Gov. Ron DeSantis tries to navigate the snows of Iowa. (Photo: AP)
Jan. 14, 2024 by David Silverberg
Tomorrow is the day of the long-awaited—or long-dreaded, depending on your perspective—Iowa caucuses.
As this is written the Hawkeye State is being battered by a brutal blizzard and plummeting temperatures. Because caucus-goers must make their preferences known in person (they don’t actually fill out a ballot but submit slips of paper) attendance—or lack thereof—will greatly affect the outcome.
The general expectation is that former President Donald Trump will win in a blowout. That’s the way the polling has been going. But given Mother Nature’s intervention there could be a surprise, or surprises. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) might beat Trump or do much better than expected. Former South Carolina Gov. Nimarata Nikki Randhawa Haley could get “smoked” as former New Jersey governor Chris Christie predicted—or she could smoke DeSantis or even Trump.
The state of Florida is going to be affected by the outcome, given that there are two Florida men running against each other. That impact will extend beyond the question of who will be the Republican presidential nominee; Floridians may feel the effect of this distant contest in their everyday lives.
So it makes sense to go beyond just the presidential horserace aspects of the contest and weigh the impact of possible outcomes on the Sunshine State.
The respective standings of the Republican presidential candidates in Iowa as of today, based on aggregations of polls by ABC/FiveThirtyEight.com. The chart shows Trump at 51.3%, Haley at 17.3%, DeSantis at 16.1% and Ramaswamy at 5.7%. (Chart: 538)
Florida Man 1: The White House or the jail house
Despite his high-profile residence in the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Donald Trump has had surprisingly little impact on his adopted state. He rarely weighs in on state politics or policies except to insult and denigrate its governor whom sees as an ungrateful traitor.
Trump is preoccupied with his presidential bid, staying out of jail and keeping his financial empire intact. If he wins Iowa he simply goes on to the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23 and then follows the trail to the nomination at the Party convention on July 15 in Milwaukee, Wis. Other than little bumps along the road for trials, appeals and potential disqualification for insurrection, it’s a pretty straightforward progression as long as he stays out of jail.
This should not have a direct impact on Florida or its legislative session now under way. If Trump becomes president he will establish himself as dictator and presumably favor Florida in his decisionmaking, although this is never to be taken for granted with Trump.
However, one area that should concern Floridians, especially in the Southwest, is his pledge to “drill, drill, drill” starting on day one. While oil platforms are unlikely in the waters immediately off of Mar-a-Lago (after all, he wouldn’t want to spoil the view), they could be permitted in the eastern Gulf off Southwest Florida, something that Floridians have fought for years. If Trump decided to allow them, there they would be—and in a dictatorship, Southwest Floridians would have no recourse or appeal. That’s life under a tyrant.
There is another Florida possibility that’s unconnected to either Iowa or the presidential campaign. It’s been raised by Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, and that is that Trump could lose Mar-a-Lago in a court judgment. If that happened, he might cease to be a Florida man and take up residence in a federal prison or abroad.
If he left Florida one way or the other, it seems unlikely that Floridians would feel any impact of his departure or absence in their daily lives—although traffic might improve around Mar-a-Lago.
Florida Man 2: The fate of DeSantistan
Far more significant for Floridians is the fate of the state’s governor. Here, the impact of the Iowa caucus outcome is likely to be felt at street level.
It needs to be remembered that at stake in Iowa is not just the future of DeSantis, his presidential ambitions and his political campaign. Rather, the Iowa results will be the first step in telling the world whether America wants to be Florida, or more specifically, DeSantis’ Florida—what has been called DeSantistan (with thanks to Diane Roberts of Florida Phoenix for the term).
It’s not just DeSantis being judged in Iowa; it’s everything that DeSantistan has come to mean: the book-banning, vaccine-denying, woke-stopping, gun-toting, immigrant-hating, teacher-bashing, college-crushing, abortion-ending, vote-restricting, media-taunting, Disney-destroying, Trumplike tropical culture that defines this peculiar peninsula right now.
If DeSantis wins in Iowa he’ll be able to claim validation for his cultural crusade. It will be a triumph all the sweeter for the long odds and unexpected outcome. He’ll be able to argue that the DeSantian model is attractive to the American public at large (even if it’s endorsed by just a handful of frostbitten Iowans) and he will take it to the next stop in New Hampshire. He will pursue his cultural agenda, touting it as a model for the entire country. He will strive to make America DeSantistan.
Within the confines of the Sunshine State, the state legislature, with its Republican supermajority, is likely to remain cowed and subservient in the face of a possible DeSantis presidency. After all, a President DeSantis would bring many potential benefits and rewards, both for the state and for the legislators personally—and also nasty, petty penalties for defiance or apostasy.
As they did last year, the legislators will likely “stay the course,” as DeSantis called on them to do in his State of the State address last Tuesday, Jan. 9. They will probably continue to enact his priorities while each one jockeys to prove him or herself more DeSantian than the others. It will mean a continued race to the right and into further depths of abortion prohibiting, educational inquisition, voter suppression, science denial and cultural crusading. Bills to these effects are already under consideration.
However, if DeSantis is defeated in Iowa that could all change—and the bigger the defeat, the bigger the change.
The definition of “defeat” is variable: a loss to Trump would not be surprising but a loss to Haley, especially a big loss, would be crushing and personally humiliating. Imagine, losing to a girl!
A decisive defeat could end his presidential campaign altogether. Numerous observers, including the wickedly wise Karl Rove, have pointed out that Iowa is a “do or die” moment for DeSantis. If he loses he will still likely limp to the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary, where there is an actual vote. But a loss in Iowa will send him to the Granite State wounded and crippled.
Back at home DeSantis would still be governor of Florida for the next two years but his standing in the state would be vastly diminished. He would no longer be the face of the future with the potential to provide great rewards or significant punishments.
Indeed, this year the Florida legislature is showing some signs that the extreme DeSantis-Make America Great Again (MAGA) fever is beginning to break.
For example, a bill to ban abortion in virtually all instances (House Bill 1519) is getting the cold shoulder from Senate President Sen. Kathleen Passidomo (R-28-Naples) and House Speaker Rep. Paul Renner (R-19-Flagler and St. Johns counties), the top lawmakers in both houses. Similarly, a bill to virtually end mail-in balloting and require more hand counts of ballots (Senate Bill 1752)—pet peeves of Trump and 2020 election deniers—received a similarly cold reception from Passidomo.
The cooling of ideological ardor, combined with the governor’s prolonged absence from the state while campaigning elsewhere, has apparently loosened DeSantis’ hold on the minds of state lawmakers. A decisive defeat in Iowa could actually awaken them from their cultic thrall and evolve a spine in some of them, despite party demands for complete submission.
After a beating in Iowa and the end of his campaign, DeSantis would likely return to Tallahassee, lick his wounds and govern for the next two years but without the presidential urgency and drive that has propelled him so far. As he stated in his State of the State speech, he would stay the course and continue with existing policies, likely without the bombast and drama that has marked him to date.
However, he would also be governing in the looming shadow of a possible Trump presidency and while Trump may be forgetful of land values and real estate appraisals he never forgets an enemy or a perceived turncoat. If Trump wins, DeSantis would likely be targeted for arrest and imprisonment on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of a Trump dictatorship. (Trump probably wouldn’t wait for the following day to order DeSantis’ arrest but would have him seized on some pretext after taking the inaugural oath at noon.)
In the event that President Joe Biden is re-elected there would be none of the truly dire consequences for DeSantis and the state. The governor would continue denouncing Biden from the safety of the Governor’s Mansion for two years and then play baseball, cogitate in a think-tank or practice law while awaiting his next presidential chance in 2028, secure in the expectation that there would be another chance because the election would be held as planned.
Grassroots Floridians will likely feel the impact of a DeSantis defeat in a more moderate legislature and less draconian laws, somewhat freer democracy (or at least less restrictive balloting), and less hatred, prejudice and rage against citizens who fall outside the governor’s political base.
By contrast, a DeSantis win in Iowa will likely see more efforts by Florida Republicans to force political unity on the Florida population to guarantee solid backing for his continued quest for the nomination and general election. The totalitarian impulse is strong in the Sunshine State. After all, last year there were calls to officially make Florida a single-party state. Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-11-Citrus, Hernando and Sumter counties) introduced a bill to outlaw the Democratic Party based on its 1860 support for slavery (conveniently overlooking Republican support for keeping slavery in the states where it already existed). Republican Party Chair Christian Ziegler announced that the Party’s “work is not done until there are no more Democrats in Florida.”
Today Florida is still a multiparty state, there are still Democrats voting in it and Christian Ziegler has been expelled from the Party chairmanship. Now the fate of Florida’s political culture rests in the frozen mittens of Iowa Republicans.
As for Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Floridians are unlikely to feel any shock waves if these candidates somehow emerge from Iowa’s icy grip. They have not had an impact on Florida to date and unless one of them succeeds to the presidency, it’s hard to see any state impacts from either of them.
Of caucuses and confusion
In 2020, six Democratic candidates entered the Iowa caucuses to jockey for the presidential nomination. In a surprise, Peter Buttegieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, received the largest proportion of votes and the most delegates after a confusing, delayed result that took several days to sort out. In the end it didn’t matter because Joe Biden became the nominee and the 46th President of the United States.
The results of the Republican Iowa caucuses this year could be similarly confused. We all may not know for days who won or in the end the results may be inconclusive. Ultimately, they may not matter at all.
There’s also one other possible outcome: if he somehow loses, Trump will no doubt declare that he actually won, the caucuses were rigged and the results are invalid. He’ll blame the weather, illegal migrants, and George Soros.
It could happen. After all, this scenario has occurred before. And his MAGA cultists will no doubt believe him.
Sidebar: A caucus mystery solved?
In American political parlance, “to caucus” means to “gather” or “confer” and “a caucus” means a gathering or conclave.
The origins of the term “caucus” are obscure. When this author was researching his book Congress for Dummies in 2002, he discovered there was no definitive etymology for the term. Some observers thought it was originally a Native American term. That seemed unlikely because the word sounded Latinate. Other sources believe it derived from colonial drinking clubs or from shipbuilding caulkers “caucusing” together.
On a visit to Scotland last summer, this author became aware of a Scottish drinking cup called a Quaich (pronounced “quake”). According to Scottish sources, the word is Gaelic and means a cup of friendship or comradeship. It was a Celtic variation of a low-class Latin word for cup, which happened to be “caucus.”
So the American political term “caucus” may derive from the time of Roman Britain and Latin’s influence on language throughout the isles. As people gathered to drink and share cups, they also shared thoughts and concerns. Perhaps Scottish settlers brought their quaiches and the even older term for cup to the New World. In the centuries since, the word has evolved to its current political meaning.
This is a theory, of course. Someday, perhaps some sharp linguistic graduate student will definitively nail down the sources and proofs. But it makes sense and it’s pleasant to think of a caucus as a group of friends gathering together to share a common cup of spirits, conversation and good cheer. It’s a warm image particularly appropriate to the frozen fields of Iowa.
At any rate that’s the explanation this author most enjoys, so he’s sticking with it. Slàinte Mhath!
A group of Collier County residents huddle in prayer prior to a Board of Commissioners meeting in the Commission chamber on March 28, 2023. (Photo: Author)
Jan. 3, 2024 by David Silverberg
What will be the shape of Collier County, Florida’s next century? This year’s election has the potential to significantly mold its future well beyond just the next year.
As the United States as a whole faces a stark election choice between democracy and dictatorship in 2024, so Collier County voters face important choices between candidates who represent radically different approaches to governing, educating and most importantly, counting ballots.
It is important to note that August 20—not the general election date of Nov. 5—is the operative election date for some of these races, which will be decided in the Republican Party primary. (This is also not to be confused with the Florida Presidential Preference Primary, which is scheduled for March 19.)
In keeping with the dominant political complexion of the county, all the candidates are Republicans by name and party affiliation, except for the School Board, whose elections are non-partisan.
In fact, however, some of the governing philosophies at issue are so radically different that some candidates could be said to be Republicans, while others belong to what is a separate de facto Make America Great Again (MAGA) party.
Another issue that is very important for the future of Collier County is the role of religion in public affairs. There is a vocal and active Christian nationalist political movement in the county seeking to impose its religious views. One commissioner, Chris Hall (R-District 2) openly stated that “there is no separation of church and state.” School Board member Jerry Rutherford (District 1) maintains the same and has tried to insert religion into school board meetings.
Will the wall of separation between church and state be demolished in Collier County? The election will go a long way toward making this determination.
Collier County Board of Commissioners
Of the five seats on the Collier County Board of Commissioners, three are up for election: Districts 1, 3 and 5.
Because all candidates are Republicans, this race will be decided in the Republican primary election on Aug. 20.
As of Nov. 5, 2023, two of these offices were uncontested. In District 1 Commissioner Rick LoCastro had no opponent. The same was true for William McDaniel in District 5.
But District 3 is an entirely different story.
The district is a broad swath of largely rural land that goes from the county line in the north, along Route 75 on the west and south and Wilson Blvd. on the east. It includes communities like Golden Gate, the Vineyards, and Island Walk.
Collier County Commission District 3. (Map: CCBC)
The sitting commissioner is Burt Saunders, 75, Republican, a lawyer by profession and an experienced official. Originally from Hampton, Va., he moved to Florida in 1978 to attend graduate school. He received his law degree from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., and his master of laws degree from the University of Miami. He first served as the Collier County attorney before being elected to the Commission in 1986. He was then elected to the state House of Representatives in 1994 and the state Senate in 1998 where he served until 2008 before returning to the Board of Commissioners in 2016. As of Nov. 5 he had raised $7,500 for his campaign.
District 3 Commissioner Burt Saunders. (Image: CCBC)
Saunders is facing three Republican challengers for his seat.
Floyd “Tag” Yarnell, 53, is a litigation lawyer who calls himself a “Constitutional Conservative” and states he “will make decisions based on his faith and reverence to America’s founding principles.” As of Nov. 5 he had raised $22,450 for his race, the most of any of the candidates. The contributions came from a variety of individuals, many of them fellow lawyers.
John Johnson, 80, originally from Chicago, is a Collier County resident who held a wide variety of jobs including heavy equipment operator, farmer, motel owner, construction company owner and painting contractor, before retiring in 2020. As of Nov. 5 he had raised $4,220 for his campaign.
Frank Roberts, 34, is a tax attorney and former US Air Force Judge Advocate, who received his law degree from Ave Maria School of Law. As he puts it in his campaign biography: “He resides in Golden Gate Estates just outside Naples with his beautiful wife of 11 years, Kaitlyn, and three daughters where they happily raise chickens free from HOAs [homeowners associations] and with minimal government interference.” As of Nov. 5 he had not raised any money for his campaign.
Saunders’ seat is under threat because he has consistently been a voice for moderation and reasonable governance in the face of radical MAGA efforts. In August he was the lone vote against the Collier County anti-federal “Bill of Rights Sanctuary” ordinance, which asserted a county right to nullify federal law. He objected to its vagueness and unenforceability.
During the Aug. 22, 2023 Commission discussion on passage of that ordinance, prominent MAGA farmer and grocer Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III, after denouncing the “tyrannical” federal government, took direct aim at Saunders: “I understand, Burt, that you might not want to vote yes on this but you know, we as the electorate also have the choice not to vote for you when it comes up again.”
Saunders ignored the threat and voted against it anyway.
Similarly, in April he opposed an extreme anti-public health ordinance and resolution, which also passed over his lone dissenting vote.
During the COVID pandemic, Saunders voted in the majority to impose mandatory public health protection measures to protect county residents, incurring the wrath of those who opposed vaccinations and dismissed COVID as a hoax.
In the 2022 election, Oakes targeted two commissioners who had voted for COVID protections, Andy Solis (District 2), who declined to run for another term, and Penny Taylor (District 4). The candidates he backed, Hall and Dan Kowal (R-District 4), won.
“A year and half ago we said we’d get rid of them and here we are,” Oakes boasted during a post-election celebration at his market, Seed to Table. “Look, Bill McDaniel up here! Conservatives, America First, own Collier County now, praise the Lord!”
Supervisor of Elections
This year Collier County will face a contested race for the position of Supervisor of Elections.
Like the County Commission, this race will likely be decided in the Republican primary on Aug. 20.
Until now, local elections have been judged clean and results were accepted by all parties in Collier County. The office has never had a scandal or a challenge to its vote counting.
Collier County was created as a separate governing entity in 1923. It was served by a Supervisor of Registration of Electors before the office was changed to Supervisor of Elections in 1965. After serving four years as registrar, Edna Cribb Santa became the first Supervisor in 1965 and held the post for 16 years until 1981. She was followed by Mary Morgan, who served 19 years until 2000.
The most recent supervisor was Jennifer Edwards, who held the office for 23 years and retired in April 2023.
Edwards nominated her deputy, Melissa Blazier, 45, as her replacement.
“Melissa’s 17+ years of experience in the Supervisor of Elections office, vast knowledge of Florida’s election laws and rules, and her comprehension of the complexities of conducting elections would allow for a seamless transition as we head into the 2024 Presidential Election Cycle,” Edwards wrote in her March 31 retirement letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). “Melissa is unquestionably the most qualified person for this position and is prepared and ready to continue Collier County’s tradition of conducting excellent elections.”
Blazier has also been active in a variety of civic and political organizations including membership in the League of Women Voters, Men’s Republican Club of Collier County, Naples Republican Club, Republican Club of South Collier County, Republican Women of Southwest Florida Federated, and the Women’s Republican Club.
Melissa Blazier. (Photo: Author)
DeSantis followed Edwards’ recommendation and appointed Blazier as supervisor.
This year, Blazier is facing two challengers.
David Schaffel, 63, provides no background on his profession or career on his campaign website, except to call himself a “successful businessman and IT entrepreneur.” He says in a campaign video that he is a “rock-solid conservative and America First patriot.” He questions whether the 2020 election was stolen and says that as supervisor, his focus “will be on securing and restoring trust in our elections.” As of Nov. 5, he had not reported any donations to his campaign or spent any money on it.
The more serious challenger is Timothy Guerrette, 56, a former chief of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, from which he retired in 2021 after 31 years of service. He has also worked as a real estate broker and since retirement has hosted an “Uncensored 239” podcast. He has experience in police operations and management. He’s running on a platform of “safe, secure, ethical” elections and says in a campaign video that he will bring “competence and integrity back into the voting process.”
As of Nov. 5, Guerrette had raised $78,262 for his campaign. Many of the donations came from active and former law enforcement officers, including $1,000 from the Friends of Carmine Marceno Political Action Committee. Marceno is the sheriff in neighboring Lee County.
By contrast, as of Nov. 5, Blazier had raised $56,468 for her campaign, mostly from individuals, including her predecessor, including $25,000 she loaned her own campaign.
The opposition to Blazier appears to be less about her as an individual and more about distrust of the whole election process by disappointed MAGAs. This in turn seems largely based on former President Donald Trump’s disproven charges of 2020 election fraud and his attempt to overthrow the election’s outcome.
Despite Collier County’s record of election stability and accuracy, Oakes has alleged that mechanical vote counting was suspect.
“I will be challenging the Superintendent of Elections to clean up and do away with computer calculations for voting,” Oakes told The Paradise Progressive in an interview on Dec. 14, 2022. “We should have hand counts. In Europe they don’t take three weeks,” to reach a conclusion, he noted, referring to other elections around the United States that took long times to tabulate. While he said he liked Edwards, he called her “a little bit naïve and if you put her hand on the Bible, she would swear there is nothing corrupt going on there. I don’t think that’s true.”
Hand counting ballots has become a MAGA rallying cry even though it flies in the face of state law. As Blazier put it in a June 28, 2023 interview with The Paradise Progressive, changing away from machine counts “would have to be changed in law. That’s not something we can decide to do. And certainly not, given the deadlines we have to certify an election, it’s not possible to hand count—and I’m talking about one race. When you think about the general election ballot, we have over 30 contests on that ballot, with over a hundred different ballot styles that we would potentially have to hand count. I know that no one likes to hear this, but machines are more accurate than human beings are.”
School Board
Like all school boards in Florida, Collier County’s is a non-partisan race. If any candidate receives 50 percent plus one in the primary election, that person is elected. Otherwise, its makeup will be decided in the general election on Nov. 5.
Two school districts are up for election this year: District 2, currently represented by Vice Chair Stephanie Lucarelli, and District 4, represented by Erick Carter.
Stephanie Lucarelli. (Image: CCPS)
Lucarelli, 49, has served on the Board since 2016. She previously worked as a teacher in New Jersey, where she received her teaching certificate from Rutgers University.
Erick Carter. (Image: CCPS)
Erick Carter, 53, also took a seat on the Board in 2016. Originally from South Carolina, Carter was an instructor with a national ballroom dancing company when he discovered Southwest Florida in 1992, met his wife Anita and settled in Naples, where today they run Salon Zenergy, a hair and cosmetology salon.
Lucarelli and Carter have provided a moderate, secular approach to education and school board decisions since taking office in 2020.
With Chair Kelly Lichter (District 3) providing the swing vote, both voted in the majority to approve the appointment of Superintendent Leslie Ricciardelli despite a less experienced MAGA contender for the position backed by Oakes. They also rejected mixing religion into School Board proceedings with an invocation prior to Board meetings.
As of this writing it is not certain that Lucarelli and Carter will run again since they have not declared their candidacies.
The only declared School Board candidate is a Collier County resident running in District 2 named Pamela Shanouda Cunningham, 49, whose campaign website and video declares her to be an “unapologetic conservative.” She claims that Collier County children’s futures are “being sold out to big government bureaucrats who want to indoctrinate, not educate; career politicians who want to teach them what to think, not how to think.” She wants to put “parents in classrooms, not the liberal elite” and “restore greatness to the American classroom.”
Cunningham provides no biographic material on her website although she titles herself “Dr.,” and provides no academic credentials. She has never run for public office. The Collier County Citizens Values Political Action Committee lists her as Republican.
She did not respond to an e-mail or phone call from The Paradise Progressive seeking further information.
Analysis: The war on competence
In 2024 Collier County voters face a choice whether to uphold a secular, constitutional, effective local government or to veer off in a radical, extreme, religious direction.
The MAGA candidates running represent a continuation of the Trumpist war against expertise, experience and competence.
When he was president and especially during the COVID pandemic, Trump waged war on experts and the value of experience. He lacked experts’ knowledge and education, so he denigrated and dismissed them as “deep state” or “liberal elite” and belittled their knowledge. Then, when he lost the election, he deliberately promoted a Big Lie to overturn the results and questioned the integrity and neutrality of election officials who counted the votes.
The echoes of that anti-expertise, anti-competence, election-denying attitude continue to resonate and can be seen in the choices before Collier County.
In Burt Saunders Collier County has a seasoned, prudent commissioner with extensive experience in law and government at the state and local levels that is unmatched by his challengers.
In Melissa Blazier the county has a veteran, knowledgeable Supervisor of Elections with extensive experience. In addition to having helped oversee elections for the past 17 years, she is certified as an Elections/Registration Administrator by the National Association of Election Officials’ Election Center and is a Master Florida Certified Elections Professional through the Florida Supervisors of Elections.
In Stephanie Luccarelli and Erick Carter the county has experienced school board members with an abiding interest in education and the welfare of students, teachers and parents.
The people seeking to replace these veteran officials are running based on old suspicions, distrust of expertise and conspiracy theories.
The Supervisor of Elections position is a case in point.
This is an extremely important position because it’s the foundation for all other governance and elections. The public has to have confidence in its outcomes and especially in its absolute neutrality and integrity.
It’s worth remembering that the Supervisor of Elections oversees not only general elections but party primaries as well. For example, if candidates from two different Republican Party factions vie for a seat, everyone has to be confident that the Supervisor will not favor one faction or another in any way and that the intra-party vote count will be fair, unbiased and accurate.
The complaints about the election process appear to come from the 2020 outcome that Trump supporters didn’t like. But the Supervisor job is much broader than that.
There seems to be little understanding of the true complexity and nature of the job by its critics or challengers. As Blazier pointed out, a Supervisor may be overseeing over 30 different ballots on everything from constitutional amendments to judicial elections to the Collier County Mosquito Control District (which has two seats open this year), the Soil and Water Conservation District (four seats) and various fire control and rescue districts, not to mention mayor and council seats in Everglades City, Marco Island and Naples.
More than anything else, the Supervisor job is an accounting job; it’s all about numbers, vote counts, meeting deadlines and adhering to all applicable laws and getting everything out the door promptly, whether that means mail-in ballots or election results. A law enforcement or business background may include aspects related to the Supervisor’s job but nothing compares to over 17 years of on-the-job training and experience like that held by Blazier.
By contrast, her challengers have nothing in their backgrounds indicating any familiarity—or even previous interest—in election management. They have never been involved in administering elections or even served as poll workers.
Additionally, Blazier comes from an unbroken tradition of election excellence and integrity that stretches back to the founding of Collier County. Overthrowing all that knowledge and expertise, especially by an ideologically-driven MAGA opponent, would call into question the integrity and accuracy of all future election results including those for intra-party contests.
Another case in point is the Collier County School Board where Rutherford and Moshier, the two MAGA school board members, have consistently failed or proven unable to do the hard, necessary work of budgeting—and they campaigned on cutting that budget. When confronted with a real spreadsheet, they froze. Rutherford, with Moshier’s support, introduced time-consuming and irrelevant distractions like the controversy over an invocation. They have shown next to no interest in the actual nuts and bolts of providing educational excellence for students.
When ideological loyalty trumps competence the results are eroded services, misguided management and ineffective operations, not to mention poor decisionmaking in budgeting, administration and conservation. In the current case, if Collier County voters reject competence for fanaticism this year they’ll start to feel the effects in 2025, when novice officials take office and start bungling operations and mishandling their responsibilities.
Of course, all these considerations will be moot if Donald Trump is elected and overthrows American democracy. All these offices and the procedures for selecting their officeholders are based on democratic, legal procedures, consent of the governed and the supremacy of law and the Constitution. In a dictatorship the dictator simply appoints his own loyalists based on the blindness of their fealty. Competence is no longer a consideration and public consent is dismissed.
So going into 2024, Collier County voters are faced with seasoned candidates with experience, knowledge and proven competence in their fields or unseasoned MAGA amateurs running on grievances, conspiracies and blind belief.
One course will result in a county that is run on behalf of its residents with effectiveness, efficiency and integrity. The other will lead to ignorance, intolerance and most of all, incompetence.
That would not be a great way to start Collier County’s second century.
America will have to navigate stormy waters overseas in the coming year. (Photo: Hai Thinh)
Jan 2, 2024 by David Silverberg
This year, American politics will not be happening in a vacuum; they will be profoundly affected by events and actors overseas.
Of course, American elections never really occur in isolation; they’re always impacted by the rest of the world. However, since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 there has rarely been a more volatile, dangerous and, indeed, explosive international situation. This is an election that will truly determine the fate of the world.
This year Americans will feel foreign influences at home like never before, whether they’re aware of them or not, even in a place as obscure and far from centers of power as Southwest Florida.
What are Americans likely to experience from abroad as the year proceeds to its political climax on Election Day, Nov. 5?
The arsenal of democracy
President Franklin Roosevelt gives his “Arsenal of Democracy” address.
On Dec. 29, 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt gave a radio speech to the American people. “This is not a fireside chat on war,” he said at the outset. “It is a talk on national security.”
He reviewed the threat to the world of Nazi and Fascist conquest. He argued that the United States must support Britain’s resistance to Adolf Hitler and that Americans could not be complacent behind two great oceans.
Toward the end of the talk he said, “We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.”
Today the exact same speech could be given with the same emphasis, just substituting “Russia” for “Germany,” “Putin” for “Hitler” and “terrorism” for “Fascism.”
There are other similarities to today and Roosevelt noted them in a paragraph in his speech, which deserves full quotation:
“Let us no longer blind ourselves to the undeniable fact that the evil forces which have crushed and undermined and corrupted so many others are already within our own gates. Your government knows much about them and every day is ferreting them out. Their secret emissaries are active in our own and in neighboring countries. They seek to stir up suspicion and dissension, to cause internal strife. They try to turn capital against labor, and vice versa. They try to reawaken long slumbering racial and religious enmities which should have no place in this country. They are active in every group that promotes intolerance. They exploit for their own ends our own natural abhorrence of war. These trouble-breeders have but one purpose. It is to divide our people, to divide them into hostile groups and to destroy our unity and shatter our will to defend ourselves.”
Now, as then, these “trouble-breeders” are active in America, only now they’re on social media and have own media networks and one broadcast network in particular. They will be extraordinarily active in this critical year.
America remains not only the arsenal of democracy but the fulcrum of world politics, the indispensable nation without which rule-based democracy cannot exist. As such it is the focus of every enemy of democracy and every would-be conqueror who would pull it from its pedestal. Every American’s television, computer, smart phone, printed page and any other form of communication is a target.
However, their efforts are likely to also likely to be “kinetic,” including terrorism, sabotage and physical violence.
The war fronts
The course of the year and the future is being shaped by war, which is the most uncertain of all human endeavors. America’s tomorrow is being forged on distant battlefields today.
The war in Ukraine will determine whether the United States remains a superpower, whether the Ukrainian people remain independent and democratic, and whether NATO and the West remain strong. Alternatively, if America, Ukraine and the West fail, a despotic Russia will rebuild an empire of fear and oppression, spread it to Europe and reduce the United States to a vassal.
As the year dawns, neither side can retreat. For Ukraine the struggle is an existential one: if Ukraine loses it ceases to exist. The same is true for Russian President Vladimir Putin: if Russia loses he ceases to exist. As a result there’s no end in sight right now and the war seems set to continue in its current state for at least another year.
Putin is 71 years old. If he dies or is killed during the course of the year the entire equation will change. There were strong rumors in October that he suffered a heart attack. However, he reappeared in public. As long as he is alive the course of Russian policy and warmaking will likely remain as it has since the invasion a year and ten months ago. His opponent, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, 45, has to stay alive too—but the Ukrainian war effort is less dependent on the will of a single man.
The war in Gaza will determine whether the United States remains a vital participant in the future of the Middle East, whether Israel and its neighbors will ever achieve peace, whether the people of Gaza will survive, whether Iran and its allies will dominate the region and whether the United States can sustain a two-front defense of the West and the democracies.
In its first phase Hamas won its war. Its Oct. 7 attack achieved strategic surprise, punctured the image of Israeli dominance and invulnerability and especially humiliated the vaunted Mossad intelligence agency. It ended moves toward Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab states. It forced Israel to deal with Hamas as a government in order to negotiate for captured hostages. It stirred up global antipathy to Israel and intensified worldwide anti-Semitism. It also delivered a personal blow to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose entire life was built on fighting terrorism.
For Russia and Iran, it opened a new front against the United States and distracted world attention away from Putin’s aggression. It put the United States on the defensive in justifying the overwhelming Israeli response. It forced choices in American military production capabilities, diverting them away from Ukraine. Despite the atrocities committed by its fighters (warning: this video is extremely graphic), Hamas successfully prompted an overwhelming and often indiscriminate Israeli response, costing it international support and leading to condemnation.
All Hamas has to do in the year ahead to win its war is simply survive since Netanyahu set the Israeli war goal as destroying it. Israel seems unlikely to achieve its goal before the year is out.
But Netanyahu is one of the most extraordinarily stubborn and determined human beings on his planet. He is absolutely focused on destroying Hamas to the exclusion of all other considerations. If all other factors remain the same he will continue Israel’s current course no matter how long it takes or what it costs in blood, treasure, or prestige.
That will mean more protests, more isolation of the United States and Israel and more casualties and hardship for civilian Gazans at the hands of both Hamas and Israel. It will mean more mobilization for the enemies of the US and Israel and intensified attacks and challenges on widely disparate and diverse battlefields on land, at sea and in the air. The Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea are just the start.
It may also mean that yet another front opens or a third major war suddenly breaks out somewhere during the year.
For everyday Americans it will mean something else as well: the increased likelihood of terrorism.
“Blinking red lights everywhere”
FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Dec. 5, 2023. (Image: CSPAN)
On Dec. 5, Christopher Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was asked if he saw the kind of “blinking red lights” that were going off before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“What I would say that is unique about the environment that we’re in right now in my career is that while there may have been times over the years where individual threats could have been higher here or there than where they may be right now, I’ve never seen a time where all the threats or so many of the threats are all elevated, all at exactly the same time,” answered Wray. “I see blinking red lights everywhere.”
Following the Hamas attack on Israel, said Wray, a “veritable rogue’s gallery of foreign terrorists” called for attacks on the United States and “the threat level has gone to a whole other level since Oct. 7.”
Sure enough, on Dec. 14, police in Denmark, Holland and Germany announced they had foiled a Hamas terror plot in their countries.
This is only the beginning. Given the tensions, stakes and desperation in so many theaters there will undoubtedly be terror and mass casualty events in the United States this year, some of them severe. What’s more, the intensity, stress and threats—and likely, number of events—will escalate as Election Day draws closer. There may be efforts to stop voting or scare people away from polling places.
The organized terror plots by groups from abroad such as Hamas or countries like Iran can often be foiled by good intelligence and detective work. But there is a significant domestic terror threat as well that simply cannot be anticipated. Some lone shooters, random crazies and violent extremists will get through.
There’s no solution to this at street level. Americans will just have to be alert, cautious and aware of their surroundings at all times, especially in large gatherings of any nature. Never has the old adage, “if you see something, say something” been more applicable.
But Americans will also need to show courage and calm and carry on. The saying “freedom isn’t free” is usually used in reference to military sacrifices. This year as Americans carry on their daily lives and fulfil their civic duties, they will have to keep in mind that their rights and freedom come with a cost in vigilance and potential danger but that it’s worth facing.
“Carefully, accurately, surgically”
Yevgeny Prigozhin in uniform from Rostov-on-Don in a June 24, 2023 video he released in the midst of his mutiny.
On Nov. 7, 2022 Yevgeny Prigozhin posted comments on the Russian equivalent of Facebook.
It was the day before the US midterm elections. “We have interfered [in US elections], we are interfering and we will continue to interfere,” he boasted. “Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once.”
Prigozhin, known as Putin’s chef and close counselor, was head of the Wagner Group mercenaries. He was widely believed in Western intelligence circles to be mastermind of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election that put Donald Trump in the White House. He oversaw troll farms that flooded American social media with divisive and disruptive messages and promoted Trump’s candidacy. His operatives organized pro-Trump rallies and posed as Trump operatives and spread disinformation. His hackers attempted to penetrate election offices.
Prigozhin had the temerity to threaten Putin when he led a mutiny last June. He got his reward in August when a plane he was riding in crashed in Russia, killing him and his closest associates.
As Russia has interfered in US elections ever since 2016, so it can be expected to attempt to interfere in the 2024 election—and probably already is doing so. Prigozhin will not be at the helm so the style will be different but he may have already been replaced by someone more capable.
With so much at stake, with active combat around the world, all of America’s enemies can be expected to try to determine the outcome of the US election. This will not only take the form of social media interference and disinformation, it will also likely involve direct efforts to skew vote counts and penetrate election offices.
It may also include old-fashioned direct corruption, blackmail and bribery, subverting elected and appointed officials and making covert contributions to specific election campaigns at all levels of government. It will likely include Russian support for Trump’s candidacy, given his admiration for Putin and his antipathy toward Ukraine.
There is no doubt that Russia will be covertly promoting anti-Ukraine sentiment among American voters. Opposition to Ukraine among Republican members of Congress is already playing into Putin’s hands.
“Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us,” Olga Skabeeva, a Russian TV personality on state TV said when Republican members of Congress blocked an aid package to Ukraine and Israel just before the December recess.
Dmitry Drobnitsky, a Russian American affairs analyst, added: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone.”
As Americans sort through their social media feeds and information from media of all sorts this year, they should be aware that they are targets of hostile powers pursuing their own agendas. As with the threat of terrorism, watchfulness and awareness will be essential. When it comes to information, especially outrageous, incendiary and extreme “news” items, healthy skepticism, vigilance and verification of sources will be critical to staying in touch with reality.
The border and immigration conundrums
Migrant flows to the US southern border are already at record levels. They will likely skyrocket as the year proceeds.
Why? Because people hoping to reach the United States are very well aware of the American political situation. This year may represent their last, best chance to migrate to the United States and enter in an orderly, legal way. They may be poor and desperate but they’re not stupid.
Also, America’s opponents will want to put as much pressure on the administration as possible, so there may be an element of foreign agitation in promoting northward migration.
Then there are the factors that are driving a northward migration around the world: poverty, war, oppression, fear, and the ravages of climate change. At the same time there are the attractions: hope, freedom, promise and the chance for a better life.
But the surge at the border will no doubt be a major headache and vulnerability for Biden this year. He is constrained in his response by existing law and established procedures, while Trump and the Republicans have no such constraints and don’t have to offer solutions that actually work. They already are and can be expected to exploit the situation to the full.
If Biden wins, US immigration and border policy will continue to function on systematic, legal principles and will likely improve with time and additional resources.
But by contrast, Trump continues denouncing immigrants in purely racial terms as he has done since he began campaigning for president in 2015. “They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done,” Trump said of them during a rally in New Hampshire on Dec. 16. His solutions embody hatred, prejudice and rage.
In the notorious Project 2025 plan for governing after his election, Trump supporters envision reshaping government to give Trump unconstrained power. Their ideas include building large concentration camps and conducting mass raids and roundups of undocumented migrants. During Trump’s presidency migrant families were separated and conditions for migrants declined precipitously. Treatment is likely to become even more draconian if he’s re-elected and assumes dictatorial powers. And he would no doubt revive plans to build a massive, ineffective and exorbitantly expensive wall along the US southern border.
All this creates an incentive for migrants to get to the United States in 2024 while they still have a reasonable chance of entering.
That there is stress at the border is undeniable. But the issue has been so politicized and distorted that it’s difficult to get an accurate, objective assessment of the situation.
Trump and Republican politicians know that alarm about migrants polls well and agitates the base. However, they’ve so overhyped the situation that their more extreme allegations are suspect. They’ve charged that the border under the Biden administration is “open,” meaning that there are no controls at all. In fact there is a structure and enforcement mechanism to deal with asylum seekers and attempted crossers both legal and illegal —but it’s under strain.
Govs. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) and Greg Abbott (R-Texas) in the past year used transports of migrants to places like Martha’s Vineyard and Washington, DC as political stunts to score publicity points while in fact making virtually no difference in coping with migrant flows.
Will these stunts continue in the new year? They may, but there is also the possibility that they’ll die down. With Trump the Republican nominee there’s no reason to seek the kind of publicity that the migrant flights and buses brought to the two men, who were competing for the nomination. Also, with Trump and Republicans wooing Hispanic voters, these kinds of expensive antics may be counterproductive.
Rational analysts of all persuasions have long agreed that what is needed is comprehensive immigration reform. Major bipartisan attempts were made in Congress in 2007 and 2014, both of which were stymied by recalcitrant anti-immigration politicians.
Republicans in the House passed a Secure the Border Act last year, one of their only legislative successes. The bill was a partisan codification of Trumpist border measures and went nowhere in the Senate.
There is virtually no prospect for any real progress being made on immigration or border security in 2024. Congressional Republicans are following an entirely Trumpist playbook, while Trump is advocating a Hitlerian approach to immigration. Whatever solutions Biden proposes or measures he takes will be attacked by Republicans, whose real interest is in maintaining the status quo so that they can keep using the issue to flay the administration.
Another potential reason for Trump to exploit the border situation has been floated by Joyce Vance, an attorney who served as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Alabama during the Obama administration. After examining Trump’s social media postings, Vance concluded: “Trump is preparing to claim the 2024 election was stolen from him when he loses” and will blame the loss on voting by undocumented migrants allegedly allowed into the country by the Biden administration and the Democratic Party.
While there’s no way to know in advance if this will happen, and new immigrants won’t be eligible to vote in this election, it would certainly be in keeping with Trump’s modus operandi of lying and discrediting realities he doesn’t like.
So the prospects for the year ahead are for Trump’s rhetoric on immigrants to keep getting uglier, Republican exploitation of the situation to increase and get more apocalyptic, numbers of migrants and their suffering at the border to keep growing, strains on border security mechanisms to keep expanding and the rewards of finding practical consensus solutions to stay elusive. It’s not a formula for success and until there’s comprehensive immigration reform it’s a situation that will not be solved any time soon.
Meanwhile, in Florida specifically, DeSantis’ anti-immigrant rhetoric from the campaign and the anti-immigrant measures that the legislature passed in the last session will continue to dry up the state’s workforce, cripple its businesses and hurt its economy, resulting in higher prices and lower productivity.
Any kind of rational progress on these issues will have to wait until 2025. If Democrats take both the House and Senate, there may be the start of bipartisan work toward a sensible solution as there was in 2007 and 2014.
And yet, there’s hope
In his 1940 “Arsenal of Democracy” talk, Roosevelt said that he had received many telegrams (anyone remember those?) suggesting what he should discuss on the radio.
He singled out one in particular: “The gist of that telegram was: ‘Please, Mr. President, don’t frighten us by telling us the facts.’” Roosevelt decided to ignore that plea. “Frankly and definitely there is danger ahead — danger against which we must prepare,” he said. “But we well know that we cannot escape danger, or the fear of danger, by crawling into bed and pulling the covers over our heads.”
It is startling to read the text of that speech now. The challenges of that time were so similar to those of today.
And the solutions that Roosevelt proposed then apply today as well.
“We have no excuse for defeatism,” he said. “We have every good reason for hope—hope for peace, yes, and hope for the defense of our civilization and for the building of a better civilization in the future. I have the profound conviction that the American people are now determined to put forth a mightier effort than they have ever yet made to increase our production of all the implements of defense, to meet the threat to our democratic faith.”
Eighty-four years ago, Americans heeded that call. They backed Britain, put forth the effort, and when war came to them, they won it.
They can do it again.
Despite all the dangers and threats enumerated above—and in particular the domestic danger of a Trump dictatorship—there is another way that events can all play out this year.
In this scenario Americans rally, they become active, they understand what’s at stake and they decide to commit to defending democracy at home and abroad. Their efforts pay off: Trump and Trumpism are crushed decisively in every state and so overwhelmingly that his inevitable lies about a stolen election and accusations of fraud are seen for the desperate delusions they are; the law is upheld; the guilty are punished; Ukraine is supported; Putin is defeated; terrorism stopped; and America returns to civility and constitutionalism.
This is a real, possible outcome.
But, of course, it’s an outcome that people have to want and work to achieve.
The year lies before us. Roosevelt said it so well in closing his speech: “As President of the United States, I call for that national effort. I call for it in the name of this nation which we love and honor and which we are privileged and proud to serve. I call upon our people with absolute confidence that our common cause will greatly succeed.”
The American people did it then and they can do it now.
There can be calm after a storm. (Photo: Author)
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Coming next, Part III – A democracy, if you can keep it: Collier County, Fla., and the war on competence
There are inflection points in human history, monumental years when everything changes.
This is such a year—and everyone can see it coming.
This is a year when the fundamentals of the future will be determined both at the ballot box and on the battlefield. Even little old Collier County, Florida, having marked a century of existence, will be fundamentally shaped for its next century.
It will be an interesting year but not a fun one. Indeed, it will be dangerous, stressful and frightening.
There’s no avoiding that reality. The stakes are immensely high, the main players are desperate and popular passions in America are at a pitch unseen probably since the 1860s. Abroad, the outcome of wars now underway will shape the international order and new wars may break out. At home, Americans will decide whether they will be governed under democracy or dictatorship—if their election even goes off as planned.
It’s an immense, almost overwhelming canvas. It will take three articles to cover it.
On Sept. 18, 1787 when he was leaving the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked whether America was to be a monarchy or a republic. He famously replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
A “republic” simply meant that America wouldn’t have a monarch. The word “monarch” consists of the Greek words “monos”—“one”—and “archy”—meaning “power” or “authority.” America would not be governed by a single individual wielding all power.
Since Franklin’s time the American republic has become progressively more democratic.
This year will determine whether America will stay a democracy—if Americans choose to keep it.
That’s what the articles that follow will examine and try to analyze for the coming year: what is likely to happen and how best to respond to it?
Let’s start at home.
Democracy or dictatorship
There’s simply no other way to say it: the outcome of the 2024 presidential election will determine whether America stays a democracy or becomes a dictatorship.
Former President Donald Trump has made no secret of his authoritarian intentions. If elected he aims to demolish every institution restraining him (like the Constitution) and exact vengeance on every person who opposes him, now or in the past. He has called them all “vermin.”
Even when Fox News host Sean Hannity tried to give him an opportunity to deny the charges of authoritarianism, Trump didn’t take it.
Sean Hannity asks Donald Trump if he would be a dictator if elected, at a town hall in Iowa on Dec. 5, 2023. (Image: Fox News)
At a Fox News televised town hall meeting in Iowa on Dec. 5, Hannity tried to shoot down the alarms about Trump’s intentions: “You are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?”
“Except for day one,” Trump answered. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
Hannity looked nonplussed, which made Trump laugh. “I love this guy,” Trump said to the crowd. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no. Other than day one.’ We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”
Without a doubt, if elected, Trump will make himself dictator—starting day one and every day afterward. The dictatorship will be driven not only by his own thirst for vengeance, retribution and desire for total control but also by the people he will unleash and encourage. He and his cultists at both the high and low ends of the political hierarchy are determined to impose their will on the American people and the world regardless of the consent of the governed.
Also fueling Trump’s determination is the fact that unless he goes to the White House he will otherwise go to jail due to all the criminal charges and accusations against him.
On Dec. 19 the Colorado Supreme Court issued a historic ruling that Trump was ineligible for the state’s Republican primary ballot because he had engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. As to be expected, the ruling is being appealed to the US Supreme Court. On Thursday, Dec. 28, Maine’s secretary of state also ruled that Trump is ineligible for the primary ballot there. That decision will also be appealed.
Throughout the year expect court rulings to drop like bombs, with Supreme Court rulings making the biggest explosions of all.
Meanwhile, Republicans around the country are trying to find ways to ensure that Trump gets the nomination when the party convention convenes on July 15 in Milwaukee, Wisc.
Regardless of how the Colorado, Maine and other rulings play out, Trump has maneuvered himself into a position of either winning everything or losing everything. There is no middle ground. If he wins he becomes dictator, he pardons everyone who committed a crime on his behalf, and he attains absolute, unrestricted power. If he loses, he forfeits his life, his fortune and his own freedom.
This situation makes Trump—and his cultists—very desperate and very dangerous.
On Jan. 6, 2021 Americans saw that Trump and his co-conspirators were willing to break every norm and law and destroy the Constitution to stay in power. The people around him were arguing for a military coup to seize voting machines, cancel the election results and name false electors. Trump himself incited an insurrection to overthrow the government and even murder the vice president to stay in power.
In 2024 there is a real possibility that Trump and his followers will use violence and foment civil war or civil disturbance to get their way. If he faces incarceration or they see a loss looming at the polls some people may even try to prevent the election from taking place at all.
Movie madness
The Lincoln Memorial takes a direct hit in the movie “Civil War.” (Image: A24)
It’s not often that a piece of entertainment factors into a political analysis but a movie titled Civil War is scheduled to be released on April 26. Its premise is simple: civil war breaks out and secessionist forces from the “Florida Alliance” and the western United States attack the government. The White House is invaded and the president dragged from behind the Resolute desk. A group of journalists travel across the country amidst the chaos and strife, witnessing the carnage
The movie stars Kirsten Dunst as protagonist and Nick Offerman as a thinly-disguised President Joe Biden. It was conceived, written and directed by Alex Garland, whose previous credits include the obscure, box office flop Men.
Intended to be controversial, the movie has already succeeded. Right-wing conspiracy theorists are viewing it as an attempt to discredit the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. With only the trailer to judge it, on the contrary it appears to be a MAGA fantasy of power and domination. Its tagline is: “Every empire falls.”
Whether pro or anti insurrection—or even anti-American—the most dangerous thing about this movie is that it will encourage those thinking of civil war and political violence to actually take up arms and make this fiction real. People living in deep red, heavily MAGA, gun-saturated places—like Southwest Florida—where there has already been talk of armed revolution, know that the line between fantasy and reality in this matter is already very thin.
Naples farmer and grocer Alfie Oakes takes aim in an Aug. 8, 2021 Facebook post stating, “I pray we have election integrity in 2022…. if we don’t we must prepare for the worst! Our second amendment right is specifically to revolt against a a tyrannical government! Prepare for the worst and pray for the best.” (Photo: Facebook)
The closest similar event in the past was the release of director DW Griffith’s epic movie Birth of a Nation in 1915. That movie inspired revival of the Ku Klux Klan and led to a wave of racism and violence that saw such events as the 1920 Ocoee race massacre in Florida, the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma and even the 1924 Fort Myers lynchings. Incredibly, Griffith denied that he had any racist intentions even as he directed the most viciously racist propaganda film in American history.
Similarly, the producers, director and stars of Civil War the movie will no doubt wash their hands and deny any responsibility for the consequences of what they unleash. In the volatile, combustible atmosphere of the 2024 election, releasing a movie like this is an act of incredible irresponsibility and foolishness.
If violence breaks out, if people are wounded or killed because of this movie, the creators and stars should be held liable. And the creators and stars should take note of something else as well: if this government is lost, if the Constitution is suspended or abrogated, in the resulting dictatorship they will never again have the unrestricted freedom to make the movies they want without interference.
At the ballot box
In the more conventional political process, the Iowa caucuses take place on Jan. 15 and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23. All polls as of this writing indicate that Trump will sweep those and all other Republican nominating contests—or at least the ones in which he’s a candidate.
In late November Republican strategist Karl Rove predicted that the Iowa caucuses would be “do or die” for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). As of this writing, that is likely to fall on the “die” side of the equation. And Trump is apparently determined that once down DeSantis will never get up again. If Trump wins and becomes dictator DeSantis might be the first political opponent he imprisons.
Indeed, the entire Republican nominating campaign will likely be over after New Hampshire.
Trump clearly has a lock on his cult in the Republican Party. But whether that fanatical loyalty can be extended to the entire American electorate will be one of the great questions of 2024.
For Democrats the task is simpler but at the same time difficult: stay united and bring independents, the uncommitted and disillusioned Republicans into their fold for a majority coalition. The Republicans will be throwing everything they can at Biden, like a baseless impeachment proceeding that is unlikely to go anywhere, and attacking him through his son, Hunter. They will be doing all they can to divide, distract and disrupt the Democratic coalition.
However, Biden is a very experienced and canny politician, as he has proven many times, especially when he won his party’s nomination and the general election in 2020.
Biden would also likely crush Trump in any one-to-one debate. Trump avoided all debates with his Republican rivals during the primary campaign. Given the partisan nature of that phase of the campaign he could get away with it. He will likely refuse debate with Biden in the year to come, saying it’s unnecessary. The big question during the general election phase will be whether he pays a penalty for that kind of cowardice. The Presidential Debate Commission and the broadcast networks could schedule debates and hold them with an empty chair if Trump refuses to attend, penalizing Trump and giving Biden complete domination of the national stage. But will the networks and the Commission have the nerve to do it?
Also working in the Democrats’ favor is the mobilization of pro-choice forces, chiefly but not exclusively women, alarmed and infuriated by the Supreme Court’s revocation of the national right to abortion. Combined with younger voters’ concern over climate change and Trump and the Republicans’ hatred toward immigrants, ethnic and minority voters and everyone else outside their tight and exclusive base, the Democrats would seem to have a winning formula.
The possibility of one—or even both—of the candidates dropping out or dropping dead must be considered. Biden is 81 years old. Trump is 77. Both are beyond the average life expectancy for American men (which is 73.5 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Both men’s doctors give them clean bills of health but of the two the grossly obese Trump seems in the worse physical shape and he increasingly appears to have cognitive issues.
If either man falls the entire political calculation will fundamentally change. Sensible planning would assume that there’s a Plan B in both camps to cope with the contingency, although Republican leadership struggles in the House of Representatives do not inspire confidence on that side of the aisle.
In terms of presidential succession, Vice President Kamala Harris would be next in line to be president. House Speaker Rep. Michael Johnson (R-4-La.) would follow her.
Congress and choice
As in all election years the entire House of Representatives and one third of the Senate are up for election.
In Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), 71, is running again despite a string of failures. He’s up against Democratic former-Rep. Debbie (her birth name) Mucarsel-Powell, 52. Scott is vulnerable but he has always spent his way into office and he can be expected to try the same again. Mucarsel-Powell has a chance but must raise the cash for a competitive race.
Since the election of 2016, both Democrats and Republicans have hoped for—and expected— “waves” that would sweep away their opponents and give them full dominance of Congress. When the votes were counted, no waves occurred.
Instead, current polling shows a closely divided electorate that is likely to be reflected in the next Congress, both House and Senate.
The results of aggregated generic congressional polling from ABC/FiveThirtyEight.com as of Dec. 23, 2023. (Chart: 538)
Nonetheless, results of the off-year 2023 elections and the mid-term 2022 elections were encouraging for Democrats. An expected “red wave” did not materialize in 2022. In 2023, Democrats showed surprisingly strong results in local contests in Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia.
All these elections also demonstrated the importance of the abortion issue at the ballot box. Anti-choicers may have gotten their way thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, but every time choice has been on the ballot voters have overwhelmingly approved it, including in conservative states like Kansas.
Will this intense pro-choice sentiment translate into Democratic congressional victories? That will be one of the key questions to be answered in 2024.
But since the legal abortions were thrown to the states by Dobbs, there are abortion legalization measures on the ballots or being considered across the country in 12 states.
In Florida, as of Dec. 19, pro-choicers stated they had collected 1.4 million signatures to put a pro-choice amendment on the ballot, more than the 891,523 signatures required that must be submitted by Feb. 1. The amendment would make abortion legal for 24 weeks of a pregnancy, in contrast to the current 15 week limit.
Ashley Moody, the Florida attorney general, has been fighting the initiative in court, trying to keep it off the ballot, arguing that it’s too vague.
In Florida questions that loom for 2024 are: will pro-choicers get their amendment on the ballot? Can the DeSantis administration suppress it through the courts? Will Florida officials invalidate the signatures? And if it is on the ballot, will it receive the 60 percent approval from voters to pass?
Around the country, as in Florida, anti-choice activists, legislators and state officials are looking to discredit or discard pro-choice efforts in courts or state houses in order to restrict or keep abortions banned.
Access to safe, legal abortions is an immensely important and personal issue that certainly won’t go away no matter the vote counts in November. It could tip the political scale if elections proceed as scheduled.
Hope and promise
For all the threats and dangers of the year ahead, for all the sickness and psychosis that Donald Trump will continue to unleash on the American public and the world, there are still great sources of strength for Americans who believe in the Constitution and democracy.
Most Americans don’t seem to realize yet that this is not a “normal” election; that everything is on the line and that choices are too important to be made casually. However, the realization is growing. As the magnitude of the stakes become apparent, as people start to understand exactly what losing democracy will entail and as presidential campaigning gets under way in earnest, people who are now indifferent or apathetic will hopefully be inspired to activism on behalf of law, justice and democracy.
There is also the fact that anti-Trumpers in fact outnumber Trumpers by quite a bit and all indications are that this continues to be the case.
Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by over 2 million votes. He definitively lost both the popular and electoral votes in 2020. It just may be that the prospect of a Trump dictatorship—or any other dictatorship—will prove so repugnant to the majority of the American people in 2024 that they reject it and hopefully do so completely, decisively and overwhelmingly.
Those who favor democracy have another powerful weapon in their arsenal—legitimacy.
It may not seem like much, but over time and undergirding their efforts is the fact that they have right on their side and that is a quiet but persuasive force.
The fact is that America is a democracy and democracy is its legal and legitimate form of government. Those supporting democracy are supporting the rule of law, the Constitution and the principles of equality and justice on which the country was founded.
No matter how seductive the prospect of revenge, retribution, hatred, prejudice or rage, no matter how overwhelming the cascade of authoritarian propaganda, no matter how much they project their own intentions onto their enemies and no matter how loud and threatening the cult of personality worshipers may be, the fact is that those supporting democracy are in the right and their opponents are in the wrong. That can be a compelling inspiration for strength and activism. Legitimacy by itself, though, is not enough. It must be acted upon.
As Florida pundit and political analyst Rick Wilson has put it: “The miracles in politics are the ones we make. They come from work, planning, preparation, organization, and focus.”
In 2024, all things being equal, Americans can surge their activism and determination to preserve democracy. It has to take every form of political involvement and courage.
But America does not exist in a vacuum and 2024 will be as momentous abroad as it is domestically. Each will impact the other. And that requires a completely separate examination.
Sometimes there can be calm after a storm. (Photo: Author)
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Coming next:Part II – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead abroad
Coming: Part III – A democracy, if you can keep it: Collier County, Florida, 2024 and the war on competence
What could be more Southwest Floridian than looking to the future through a crystal ball on the beach?
Dec. 28, 2023 by David Silverberg
We’re coming up on the end of the year, that time when media outlets from newspapers to television stations wind down, go to skeleton crews and put up pastiches of the last year’s photos and clips. It’s easy, undemanding, fills space and air time and gets everyone through the New Year without too much effort.
The temptation to do the same is strong at The Paradise Progressive (TPP). However, its philosophy has always been to look ahead and try to discern the shape of the year to come.
Former President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and sitting President Joe Biden: “This is the political story likely to dominate the year,” predicted TPP and it was correct—up to a point.
The rivalry between Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis was clearly the major political story as the year dawned. But unforeseen was the decline in DeSantis’ standing among potential primary Republican voters and Trump’s resilient popularity despite indictments and criminal charges.
Fate’s cruelest blow to DeSantis was that fact that without a single actual vote cast or a caucus called his campaign relentlessly declined in polls from the day he formally declared his candidacy in April. Once the favorite Republican non-Trump hope, he was steadily eclipsed by his rivals and abandoned by staffers, consultants and most importantly, donors. Trump’s relentless insults and belittlement had its desired effect. Outside of Florida, DeSantis proved inept, awkward and unpopular. What played in The Villages in 2022 did not carry over well to the Republican primary states.
This may be a harbinger for the nation as a whole. It’s an early sign that America does not want to be Florida, no matter what DeSantis says.
The formal campaign season will start with the Iowa caucus on Jan. 15 and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23 and it’s not looking good for Florida’s governor.
At the dawn of the year it wasn’t clear that Joe Biden would declare himself a candidate again. Once he did in April, all the speculation about a successor or a Democratic scramble died down.
So on the campaign front, TPP gives itself an A- for prediction. But this was a bit of a gimme. That there would be rivalries and a nomination contest was indisputable. However, the rapid decline of Ron DeSantis was unforeseen.
Congress and revenge
When it came to Congress, TPP did much better.
Had Republicans resoundingly taken the House of Representatives in the much-anticipated “red wave” of 2022, TPP predicted: “They very well might have impeached President Joe Biden for the high crime of being a Democrat. They would have tried to undo or cover up the felonies of the insurrection and would have done all they could to exonerate, excuse and elevate Trump.”
The prediction continued: “Republicans are still likely to try those things. Expect a cascade of House investigations in an effort to weaken and undermine the administration and Biden’s re-election. It will be a replay of Benghazi and Hillary Clinton’s e-mails on steroids.”
Well, TPP gives itself an A+ on that one. It took them a year but House Republicans are indeed proceeding with an impeachment attempt, despite the lack of a crime, evidence or prospects of success. Biden’s only real transgression? That he is a Democrat and Trump wants it done.
When it comes to trying to “cover up the felonies of the insurrection” the prediction literally came true (extra bonus points!).
On Nov. 17, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-4-La.) stated he would release over 40,000 hours of Jan. 6, 2021 video.
But then, on Dec. 5, he said at a press conference: “We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the [Department of Justice] and to have other concerns and problems.”
He wants to cover up the faces so that rioters won’t face prosecution?! That is literally a coverup!
TPP’s satisfaction with the accuracy of its prediction is only dampened by the fact that the Speaker of the House is attempting to shield crimes against the branch of government over which he presides. Moreover, he’s doing this with no apparent hint of irony or inconsistency or self-awareness.
Another prediction, that “…when it comes to substantive legislation, Democrats kept the Senate, meaning that no matter how extreme the proposals coming out of the House, none are likely to make it into law,” proved to be true. But that was another gimme.
TPP made much of “the Harmful Algal Bloom Essential Forecasting Act, which would ensure that federal activities monitoring and responding to harmful algal blooms like red tide will continue despite any shutdowns” and would be of real benefit to Southwest Florida.
However, as predicted, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) did nothing to advance this legislation in the same way he has never done anything to advance any legislation he sponsored. Donalds’ disinterest in this, other legislation and his district was so obvious that this accurate prediction doesn’t even rate a point.
DeSantis and the race to the right
While TPP saw no reason to expect DeSantis to let up on his culture war on abortion, science, education, vaccines, immigrants, gays and public health, in fact TPP was proven somewhat wrong. As his Trumpish, anti-woke presidential candidacy campaign failed outside Florida, DeSantis began moderating his stances, especially on abortion.
As of right now, that softening looks too little, too late. It is, however, surprising. TPP didn’t see it coming and lowers its grade on this to a C.
However, the jury is still out on the Collier County school district. “The Collier County school system, which was previously rated the gold standard for the state, is now likely to crater as dogma, discipline and docility take the place of education, enquiry and enlightenment as priorities for students,” it predicted.
Collier County schools maintained their A rating from the state in what seems to be momentum from the previous board headed by Jen Mitchell. Also, the appointment of Leslie Ricciardelli as superintendent, despite MAGA demands to the contrary, meant that the district’s previous high standards would be maintained, at least in the classroom.
However, thanks largely to Jerry Rutherford (1st District), the board became enmeshed in extraordinarily time-wasting ideological and religious controversies, especially over whether or not to have a religious invocation precede its meetings. (It ultimately decided not to do so.) This controversy was confined to the school board itself but other issues, especially religious issues, may not stay there in the coming year.
Storm damage
Following the brutal damage of 2022’s Hurricane Ian, TPP observed: “Voters and the local mainstream media have to keep watch and ask: who is helping Southwest Florida recover? Who is helping it get the resources it needs? Who is shirking?”
Local media certainly maintained coverage of the recovery, from restoration of the Sanibel lighthouse, to rebuilding the clock tower in Fort Myers Beach to the extravagantly covered completion and opening of the town’s new Margaritaville resort.
Less covered were government efforts.
Here, there was a very interesting development on the part of Donalds that merits special attention.
In 2021 Donalds didn’t bother to request appropriations for projects in his district (known as “earmarks”) despite the fact that the Democratic-dominated House of Representatives had created a process and procedure allowing each member to request 10 earmarks per district. TPP called Donalds out on this in a March 16, 2022 editorial: Rep. Byron Donalds has failed Southwest Florida and can’t be allowed to do it again.
Despite this, Donalds won his 2022 re-election campaign and apparently got the hint. In the fiscal years since, he has requested earmarks (which congressional Republicans, despite previous agonizing over whether or not to permit them, increased the number allowed each member to 15).
It must be said: TPP didn’t see that coming at all.
But what TPP and just about every other awake person on the planet can see coming is climate change, whose impact is already here.
“Will Florida and its politicians finally acknowledge this?” TPP asked. “Their sense of reality needs critical scrutiny in the year ahead.”
It is long past time that the reality of climate change is acknowledged as a fact, even in reality-resistant Southwest Florida. To their credit, at least local broadcast meteorologists finally started mentioning its effects in their reporting.
DeSantis also finally acknowledged it on the campaign trail in Iowa.
“DeSantis’ own stance has changed: During the first GOP presidential debate, he did not raise his hand when candidates were asked if human activities are warming the planet. But in the Dec. 9 interview with the Register, DeSantis said he does believe human activities are a factor in the changing climate,” observed reporter Katie Akin in the Des Moines Register.
As far as predictions for next year go, this is an easy one: climate change and its impact will continue in the coming year. Southwest Florida needs to prepare.
An end to 2023
Overall, as a prognostication, TPP’s look ahead didn’t come out too badly. It didn’t try to predict everything that happened but where it looked, its analysis proved reasonably prescient.
What wasn’t predicted were actions by individuals. For example, even Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-23-Calif.) probably couldn’t have predicted that he would have such a hard time getting elected Speaker of the House—and then that he would be ignominiously booted nine months later and resign from Congress altogether at the end of 2023.
Next year promises to be one of the most momentous, historic and potentially dangerous in world history. It requires an entirely different analysis.
As the New Testament noted, to look into the future is to see through a glass, darkly. Once face to face all things become clearer. But maybe, with enough concentration, we can discern at least the general shape of things to come—and prepare to meet them.
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Coming, starting Jan. 1:
Part I – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead in American politics
Part II – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead abroad
Part III – A democracy, if you can keep it: Collier County, Fla., 2024 and the war on competence
Then-candidate Donald Trump (center) takes the stage in what was then Germain Arena in Fort Myers, Fla., on Sept. 19, 2016. (Photo: Author)
Nov. 22, 2023 by David Silverberg
“How did we get here? Ten years ago Collier County wasn’t like this.”
That was one of the questions posed to Rev. Paul Raushenbush and a panel of community leaders on Nov. 9 at an event titled “Christian Nationalism 101: What is it? And Why Does it Matter?”
In a testament to the degree of alarm over current trends, a crowd of over 275 people packed the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Naples to hear Raushenbush and other speakers try to address those questions.
Though one of just three questions asked by the audience, the question of how Collier County arrived at its current situation was the most pertinent and perceptive of the evening.
It was especially poignant given that 2023 marks Collier County’s centennial year.
How, in ten years, did Collier County, Florida, go from an open, welcoming, relaxed place chiefly known for beautiful beaches, warm winters and a charming downtown, to a Petri dish of political and cultural extremism and intolerance?
Rev. Paul Raushenbush speaking at the Naples Unitarian Congregation (Image: Interfaith Alliance)
Raushenbush is an ordained Baptist minister and president and chief executive of the Interfaith Alliance, a national non-profit advocacy group committed to American religious freedom. While he was concerned with the rise of the political ideology of Christian nationalism nationally, a panel of local community leaders testified to their own local experiences of intolerance before the packed audience.
Rabbi Adam Miller of Temple Shalom in Naples recounted being berated for his views and Jewishness following a Collier County School Board meeting and expressed alarm at the rise of local anti-Semitism.
Rev. Barrion Staples, pastor of Service And Love Together Ministries in neighboring Lee County, saw a return to a time when history was twisted to serve Christian nationalist ends. He recounted past racial discrimination and compared current attempts to rewrite history to the “Slave Bible” of the pre-Civil War era, which excised all references to freedom or exodus from slavery.
Cori Craciun, executive director of Naples Pride, described how the town’s annual Pride festival was initially welcomed in Naples’ public spaces but after the COVID pandemic was increasingly restricted by local officials.
Kathy Curatolo, a former member of the Collier County Public Schools Board of Education, recounted that, “What has emerged to the dismay of many is the emergence of a one-sided ideology that is being infused into public education,” in Collier County.
Given all this and the question asked at the gathering, the time has come to take a look back at the causes for Collier County’s radical turn, answer the question of how this came about and to discern the direction ahead.
Looking over the past 10 years, six factors stand out as leading causes for Collier County’s extreme devolution.
1. The Trump factor
Any history of Collier County’s radical rightward movement has to begin with Donald Trump. His influence has been intense and pervasive and felt down to the very grassroots of this community.
Before Trump’s 2016 candidacy, life in Southwest Florida was relatively “normal.” Politics, was a peripheral and distant concern for most people. But this single individual unleashed a wave of what he himself once characterized as “hatred, prejudice and rage.”
As a candidate in 2016, as president and after his presidency, Trump made overt expressions of hatred, prejudice and rage acceptable in public discourse. He encouraged those sentiments in his followers. His personal example of rule-breaking, disdain, insults and violent rhetoric infected the crowds that heard him. His division of the world into absolutely loyal, unthinking cultists and “radical” opponents destroyed any middle ground for civil discourse or compromise between differing parties. Though a physical coward himself, he encouraged violence in his followers.
That this impacted Southwest Florida was very clear from the time of his candidacy.
Trump made two visits to Southwest Florida during his 2016 campaign. The region had been largely overlooked during previous presidential campaigns given its low population and its established Republican majorities. In a break with past practice for presidential candidates, Trump held two rallies in the area, one on Sept. 19, 2016 in what was then Germain Arena and then on Oct. 23 at the Collier County Fairgrounds.
The Southwest Floridians who stood four hours in the heat and threatening weather to get into Germain Arena that September were everyday friends and neighbors, some already Trump believers, some curious, some offended by Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” remark. As they stood in line they were largely quiet, patient, peaceful, and very respectful of the sheriff’s deputies and security officers. A single black man in the crowd was amicably welcomed. A lone protester was left alone and largely ignored. It was a crowd of the kind of people who would come to a neighbor’s aid, who volunteered for food drives and did good works for their churches and communities.
Southwest Floridians wait on line to enter Germain Arena to hear Donald Trump on Sept. 19, 2016. (Photo: Author)
That day Trump brought a message that was by then familiar to national audiences: distrust of immigrants, whom he compared to snakes; attacks on his opponent, Hillary Clinton; resentment toward perceived liberal elites and hatred of the federal government. He was rapturously received by his audience.
When the crowd left after a roughly hour-long harangue, his attitude, behavior and approach had inflamed his listeners. He had given them permission to express hatred, prejudice and rage toward “others,” and stoked feelings of anger, resentment and grievance against the world, with an implication that violence in expressing those feelings was acceptable.
Those feelings and attitudes intensified over the four years of the Trump presidency and culminated in the violent insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.
These kinds of attitudes and behaviors continue to this day and found particularly fertile soil in Collier County.
2. The federal factor
Southwest Florida and Collier County are about as far south from the seat of federal government as it is possible to get on the American mainland.
The federal government has very little presence in Southwest Florida. There are some national parks and preserves in the region, there’s the US Coast Guard protecting boaters but otherwise, there’s very little consciousness of the federal government’s existence. Social Security is a federal program that tens of thousands of Southwest Floridians rely upon but they seem to have little awareness of it as a federal presence.
This distance makes the federal government seem like a remote and alien presence. There is a strong belief among a minority of Collier Countians that the federal government is intrusive, tyrannical and invalid, an oppressive “commanding hand” as an ordinance put it, encroaching on citizen rights and privileges. They would like to get federal benefits (Social Security), aid (disaster assistance) and protection (law enforcement, Coast Guard) but without strings, obligations or responsibilities.
There was also fury among local Make America Great Again (MAGA) followers that Trump lost the 2020 federal election. Like him, they clung to his lie that the election had somehow been rigged or stolen and they regarded—and still regard—the presidency of Joe Biden as head of the national, federal government as illegitimate.
This sense of alienation and estrangement increased because of the third factor that led Collier County to its current situation.
3. The pandemic factor
From 2020 to 2022 the federal presence in Collier County suddenly became immediate and pressing as the United States—along with the rest of the world—attempted to cope with the outbreak of COVID-19. The extreme right minority of Southwest Floridians and in particular Collier Countians took umbrage at federal efforts to protect American citizens from a global scourge.
In this they were following the example of Donald Trump. When COVID struck, Trump did not react well. Initially, he dismissed it, said it would “disappear,” called it a “hoax” and minimized its dangers. When it couldn’t be wished away he advocated bogus treatments like hydroxychloroquine and injecting bleach. He discouraged mask-wearing and the recommended precautions from public health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci.
While a minority of Southwest Floridians aped Trump’s responses, they made up in noise what they lacked in numbers. There was ferocious opposition to mask-wearing and to vaccinations when vaccines became available. The kind of rule-breaking and defiance that Trump encouraged also encouraged resistance to public health measures.
Local politicians jumped on this bandwagon, encouraging further rejection of public health protections and defiance of local and federal law.
These factors ingrained a strain of alienation and disaffection in this population and led to a persistent perception that COVID was a sinister, globalist hoax.
Once the pandemic was largely over, their resentment took the form of trying to pass an ordinance that would prohibit future public health mandates of any kind, whether public or private.
A draft resolution for the county laid out the accusations: “federal and state health agencies have demonstrated a clear inability to be truthful, transparent and consistent in protecting the citizens of Collier County,” they “violated” county citizens’ rights “through discrimination based on vaccine status” and subjected county citizens “to death and injury with little recourse” and stopped doctors from speaking freely or treating patients as preferred (i.e., with hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin or other unproven and discredited remedies).
The experience of the COVID pandemic in Collier County further incentivized MAGA radicals to continue and accelerate their campaign against the federal government, against constitutional law and embrace the extreme fringes of political logic and practice.
4. MAGA mania
For the past 10 years—and long before that—Collier County’s population was predominantly Republican. Party registrations remained largely stable at 65 percent Republican and 35 percent Democratic.
The Republican coalition consisted primarily of residents whose roots went back to the beginning of settlement of the county around 1920 and relative newcomers, mostly from upper Midwestern states where Interstate Highway 75 originated at the Canadian border. Naples is the southernmost town before the highway turns east to Miami. It’s easy to drive down from Chicago or Detroit and just stop. While easterners settled Florida’s east coast, Midwesterners, many retirees, settled its west coast.
For the most part these people were mainstream Republicans from states like Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. They believed in limited government, restrained spending and a strong national defense. However, they never challenged or attacked the Constitution or the rule of law.
That changed with the onset of Trump in 2016 and his total domination of the Republican Party in the years that followed. In Collier County, as in the rest of the country, non-Trumpers were denigrated as Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) and kicked to the margins. Trumpers took over the county Party apparatus, pushing out or defeating longstanding Republican activists. The entire Party radicalized.
There was some resistance—sometimes lapsing into screaming matches and personal attacks during Party conclaves—but while non-Trumpers complained, they never organized or fought back as effectively as Trumpers. Ultimately, the county Republican Party really became the Trump Party. Personal loyalty to Trump became the yardstick of Republicanism rather than conservative ideas or positions.
This Trumpism has led the Party to keep pursuing extremes in its pronouncements and activities. Infused with Trump’s “hatred, prejudice and rage,” its most fanatical members have descended into anti-Semitism and promoted intolerance in all forms.
Before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, much of the MAGA energy was directed against abortion. After the Dobbs decision last year, that energy turned into a Christian nationalist religious crusade, with county MAGA officials on the Board of Commissioners and the School Board trying to impose religious dogma and stating overtly that there is no separation between church and state.
This kind of Christian nationalism leads to only one destination: the imposition of a state religion, which the Constitution’s founders explicitly sought to avoid. It will also lead to doctrinal conflict as different faiths try to impose their dogmas on public schools and the whole population. This is what happened for 200 years in Europe before the Enlightenment. In the New World, the American experiment began trying to leave that bloody legacy behind.
However, Collier County’s MAGAs appear determined to head down this Christian nationalist path, one that has the potential to pit Catholics against Protestants and different Protestant sects against each other. It has already manifested itself in the seemingly endless and inordinately time-consuming debate over whether to hold a religious invocation prior to the start of county School Board meetings.
At least the only thing being wasted in that controversy is time. History has shown that books and bodies come next.
5. The media factor
Collier County has an extremely weak media establishment when it comes to covering serious issues of governance, representation and elections and provides little to no counterweight to anti-democratic extremism.
The role of the press in a democracy is to provide a check on officialdom, examine official actions, point out wrongdoing or imbalances and provide the public with the information it needs to make rational, enlightened decisions. This was recognized by the Founders at the very beginning of American government. As the Virginia Declaration of Rights put it:“…the freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.” A free press was enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
In Collier County there is little to no fulfilment of that role by existing media outlets. Only one television station, NBC2, has a dedicated political reporter with that title. In fact, local news directors seem to go out of their way to avoid reporting on anything even remotely political. Otherwise, television coverage focuses on car collisions, canal crashes and potholes, mostly in neighboring Lee County where the stations are based.
But the media fails most spectacularly in Collier County’s own Naples Daily News (or the Naples Delayed News or the Typo Times, as this author prefers to characterize it).
The Naples Daily News is suffering from the same malaise infecting local newspapers across the country. Its revenue base is down as advertisers seek new and more effective media outlets. It has been sold several times and every sale diminished its capabilities and coverage. Its staff has repeatedly been reduced, its deadlines shortened and functions like graphic design and printing assigned to remote locations.
In the past, like most local newspapers, the Naples Daily News published original editorials every day, hosted op-eds from outside authors and featured letters to the editor. It pursued a scrupulously fair and non-partisan editorial policy. However, on June 1, 2022 the newspaper’s management announced that it was dropping the daily editorials, op-eds and letters in the print edition. Instead, it created a tombstone letters page buried in the back of the book that appeared on weekends and then, begrudgingly, on Wednesdays. Cancelation of daily editorials and letters deprived the community of a common forum outside of stovepiped social media platforms.
As a result of this and the general failure of the regional media, important political developments, especially at the margins, go uncovered, allowing extremists to operate in darkness. Also, voters remain uninformed about the actions of the officials governing them and those representing them to higher bodies like the state legislature and the US Congress.
An important source of information for voters is missing in Collier County. The county’s lurch toward unchallenged extremism is the result.
6. The activist factor
A history and analysis of Collier County’s political trends can’t overlook the role of key individuals in shaping its development.
Alfie Oakes at Patriot Fest, March 19, 2022 (Photo: Author)
Oakes is Collier County’s very own Trump, whom he strikingly resembles in a number of ways and whom he adores.
“I love our president and his family with every bit of my being! I love all that he has given for our country and all that he stands for!” Oakes posted on Facebook on Dec. 22, 2020 after speaking on the phone with Trump, who was fighting the results of the election. “May God bless our great President Donald Trump, his family, his team and all of the 75 million patriots that support him!”
Like Trump, Oakes is a businessman accustomed to risk-taking—and arguably more successful in his own realm than Trump. Also like Trump, he is known for his blunt outspokenness and broad-brush denigration of critics and opponents. He shares Trump’s affinity for extreme politics, insults and absolutism.
In the same way that Trump initially dismissed COVID as a hoax, so did Oakes who vehemently fought all forms of COVID precautions in his store, Seed to Table, and battled county officials who tried to protect public health through masking and distancing.
In an infamous June 2020 posting on Facebook, Oakes denounced the murdered George Floyd as a “disgraceful career criminal, thief, drug addict, drug dealer and ex-con who served 5 yrs in prison for armed robbery on a pregnant woman, and spent his last days passing around fake 20’s to store owners in Minnesota.” The post sparked outrage and protests throughout Southwest Florida.
During the run up to the Jan. 6 insurrection, Oakes sponsored two busloads of Trumpers to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally on the National Mall and flew up himself the day of the protest. Despite a video purporting to show him inciting rioters to attack the Capitol, Oakes vehemently denies that it was him and says he peacefully protested elsewhere. He blamed the riot on “the obvious six or eight paid actors (used in other events such as [Black Lives Matter] riots, hard to believe they would be that blatant and sloppy) … followed by a small group of aggressive Trump supporters caught up in the moment, these paid actors lead the charge.”
Just as Trump dominates the national Republican Party, so Oakes dominates the Collier County Republican Party where he was elected a state committeeman in 2020. Through his Citizens Awake Now Political Action Committee (CANPAC), he funded local MAGA candidates for county Board of Commissioners and the school board. They won and are now driving the county’s rightward direction. Although he has tempered his public pronouncements recently he still influences enough of a MAGA audience to determine the outcome of party primary elections, which are usually the deciding ones.
But also, like Trump, Oakes can be mercurial, inconstant, bullying and sometimes illogical. In September 2021 he was demanding a hand recount of the 2020 election in Florida, an election that all parties agreed Republicans had won. The effort got nowhere. He can also turn on former allies: when Kelly Lichter, chair of the Collier County School Board, whom Oakes had backed, had the temerity to vote for a school superintendent Oakes opposed, he called her a “traitor” and sued the school board.
In another similarity to Trump, Oakes has also endorsed clearly unqualified candidates for public office based just on their ideological purity and personal loyalty. “I don’t want to hear about what IQ someone has or what level of education someone has,” he said at PatriotFest, a gathering and rally that he sponsored in Naples on March 19, 2022. “I graduated from North Fort Myers High School—a bunch of rednecks. Common sense and some back is all we need right now.”
Given Oakes’ urging and the backing of CANPAC, these candidates won races for county Commission and School Board.
Oakes has been a significant figure driving Collier County in its current direction.
Keith Flaugh speaking before the Collier County Board of Commissioners in 2021. (Image: CCBC)
Another MAGA activist is Keith Flaugh, head of the Florida Citizens Alliance, a non-profit conservative organization founded in 2008 primarily to influence education. The organization argued that the liberal political trend of young voters was the result of indoctrination in their schools (which presumed that young voters couldn’t draw their own conclusions but had to have been somehow brainwashed).
Flaugh, 77, is originally from Montana where he received his Master of Business Administration degree from the state university, according to his LinkedIn page. After service in the US Army and a career in finance at IBM Corp., he retired to Marco Island.
According to his Facebook profile, (as posted) Flaugh “considers himself US Constitutionalist and is fed up with how our political system has been hijacked by both monopoly parties and the ubiquitous Federal Government. They have bankrupt us morally and financially to the brink of collapse. He is an organizer for Southwest Florida Citizens Alliance and the Florida Citizens Alliance, an Oath Keeper and an active supporter of SWFL 912, the Naples Tea Party, Save America Foundation, Fair Tax, Foundation for Economic Education, KrisAnne Hall’s Constitutional Ministry and Sheriff Mack’s County Sheriff Project.”
Flaugh is an active lobbyist for the causes he supports, frequently speaking at county Commission and School Board meetings. During the 2021 debate over Collier County’s anti-federal ordinance he demanded that commissioners pass the ordinance or resign. Flaugh and the Florida Citizens Alliance have also been active in opposing COVID vaccinations and in denying climate change, opposing measures to manage or prepare for its effects.
Oakes and Flaugh could not have shifted the county in the direction it has gone without the aid of numerous active supporters and followers.
However, their example illustrates the power of individuals and solo efforts in moving a community.
And that’s power that works both ways.
Commentary: Collier County, America and the next hundred years
No political turmoil or conflict is obvious to the visitors who come to Collier County and Naples during the winter season. The shopping malls light their Christmas trees and the season’s celebrations have begun. The stores are open, the beaches are warm and life is to be enjoyed.
However, for those who have chosen to live permanently in Collier County, who think about local affairs and especially for families with children in public school, the stakes are high.
Will Collier County’s next one hundred years be ones of hatred, prejudice and rage? Or will the next century be one of progress, promise and possibilities?
Collier County is not immune from the currents and storms afflicting the country as a whole. In large part these questions will be determined by the 2024 election.
The next year will without a doubt be one of the most significant in American history. The real, true bedrock issue that will be settled if the election comes off as planned is whether the United States will remain a democracy or become a dictatorship under Donald Trump.
There is no subterfuge about this. Trump’s plans are out in the open. If elected, he has stated that his regime will be one of revenge and retribution. He and his co-conspirators intend to destroy all checks and balances and impose an unlimited, unrestricted tyranny on the American people. All the abuses of one-man rule that the nation’s founders resisted and tried to prevent will come cascading forth.
If there’s a Trump tyranny in Washington there will be a similar tyranny in Collier County. Its enablers are already waiting in the wings.
What they don’t seem to realize is just what a dictatorship will mean; they show no appreciation or understanding of history’s lessons. A dictatorship imposes tyranny on everyone.
Last year American women learned what it means to lose a right when the Supreme Court took away their right to choose.
Under the dictatorship being contemplated by Trump, all Americans will lose all the rights they cherish: freedom of speech, thought, worship, assembly, petition, press, property—everything embodied in the Bill of Rights.
For example, under a dictatorship, if Donald Trump decided he wanted to seize and gift Seed to Table to Ivanka or Jared or Barron he’d simply be able to do it and no protest, process or court proceeding could stop him. In a dictatorship there’s no appeal, no reprieve, no redress. That’s what Russia’s oligarchs discovered when Russian President Vladimir Putin gave them similar ultimatums and then demanded half their wealth.
In a dictatorship, especially one based on a personality as sick and twisted as Trump’s, past loyalty is no guarantee of future favor. No matter how strenuous, how complete and how total a person’s subservience to the leader was in the past, any perceived slight or current whim of the dictator can mean punishment in the future.
A microcosmic example of the fragility of past loyalty came in Collier County this year when Oakes turned on Lichter for defying him on the appointment of Leslie Ricciardelli as school superintendent. Oakes had supported Lichter for election to the school board. But when she showed the slightest independence in basing her vote on what she regarded as the most qualified candidate rather than the one he demanded, he branded her a “traitor.” A traitor to what? What did she betray? Certainly not the students, teachers and parents of Collier County to whom she owed her real loyalty.
In a dictatorship any show of independent thought or commitment to a good greater than the dictator is cause for punishment.
That’s the way Trump governed as president—and it will be orders of magnitude worse if he’s re-elected.
Ironically, it’s the example of local MAGA activists that should inspire defenders of democracy to greater action.
Collier County’s MAGAs have shown that individual actions matter; that no act is too small or insignificant to make a difference. For those on the side of democracy, every envelope, or phone call made, or donation can help defend democracy in Collier County and the nation. Activism is the answer and that activism is needed like never before. The most impactful acts of all, of course, are voting, helping others to vote as well and protecting free, fair and accurately counted elections.
Like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings causing a hurricane, every action by every friend of freedom can generate a blue wave that can grow into a tsunami.
Right now Christian nationalism, MAGAism, Trumpism, racism, anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia and a host of other biases and bigotries and the willingness to act on them, potentially violently, are inspiring the kind of fear and concern expressed at the Interfaith Alliance gathering.
But while hatred, prejudice and rage can’t be banished, they can be contained and ultimately defeated. It takes everyone’s courage, commitment and consistency to do it but it’s worth the effort—in Collier County, in America and in the world.
And the willingness of people to take action is a reason to truly be thankful, in this season—and always.
“Freedom from want.” (Painting: Norman Rockwell, 1943)
It wasn’t a tsunami but the wave of election victories for Democrats and abortion rights supporters that occurred last night, Tuesday, Nov. 7, certainly hit Florida’s shore with more force than the usual off-year ripple.
The two biggest implications: first, Trumpist, Make America Great Again (MAGA) extremism is not a winning approach in the rest of the country and may not fly in Florida in 2024. Secondly, abortion is a YUUUGGGGE issue and may just rock the Sunshine State next November as well.
Until now Republican primary candidates, presidential and otherwise, have been playing to the extreme Trumpist wing of the Party. But after last night, Republican candidates—in Florida and elsewhere—should be wondering if they’ll be able to shake the Etch-A-Sketch and make the full electorate forget the nastiness, brutishness and extremism they espoused to get their nominations.
A Democratic night
It was a great night for Democrats. In otherwise conservative Republican Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear (D) won re-election with 52 percent of the vote. In Virginia, Democrats took both the state House and Senate. In Ohio, abortion rights supporters won on Issue 1 with 57 percent of the vote.
In Mississippi a Republican governor did hang on. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) kept his seat with 52 percent of the vote.
Florida had no major elections but in a telling vote for Southwest Florida, two Democratically-endorsed candidates for Venice city council unseated incumbents.
Joan Farrell and Ron Smith were both elected to non-partisan seats.
In Punta Gorda, city council incumbent Mark Kuharski was defeated by Deborah Lux, who had the Republican Party endorsement.
Largely overshadowed by the gubernatorial and legislative races was the widespread repudiation of extreme Moms for Liberty (MFL) efforts to dominate local school boards. As reported by The Daily Beast website, MFL-endorsed candidates were defeated in school board races in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Iowa, Minnesota and North Carolina. Only in Alaska did a MFL-endorsed school board candidate succeed.
2024 implications
While these results need to be taken in their immediate context it’s almost impossible not to think through their implications for the 2024 presidential race and the wildly contentious Republican nominating process.
On a national level, it would seem that despite all the denigration and disparagement of President Joe Biden by Republican politicians, to the degree that he influenced local races at all, his performance and positions boosted rather than detracted from Democratic efforts.
A major Republican presidential primary debate will be taking place tonight in Miami and it will be interesting to see how the five candidates adjust their pitches in light of yesterday’s results.
Until now, the entire momentum among the Republican contenders has been to keep trending more extreme, more outlandish and more radical to appeal to ever-more rabid MAGAs. This may have hit a nadir when Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) promised in August to “start slitting throats on Day 1” of federal public servants if he became president. However, one never knows how much lower he and the others may go. There may be new depths to be plumbed.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump will, as is his habit, be skipping the debate to hold a rally and harangue in Hialeah.
(Actually, from a purely political perspective it’s not a foolish move: Hialeah is home to a large population of Venezuelan-Americans. It makes sense to speak there to continue his inroads into the Hispanic population and specifically pitch victims and refugees from Venezuelan oppression—although it’s at odds with his well-known hatred of asylum-seekers and immigrants, whom he equates with snakes. It will be interesting to see how—or if—Hialeahans reconcile the dissonance.)
More than defining the likely outcome of that election, last night’s results highlight the challenges to each party, its leaders and its adherents for the next 362 days until the 2024 election. Both sides have work to do.
Democrats have to maintain their momentum, build their base and get more of their partisans registered and to the polls. Biden has to guide the country through two wars, economic challenges, potential party fragmentation, coalition weakening and promote a sense of strong and capable personal leadership.
Republicans have to somehow sell the broad American public a likely Trump nomination regardless of his indictments and even convictions. They cannot abandon their clearly unpopular anti-abortion stance. The party’s fanatical MAGAism and policy positions are marginal and becoming even more extreme as time goes on. As evidenced by the chaos in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives, they have shown an inability to govern when in power. They will bear the burden of blame if they fail to keep the government open when current funding expires. They are isolationist in foreign policy except when it comes to Israel and would abandon Ukraine to Russian conquest. They host a significant faction that would demolish the wall of separation between church and state.
All that is a tough sell. As last night’s results show, so far the American public isn’t buying it.
At this point in time it’s almost impossible to calculate how it will all play out in Southwest Florida. As deeply conservative and Trumpist as the region is, as far as it is from the federal government and national considerations, traditional Republicans and non-party affiliated voters, whether of recent arrival or longtime residency, seem increasingly disillusioned with the MAGA program, as evidenced in the Venice election results.
The biggest, baddest issue hasn’t even come into play yet: whether the United States will remain a democracy. Without a doubt, a second Trump presidency will mean a dictatorship that dissolves all checks and balances, allows one very unstable individual virtually unlimited power and potentially imposes a theocratic totalitarianism on a constitutional, secular nation.
Although Biden has long stated that he’s in a fight to save the soul of America, to date the issues and stakes haven’t been framed in clear and stark terms of freedom versus oppression. When they are—and they will—it could tip the electoral balance.
One truism that last night’s elections showed clearly: the only poll that matters is the one counted on election night.
The tragedy of Trump’s Complete and Total disrespect
Rep. Byron Donalds and former President Donald Trump in a 2020 Donalds campaign advertisement. (Photo:Campaign)
Oct. 30, 2023 by David Silverberg
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) built his brand as “everything the fake news media says doesn’t exist: a Trump supporting, liberty loving, pro-life, pro-2nd Amendment black man.”
That “Trump-supporting” clause is especially important. Time and again Donalds has reaffirmed his vocal, visceral, and vehement love, adoration and worship of former President Donald Trump.
But time and again, especially when Donalds most needed it, Trump has responded with absence, indifference or disinterest.
That was never more apparent than in the most recent battle for Speaker of the House. After initially saying he was going to stay out of the Republican congressional fight, Trump weighed in mightily on behalf of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-4-Ohio) but other members of the caucus resisted. When Republicans next picked Rep. Tom Emmer (R-6-Minn.), Trump felt Emmer was insufficiently worshipful and intervened to defeat him.
Ultimately, all the Republicans coalesced around Rep. Michael Johnson (R-4-La.) and voted him as Speaker, last Wednesday, Oct. 25.
In all of this drama, what Trump never did was endorse or support Donalds who was in the race, then out of the race, then in the race again, then defeated and out for good.
This is nothing new. Trump’s slights and oversights of Donalds have been well documented in these pages over the years. The big question is: why?
Endorsements and their impact
All endorsements in political races are important. An endorsement both sways votes but it also conveys a seal of approval and allegiance. Their timing is also important; an endorsement at a critical moment can make all the difference in a close race.
Trump has made endorsements something of an art form. In the past his endorsement clearly carried enormous weight among a fanatically devoted following who would obey his wishes.
Perhaps the most famous Trump endorsement was of then-Rep. Ronald DeSantis for governor of Florida in 2018. The two men have differing versions of how it came about: DeSantis recalls that he merely asked Trump for his endorsement; Trump says that DeSantis came with tears in his eyes begging Trump to save a failing primary campaign.
However it came about, there is no doubt that the Trump endorsement made an enormous difference in the primary contest, enabling DeSantis to win. In the general election it helped DeSantis barely edge out Democrat Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee.
When he endorsed DeSantis, Trump reached down to involve himself in a Republican primary. That was territory where presidents traditionally didn’t go. In the past, party leaders would let primary contests play out at the local level and then endorse the party’s nominee.
But Trump was ready, willing and able to reach way down the ballot with his endorsements in primary and party races. His criterion was based on the candidate’s personal loyalty to him rather than the party or any abstract idea or policy.
In 2020 Trump intervened in other intra-party contests in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Indiana. He even reached way down the chain of command to oust the Republican Party chairman of Ohio for opposing him. No office was too low or obscure to escape his intervention.
In general, during his time in office Trump had a seemingly uncanny ability to elevate candidates and get them elected when he gave them “my complete and total endorsement.”
That’s exactly what Byron Donalds needed in 2020.
The 2020 race
Then-state Rep. Byron Donalds (center) addresses a Trump rally at the Collier County Fairgrounds, Oct. 23,, 2016. (Image: CSPAN)
The 19th Congressional District of Southwest Florida had a particularly tumultuous contest in 2020. After two terms in Congress, Rep. Francis Rooney announced that he would not be running again, this after stating he was open to reviewing Trump impeachment evidence, a high crime and misdemeanor in Republican circles.
Sensing an easy win, at one point a dozen Republican candidates jumped into the primary fight for nomination in the district.
Byron Donalds was just one of these. He had the advantage of already representing the 80th District of the Florida House, a rural district that included the farming, mostly immigrant town of Immokalee.
Donalds had switched from Democrat to Republican after marrying his current wife, Erika, in 2003. After initially dismissing Trump as a “self-promoter” in 2011, before Trump became professionally involved in politics, in 2016 he threw himself into the Trump election effort. He addressed a Trump rally at the Collier County fairgrounds with his own ringing endorsement.
Eventually, the 2020 congressional primary race stabilized at nine candidates, of whom the leaders were state Rep. Dane Eagle and businessman Casey Askar. All vied to out-Trump each other, highlighting their loyalty, extremism and cultic enthusiasm in an effort to win the Make America Great Again (MAGA) voters who would determine the primary winner.
At any point, a Trump endorsement would have determined the outcome.
But for all his intervention in Republican primaries around the country, Trump chose not to get involved in this one. There was an element of caution in Trump’s endorsements by that time. He didn’t want to break his winning streak, so by 2020 he increasingly bet on surer candidates, particularly those who were incumbents or who had no opposition.
Donalds didn’t fall into that category. For a long time Eagle seemed the most likely anointee. Ultimately, there was no Trump endorsement. Donalds barely eked out a victory on his own, with Collier County providing the winning margin.
It was the first time he could have really used a Trump bump but he didn’t get it.
However, once he won the primary Donalds was endorsed by Trump in a Sept. 10 tweet. Trump wrote that he “will be a phenomenal Congressman for the people of Florida!” and “Byron is a Rising Star! He has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” (Capitalization, of course, his.).
Once Donalds was confirmed as the nominee, Trump had a chance to endorse Donalds in person when he came to Fort Myers on Oct. 16, 2020. All the Republican grandees were present.
However, Donalds tested positive for COVID-19 before the event and had to stay away.
Once on stage Trump did shout-outs to DeSantis, whom he compared to Elvis (and praised the thickness of his shoulder muscles), and Reps. Gus Bilirakis (R-12-Fla.) and Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.). Fort Myers Mayor Randy Henderson (who had run for the congressional seat) and Cape Coral Mayor Joe Coviello (R) received praise.
But there was no mention of Donalds.
This was particularly noteworthy given that it was a chance for Trump to promote a prospective Republican member of Congress who would be implementing the Trump agenda in a second term. Of all the people to mention, it was the Republican candidate in the midst of an election race who should have been spotlighted.
But once infected he was rejected. It was as though Donalds had vanished from the MAGAverse.
Donalds won his race anyway. Trump lost his.
The leadership races
Rep.-elect Byron Donalds signs the pledge to overturn the 2020 election. (Photo: Office of Byron Donalds)
Like a good Trumper Donalds voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election. On Jan. 6, 2021 he even attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on the National Mall. He then signed a statement objecting to the election certification and voted against it. Although he later denounced the rioters as “thugs,” he never criticized Trump for inciting the violence.
After the insurrection he faithfully upheld the Big Lie that Trump had won. He put out reams of social media postings and did right-wing media interviews upholding Trumpist orthodoxy.
After Trump’s defeat, Donalds was present when Trump flew into Naples for fundraisers. The first time, on Dec. 3, 2021, Trump stealthily flew into town in the night and held his event at a Naples Airport hangar before departing equally secretively.
The second time, Dec. 4, 2022, occurred with more advanced notice but still at a secret location in Naples. It was more public in its purpose: to support “school choice” and benefit Hurricane Ian victims. Tickets started at $10,000 for individuals. The visit came a day after Trump had called for suspending the US Constitution.
In 2022 Donalds’ re-election run was far less perilous than his initial campaign. Trump endorsed him again, along with numerous other Republican incumbents. Donalds won both his primary and general election races with comfortable margins.
Leadership hopes
Now that he was in Congress for a second term, Donalds had ambitions to rise in the Republican congressional hierarchy.
His first opportunity came in November 2022 when he decided to challenge Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-21-NY) for chairmanship of the House Republican Conference, the third highest position in the caucus leadership. The Conference is the Party’s primary means of communicating its message among the Republican members.
Donalds put together a slick promotional video, titled “Championing Conservative Principles and Ushering In a New Republican Perspective to GOP House Leadership” that presented him as a rising star in the Republican Party. He was the Freedom Caucus candidate for the slot.
This was a time when a Trump endorsement would have made a big difference. But Trump ignored Donalds and endorsed Stefanik, whom he called one of the “greatest warriors” of the America First movement and a “rising star” in the Republican Party. She had joined the chorus of Trumpers condemning Republican members on the January 6 Committee investigating the riot and insurrection.
“Elise has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” Trump wrote. Sure enough, she won against Donalds with a resounding 144 to 44 victory on Nov. 15. Donalds may have been a dedicated Trumper but apparently not dedicated enough.
Trump may have had other things on his mind: the day of the Conference vote was also the day he announced his candidacy for the presidency again.
Donalds’ next opportunity to make a bid for the leadership came on Jan. 7, 2023.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-23-Calif.) became mired in a struggle to win the House Speakership.
In the midst of the contest Donalds was nominated for Speaker by fellow Freedom Caucus members Reps. Chip Roy (R-21-Texas) and then Lauren Boebert (R-3-Colo.). Donalds’ candidacy lasted eight rounds of balloting.
Once again, a Trump endorsement would have made a significant difference for Donalds. For a moment it appeared that Trump had endorsed Donalds—but Trump shot down the rumor as “Fake and Fraudulent.”
Trump endorsed McCarthy instead. In the end, Donalds withdrew and backed McCarthy as well.
Donalds’ endorsement
Trump was hardly the only one to making endorsements. In 2023 Donalds made a big endorsement of his own.
Given that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was planning to run for president, all Florida Republicans were facing a thorny dilemma and a dangerous choice between two vindictive, petty men who didn’t forget slights easily. Donalds had a foot in both camps, having extravagantly praised both politicians.
On Monday, March 20, when Trump announced that he was going to be arrested the next day, Donalds rushed to his defense and re-pledged his allegiance to the embattled former President.
On April 6, Donalds was the first Florida politician to endorse Trump over DeSantis, turning his back on the governor, with whom he had been close, at least in public.
In a lengthy statement Donalds argued that Trump would get the country “back on track, provide strength and resolve and make America great again.” The endorsement made headlines at a critical time in the Republican presidential nominating race.
So Donalds had prominently, publicly and extravagantly made clear his undying fealty and complete subservience to the now-indicted former president. Surely, that love and loyalty would be reciprocated.
Right?
The latest round
McCarthy reigned as Speaker for nine months before being overthrown on Oct. 3, inaugurating three weeks of turmoil and uncertainty. During the course of it, Donalds again made a bid for Speaker.
Initially Rep. Steve Scalise (R-1-La.) was the leading contender. But he abandoned his quest after about a day in the face of fanatical MAGA opposition.
Next up was Rep. Jim Jordan (R-4-Ohio), a loud, rude, disruptive Trumper in the true master’s style. Trump enthusiastically endorsed Jordan, calling him a “STAR” (in all caps!) and arguing “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”
This time, though, the Republican caucus pushed back in the face of threats and bullying by Trump, Jordan and grassroots zealots. Despite the Trump endorsement, after three rounds of voting, Jordan couldn’t clinch the 217 votes needed for Speaker. It seemed that the Trump endorsement magic had worn off among the Republican caucus.
Next up was Rep. Tom Emmer (R-6-Minn.), the House majority whip and the second man in the Republican congressional hierarchy. Initially considered a likely winner and acceptable to Trump, instead Trump turned on him, calling him “totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters” and a “Globalist RINO” (Republican In Name Only). He worked the phones against Emmer.
Emmer’s crime? According to a Politico article, “‘I killed him’: How Trump torpedoed Tom Emmer’s speaker bid,” Emmer had the temerity to criticize Trump for the Jan. 6 riot and insurrection in 2021 and re-posted a Trump comment that the two had always gotten along—which indicated they were closer than Trump preferred.
Trump’s ability to dispose of Emmer indicated that while he might not have the strength to get his preferred candidate elected he still could veto anyone he didn’t like.
With Emmer gone the race became wide open and nine Republicans jumped in—among them, Donalds. He was quickly endorsed by fellow Southwest Floridian, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.) and numerous other Republican Floridians.
As in the nine-candidate race Donalds had faced in Southwest Florida in 2020, a Trump endorsement might have made all the difference.
Trump had shown the strength of his negative voodoo but could he reclaim his past magical powers? Would he cast his spell on Donalds’ behalf? Would he raise the ambitious sophomore to Speaker?
But once again Trump chose to ignore Donalds.
“I am not going to make an Endorsement in this race, because I COULD NEVER GO AGAINST ANY OF THESE FINE AND VERY TALENTED MEN, all of whom have supported me, in both mind and spirit, from the very beginning of our GREAT 2016 Victory. My strong SUGGESTION is to go with the leading candidate, Mike Johnson,” he posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning, Oct. 25.
Finally, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-4-La.) received enough votes to become Speaker. His ideas might be those of Trump and MAGA world, but his behavior was that of a country club Republican—and much more acceptable to the caucus.
All Southwest Florida Republican congressmen voted for Johnson, including Donalds.
The big question
At every inflection point, when his endorsement could have made a significant difference in Rep. Byron Donalds’ political career, former President Donald Trump has chosen to ignore, overlook and disregard his faithfully loyal, utterly obedient, slavishly adoring acolyte from Florida’s Gulf coast. On this, at least, he has shown a most unusual consistency.
Why?
Why does Donald Trump consistently ignore Byron Donalds? Why does Donald Trump refuse to support Byron Donalds as he seeks to rise up the hierarchy of the Republican congressional caucus? Why does Donald Trump never publicly reward Donalds’ extravagant expressions of fealty? Why is Donald Trump always absent at the critical moments when Byron Donalds needs him most? And why does Donald Trump look Byron Donalds in the face but never seem to see him?
Until Donald Trump provides an explanation, the public can only wonder—and guess.
Byron Donalds embraces Donald Trump at a 2019 awards ceremony in South Carolina. (Image: Donalds campaign)
The White House illuminated in the blue and white colors of Israel on Oct. 9, 2023. (Photo: (White House/Adam Schultz)
Oct. 13, 2023 by David Silverberg
For many people, these confusing days may seem like the end of the world. We’ve had war and pestilence. Can famine and death be far behind? Is Armageddon upon us?
It’s distressing to say the least and Southwest Florida isn’t even in the direct line of fire.
In such circumstances, one response makes a great deal of sense.
“My father taught me when I was very young, that if you’re ever in an emergency, become calm. Become the calmest person in the room and if you do you have the best chance of surviving.”
That’s sage advice. It comes from—of all people—Rudy Giuliani. Not the crazed, drunken, conspiratorial, Trump-infected Giuliani with hair dye running down his sweating face but the strong, rational, clear-headed Giuliani of 9/11 when he did his job amidst a devastating terrorist attack and emerged as America’s mayor and Time magazine’s 2001 Man of the Year.
So amidst what seems like mounting chaos, it’s perhaps best to stop for a moment, draw a deep breath, survey the landscape, gather the facts, discern the trends and become the calmest person in the room. Only then can one respond rationally, whether in one’s own life or in the public space.
The article that follows is the author’s attempt to analyze and assess current events from a political standpoint. It evaluates them in the global context, the national context, and the local context. It attempts, as best as one is able based on public sources, to discern and project likely implications and outcomes. It’s hardly complete and it’s necessarily speculative.
Fair warning: It’s also very long, so find a comfortable chair.
The global context
The current global conflict—and it is global, not confined to Ukraine or Israel—is an autocratic, anti-democratic reaction to a tide of democratic aspirations around the world.
That tide—a tsunami, really—can be said to have started with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and peaked with the “Arab Spring” of 2010 to 2012 when people in the Middle East rose up against longstanding dictatorships and overthrew them. Inspired by the example of the United States and fed on the hope and change promised by the presidency of Barack Obama, the wave of democracy seemed unstoppable.
This springtime of democracy was not confined to the Middle East. Democracy budded in the former republics of the Soviet Union and nowhere more so than in Ukraine, whose people longed to join the European Union and look westward rather than to the country’s former overlord, Russia.
The Hamas-Israeli War that started last Saturday, Oct. 7, is not a separate and discrete conflict. It is a new front in this broader contest and that’s the way historians will likely look back on it. It may have started with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to conquer Ukraine but that is certainly not where it will stay.
Overall, future historians will likely view these events and conflicts as a revolt of outlier countries to overthrow democracy, Western dominance and the rule-based international order that evolved after World War II. That order was essentially a “Pax Americana” enforced by the United States. The chief outliers from that system are Russia, Iran and North Korea along with their associated allies, movements and proxies, like Hamas.
The Middle Eastern context
When it comes to the immediate causes of Hamas’ assault on Israel, much of the media speculation is focusing on the past year of rising tensions between the two parties. Hamas itself cited Israeli police incursions on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which infuriated local Muslims. Additionally, Israel has blockaded Gaza in various forms since 2007 when Hamas took over the territory.
However, global currents clearly affected this action.
It’s a truism of Middle Eastern politics that whenever there’s a trend in a particular direction, some opponent will try to disrupt it through terror or violence. It happens again and again.
Regionally, Israel, with American help, was moving toward increased normalization among its neighbors. It had already achieved normal diplomatic relations with Egypt, Jordan and, further afield, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. Next, the United States was brokering potential recognition with Saudi Arabia.
Mutual Israeli-Saudi Arabian relations would have been a huge game-changer. It would have been particularly important given Saudi Arabia’s status as home of Mecca and Medina, the two most sacred cities and shrines in the Muslim world. Essentially, it would have constituted official Islamic religious acceptance of Israel throughout the Sunni world. Diplomatically, it would have capped inclusion of Israel throughout the region, and would have likely been followed by further normalizations.
Not only would such a rapprochement be opposed by Muslim religious conservatives, it was likely seen as a direct strategic threat to Iran. Saudi Arabia and Israel share a suspicion of Iranian intentions and nuclear capabilities and have actively opposed them. Among the many measures were assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists between 2007 and 2021. In 2010 a debilitating software virus infected Iranian nuclear equipment. Its development and introduction was attributed to Israeli and allied covert action.
The United States also attempted to thwart Iranian intentions. In 2020 the United States assassinated Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a high-level Iranian general who was in Baghdad. Iran retaliated with a largely harmless missile strike on an American military base in Iraq. But further revenge is no doubt on Iranian minds.
There is evidence that Iran was very involved in the planning and preparations for the Oct. 7 assault, according to The Wall Street Journal. In contrast, reports are circulating that Iranian leaders were taken by surprise. To find the truth is to enter the hall of mirrors that is intelligence-gathering—which has no clear exit.
As of this writing, the United States is pledging aid to Israel, although the country should have robust capabilities to carry out its operations. But other anti-Israeli elements like Hezbollah in Lebanon are entering the fray and may with time stress Israeli capabilities. Both Israel and the United States would best be served by a short, sharp, victorious fight; however, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned of a long and costly war to come.
No doubt both Hamas and Iran are also hoping that a massive Israeli incursion into Gaza will mobilize the Muslim world against Israel and the United States. This was the strategy pursued by Osama Bin Laden in his 2001 attack on New York. He expected the American response to cause a global Muslim anti-Western jihad, which never materialized.
At the very least, the current attack has certainly disrupted the movement toward Israeli-Saudi normalization and integration of Israel into the region.
The Ukrainian context
The Hamas attack, whether directed by Russia or not, opens a new front in Russia’s war against Ukraine and the West. Among its many implications, it distracts the world from the Ukraine war. More substantively, Putin may be hoping to overextend United States military-industrial capabilities or weaken American support for Ukraine, essentially forcing the United States to choose between supplying allies. (In Ukraine, President Volodomyr Zelensky is vocally standing with Israel and pointing out the threat to democracies everywhere.)
Russian and Iranian leaders are no doubt working to draw more countries into their respective battles.
Other flashpoints around the world include the Baltic countries and Taiwan and the Koreas. China is a great fulcrum in this conflict and its weight on either side will have a major impact on the outcome.
It was the possibility of further exploitation by anti-western powers that President Joe Biden alluded to in his speech on Tuesday, Oct. 10. He pointedly warned the world not to try anything: “Let me say again — to any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation — I have one word: Don’t. Don’t. Our hearts may be broken, but our resolve is clear.”
The American context
Support for Israel in the United States has been reflexive, deep and across the board, from the President, to the whole executive branch, to the entire political establishment, both Democratic and Republican.
It’s too soon to get any hard data on American public attitudes toward the war. However, it seems safe to say that the vast majority of Americans are sympathetic to Israel. After all, the Hamas strike is a reminder of America’s own Sept. 11, 2001 attack. Between the longstanding American relationship with Israel and deep memories of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-81 and the global war on terror that followed 9/11, Americans are not sympathetic to Middle Eastern causes that employ terror to achieve their aims.
In terms of domestic American politics, Hamas has thrown Republicans a lifeline. Discordant and disorganized, with an indicted, discredited front runner for President and a deeply fractured congressional caucus, the Hamas attack is enabling Republicans to unite. No expression of support for Israel has been too extreme, too vehement or too emphatic. Not only does this work in the halls of Congress, it works at home, playing well both to Jewish constituents, evangelical Christians and the public at large. The growing instances of anti-Semitism on the extreme right can now be overshadowed by the threat to Israel and the Republican pro-Israel response.
The war also distracts from Donald Trump, who is both a liability and asset to the Republican Party and from the chaos in Republican congressional ranks as the caucus wrestles with choosing a new Speaker of the House.
President Donald Trump jokes with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Kislyak, Russian ambassador to the United States, in the Oval Office on May 10, 2017. (Photo: TASS)
Trump’s actions on other fronts have to be considered. During his time in office, Trump diminished and bullied Ukraine, an approach that led to his first impeachment. His behavior and policies during his time in office indicated that he was either an unwitting puppet of Putin or an actual, deliberate Russian agent. His anti-Ukraine approach continues among a significant element of the Republican Party, who seek to cut off funding for Ukraine’s support.
The Hamas war is providing a distraction from these anti-Ukrainian MAGA Republicans. They can now use their support for Israel to mask their willingness to abandon Ukraine’s fight against Russia—precisely as Putin no doubt hoped.
While Republicans can loudly trumpet their support for Israel, for Democrats, the war is more problematic. While the vast majority of Democratic politicians immediately expressed support for Israel, there is a pro-Palestinian faction in the Democratic Party that has drawn the fire of Republicans in the past. In Congress it has been spearheaded by representatives with Muslim constituencies like Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-7-Wash.) and Ilhan Omar (D-5-Minn.).
It needs to be emphasized that these representatives are not necessarily pro-Hamas, which calls for Israel’s destruction. Rather, they favor a two-state solution and criticize Israeli treatment of Palestinians.
However, Hamas has erased all nuances since it aims to destroy Israel, its fighters killed Israelis, took hostages and perpetrated gruesome atrocities. Netanyahu is vowing to destroy Hamas. If the conflict was simmering before, it’s now a stark life or death struggle.
The dilemma for Democrats is going to become more acute as Israeli forces enter Gaza in what will no doubt be a brutal fight that leads to extensive civilian casualties and, at worst, massacres. Democratic Party leaders will have to balance their support for Israel with their concern for humanitarian mercy, and what will likely be a media shift from portraying Israel as the aggrieved victim to Israel as the punishing party.
Adding to the stress and the stakes is the looming 2024 election. As long as Donald Trump is the Republican candidate—and polling shows him continuing to hold a commanding lead among Republican primary voters—Ukraine will be at risk and Israel cannot count on consistent American support either, if he wins.
The local context
Immediately after the attack Florida politicians raced to express whole-hearted support for Israel, the more full-throated the better. This included Southwest Florida Republicans. The war also gave them the opportunity to eclipse far-right use of anti-Semitic stereotypes and tropes.
It was also an opportunity to exploit the situation for political advantage and pursue a variety of vendettas. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on the campaign trail used the occasion to attack Trump: “Now’s not the time to be doing, like what Donald Trump did, attacking Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, attacking Israel’s defense minister, saying somehow that Hezbollah were very smart,” he said in New Hampshire where he was filing papers for the state’s presidential primary election. “We need to all be on the same page, now’s not the time to air personal grievances about an Israeli Prime Minister. Now’s the time to support their right to defend themselves to the hilt.”
As was the case nationally, local Republicans used the opportunity to blame President Biden for the Hamas attack, using a variety of arguments and allegations.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) attacked Biden for not sending an airplane to pick up stranded Americans in Israel and chanted “Vote him out. Vote him out. Vote him out,” in an X posting. He also reaffirmed his loyalty to Trump in another post: “President TRUMP was the FIRST U.S. President to visit the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, Israel. [Fact check: then-candidate Barack Obama visited the Western Wall in July 2008.] Israel has had no greater ally in the White House than the Trump administration, and his commitment to the Jewish people never wavered. We need TRUMP back in the White House.”
Rep. Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.) also attacked Biden for not getting Americans home faster: “22 American families want to know if it was worth it for Joe Biden and Antony Blinken to ease sanctions enforcement and free up BILLIONS for Iran to finance Hamas and Hezbollah. Make no mistake: Joe Biden and Antony Blinken’s policies have enabled terrorists and left America & our allies in danger. They have betrayed our country.” (The US government has reached an arrangement with US airlines to get Americans out of Israel.)
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.) echoed the general horror: “The reports of Hamas beheading babies is beyond abhorrent but it shows you the true heinous nature of Hamas. I support everything Israel must do to remove the scourge of Hamas from the face of the earth.”
The immediate political question that arises is whether their attacks on Biden and grievances with the federal government will do much to influence the election outcome in November 2024. Without a doubt, local Republicans will keep attacking Biden every way they can.
Between now and then gas prices will likely rise, supply chains will likely be disrupted and inflation may increase. Southwest Florida is not in the heart of the storm but like the Gulf of Mexico itself, the turbulence affects all shores.
And perhaps more important than all those considerations are the biggest issues and the momentous decisions that will really shape the world to come.
Deciding the future
From its very beginning, democracy has been in conflict with autocracy.
In 431 BCE the rise of a powerful, prosperous, democratic Athens challenged an autocratic and militaristic Sparta, which launched what proved to be a 30-year war. For its time it was a world war, with all of Hellenic civilization becoming involved.
Unfortunately, in that conflict Sparta won. But the democratic experiment never ended and the hope never died. People want to be free and control their own destinies. That’s what democracy offers. Again and again, democracies have arisen and been in conflict with other forms of authoritarianism.
What is happening now is no different.
In 1947 an American diplomat, George Kennan, wrote a long analysis of Soviet motivations and likely actions. Initially contained in a State Department cable, it later appeared as an article in the magazine Foreign Affairs as “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” under the byline X.
Given Soviet impulses, wrote Kennan, “it will be clearly seen that the Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manœuvres of Soviet policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence. The Russians look forward to a duel of infinite duration, and they see that already they have scored great successes.”
Kennan argued: “It is clear that the United States cannot expect in the foreseeable future to enjoy political intimacy with the Soviet régime. It must continue to regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner, in the political arena. It must continue to expect that Soviet policies will reflect no abstract love of peace and stability, no real faith in the possibility of a permanent happy coexistence of the Socialist and capitalist worlds, but rather a cautious, persistent pressure toward the disruption and weakening of all rival influence and rival power.”
He argued that the United States should pursue “a policy of firm containment, designed to confront the Russians with unalterable counter-force at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world.”
The Soviet Union is gone now but substitute the word “Russia” for “Soviet Union” and the description is the same. The Russian drive for expansion and domination transcends ideology. It’s partially the result of historical Russian feelings of vulnerability and also an ingrained admiration for domineering, conquering leaders, whether tsars or commissars.
Now, as in Kennan’s time, the United States and the world’s democracies need to contain and—to put it bluntly—roll back and defeat Russian aggression and expansionism for the sake of a “peaceful and stable world.”
But Kennan also realized that victory in the struggle depended on America’s internal strength.
He believed that the Soviet Union and the Communist movement could not endure endless frustration and containment and at some point would have to accommodate itself to the fact that it was defeated and adjust accordingly. It took nearly half a century but he was proven right.
However, he also believed the key to the contest did not really lie abroad.
“Thus the decision will really fall in large measure in this country itself,” he wrote. “The issue of Soviet-American relations is in essence a test of the over-all worth of the United States as a nation among nations. To avoid destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.”
As this is written, America and the democracies of the world are under assault. But how that assault is beaten will depend on how the democratic peoples respond, since their governments rest on the collective will of their peoples.
There is always the possibility that these conflicts descend into a nuclear cataclysm that destroys all life on earth. But one hopes that there’s sufficient rationality among the world’s leadership preventing that from happening.
It may seem like everyday individuals have no say in the outcome of this conflict but that’s not at all true. Those who live in democratic societies have enormous say. The Ukrainians are speaking with their arms and blood. The Israelis are speaking with their mobilization and a unified, multi-party government.
In the United States, when they vote in the 2024 election. Americans will decide whether the United States stays a constitutional democracy or becomes a dictatorship, whether it remains a global superpower or submits to foreign domination, whether democracy will triumph everywhere or autocrats will rule the world. In short: what will be the future?
Those are big decisions to ride on your flimsy paper ballot. But then again, no one ever said democracy was easy.
Rep. Byron Donalds explains his failure to vote on Fox News Sunday. (Image: Fox News Sunday)
Oct. 2, 2023 by David Silverberg
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), must now live with the consequences of his failure to cast a vote on one of the most momentous issues of the 118th Congress.
The failure to cast a vote implies an inability to make a decision, to take a stand, to hold and defend a political position. Doing those things are the marks of a leader and a skillful politician.
In this case, Donalds’ non-vote was an act of cowardice and dereliction of duty, a failure to serve his constituents and the partisans who supported and elected him.
Why is this? What were the circumstances of the vote and why was it so important? What are the likely consequences of this failure for Donalds, his ambitions and his political future?
The circumstances
On the afternoon of last Saturday, Sept. 30, it looked like the United States federal government would shut down at midnight.
House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-20-Calif.) had until that moment been unable to get the Republican caucus to vote in favor of a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded.
The chief opponent of that CR was Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-1-Fla.), a member of the hard-right, Trumpist, 45-member, Make America Great Again (MAGA) Freedom Caucus.
Donalds had been a player in events leading to that impasse. He had negotiated with McCarthy on behalf of the Caucus and endorsed a compromise CR. That CR never advanced and Donalds was ferociously denounced by Gaetz and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-14-Ga.), as well as his own constituents for his willingness to compromise.
McCarthy wanted to pass his CR with only Republican votes but it was clear that he couldn’t do that by the deadline so he turned to the House Democrats. The CR resulting from those negotiations had no money for Ukraine, which Democrats and many Republicans wanted. However, it would keep government functioning for 45 more days until a more complete solution could be found.
Very importantly for Southwest Florida, the CR contained $16 billion to replenish the National Disaster Relief Fund and keep the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) functioning. FEMA is playing an outsized role in the region given the ravages of Hurricane Ian last year. FEMA funding is also essential to all of Florida in the wake of this year’s Hurricane Idalia.
So this was not some abstract intellectual debate being played out in some remote ivory tower. While local media looked backward and celebrated individual tales of resilience and signs of recovery on the anniversary of the hurricane, all future progress was in jeopardy. The CR also included money to keep people clothed, housed and fed on the ground in Southwest Florida.
On Saturday afternoon the new CR went to the House floor. It needed a two-thirds vote of the members to suspend the rules and go straight to a vote of approval. The votes were there and it passed overwhelmingly, 335 to 91. All Democrats but one voted for it along with 126 Republicans. Only 90 Republicans voted against it.
In the final tally, 426 of 435 members of Congress—roughly 98 percent—voted on the CR one way or another. None abstained (an option if a member doesn’t want to vote for or against a measure). Seven members did not vote at all.
One of these was Byron Donalds. (The others were: Reps. Earl Carter (R-1-Ga.), John Carter (R-31-Texas), John Joyce (R-13-Pa.), Anna Paulina Luna (R-13-Fla.), Mary Petolta (D-At Large-Alaska), and Katie Porter (D-47-Calif.).
To date, Donalds has offered several explanations for his failure to vote.
Immediately after the vote he announced on X that he would have voted “no” but the time to vote closed before he could cast his ballot.
On Sunday, Donalds appeared on Fox News Sunday and was asked directly about his absence.
“First of all, why did you miss this vote and not vote?” asked host Shannon Bream. “Everyone knew it was coming, it was a big deal. You put something on X, formerly known as Twitter, but the replies are pretty brutal.”
“Listen, here’s what happened. I was coming up the elevator in the Capitol Building to go vote,” replied Donalds. “They closed the vote down because there were members on the House floor who were changing their votes from ‘yes’ to ‘no.’ I was told that there were senators on our floor begging our leadership to close the vote so the measure would pass because it needed two-thirds. The leadership knew I was a ‘no.’ If I was a ‘yes’ they would have held the vote open for me. It’s that simple.”
Analysis: The ‘whys’ have it
Donalds’ explanation simply does not hold water. Members have a specified time in which to vote. The period for changing votes comes after the formal voting has closed. Four hundred twenty six members of Congress were present and able to vote during that time. (Although one, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-16-NY) pulled a fire alarm in a House office building, supposedly to gain more time but he says accidentally. The incident is under investigation although Republicans are calling for his prosecution.)
But in the case of Donalds, one has to wonder why he was supposedly rushing to vote during the change period, after the vote had closed.
The obvious conclusion is that he was present in the Capitol for the vote; he knew the voting was taking place and he could have easily voted. But he didn’t want to vote, so he held back until the voting was fully closed and then blamed his absence on the Republican leadership, i.e., McCarthy.
The other alternatives are that he was so neglectful and indifferent to the vote that he simply ignored it until it was too late (perhaps having a Johnny Walker in his office?) or he is so spectacularly inept after nearly three years in Congress that he doesn’t know the Capitol, doesn’t know how to get to the House chamber and doesn’t know how to vote.
It’s hard not to draw a conclusion from this interpretation of events: that purely and simply, Byron Donalds is lying.
This raises the question: Why would Donalds deliberately not want to vote?
It puts the spotlight on the difficulty of making the kinds of hard choices that face leaders.
If Donalds had voted “no,” he would have been voting to significantly damage the United States by bringing its government to a shuddering halt. More parochially, he would have been voting against the $16 billion in disaster aid that his state and district so desperately need. He would have been directly harming the people of Southwest Florida who are looking for federal help at this time and who voted for him in the last election. He would have come in for outrage and criticism for enabling this suicidal course of action and not just from marginal liberal bloggers but from community leaders and elected local Republicans.
However, if he voted “yes,” he would have outraged his MAGA base and his idol Donald Trump, who had called for a shutdown to stop his own prosecution. Donalds was already being hammered by Gaetz for his willingness to compromise on the CR, now the voices calling him a Republican In Name Only and a turncoat to the extreme Trumpist faith he has embraced would have reached a screeching new volume.
Neither course was palatable. He could have abstained but that would have also been on the record and drawn criticism—and he would have stood out as the only abstention.
So the easiest—if most cowardly—course was to skip the vote altogether, if possible, and hope no one would notice. Then, when it was noticed, he tried to shift the blame to forces outside his control.
Even Fox News didn’t buy that.
Commentary: The consequences
It is premature to say that this action—or inaction—ends Donalds’ political career. People have come back from worse setbacks in the past.
But it certainly doesn’t help at all.
Donalds’ political career has been marked by his ambition. He embraced the Republican Party credo of “just win, baby,” which holds any falsehood, innuendo, hypocrisy or contradiction acceptable as long as there’s election victory at the end of the day. He built his brand as “everything the fake news media says doesn’t exist: a [Donald Trump]-supporting, liberty-loving, pro-life, pro-2nd Amendment black man.” It enabled him to win election and represent a heavily MAGA, 85-percent white district. He fought masks and embraced vaccine skepticism during the worst pandemic of the century as it killed constituents. He is willing to front for the nuclear power industry and follow an ideological line that often contradicts the real interests of his coastal district.
Once in the House, his ambition glowed again when he ran for the third-place Republican position, only to lose. Then, as a sophomore representative-elect, he had the brazenness to put himself forward as a Speaker of the House, nominated by no less than his close friend Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-3-Colo.). It brought him international prominence, good committee assignments and raised his star in the Republican firmament.
Donalds’ unique position as a vocal black MAGA Republican provides all sorts of opportunities: there was always the Speakership, or else a slot as Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, or a run at governor of Florida in 2026 when the current governor steps down. There was the chance for significant fundraising, attracting major donors and spreading his own largesse to build his following among other Republicans and the public at large. And there were the perks of national, mainstream media appearances, speaking slots at conservative conclaves and the chance to meet and greet famous politicians and celebrities.
However, by ducking this important vote and displaying abject cowardice in the face of both enemies and circumstances, he has confirmed what his critics have long alleged: that he lacks the character and capability to handle those higher offices and greater responsibilities.
Instead of a smooth potential path to the speakership or higher office in the Republican caucus, the failure to vote showed Donalds unable to lead or take a stand and face the consequences. He transgressed Trump’s sacred dictum that a shutdown was desirable. He enraged Gaetz and the Gaetzniks who are ready to burn the nation to the ground. He also provided Gaetz a weapon against himself should they both pursue the governorship. He violated the holy unity of the Freedom Caucus, whose whole purpose is to ensure lockstep loyalty to whatever positions 80 percent of them adopt. Constituents who tend to ignore congressional politics may forget this incident but his absence will be remembered by his Republican colleagues in the House. And he has invited a MAGA revolt in his own district that could take the form of an even more extreme primary challenge in the next election.
Donalds has responded to criticism of his non-vote with his usual barrage of accusations, imprecations and denunciations of President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Democrats, border crossers, and phantom far-left radicals.
That may fool some people who, as President Abraham Lincoln once said, can be fooled all of the time.
But as Lincoln also famously noted: “You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
The Paradise Progressive 