhabitants of North America. All he had to work with was language and logic and he put them to use, proving that anyone can have an impact.
Common Sense is as relevant today as it was in 1776 when it was published. I encourage everyone to make the effort to read it—and it does take some effort.
But even more immediate and relevant to us today is an essay that Paine wrote after Common Sense called The American Crisis. He wrote it during the darkest days of the American Revolution. He was a member of the Pennsylvania militia. American forces had been defeated in New York and pushed back through New Jersey. The army seemed about to dissolve and it looked like the revolutionary cause was at an end. The story is that he started writing an essay using a drumhead as a writing table.
It was under these circumstances that Paine penned the most famous paragraph he ever produced. Everyone knows the first sentence. But it’s worth listening to the entire paragraph because it’s every bit as relevant and as inspirational today as it was 250 years ago. We need to heed it.
I’m going to read it and I’m going to get through it.
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
So with that in mind, it’s time to start shaping America’s next 250 years.
The Paradise Progressive 