The Donalds Dossier: Whitewashing Jim Crow

*Rep. Byron Donalds at the Philadelphia “Congress, Cognac, & Cigars” event, stating that black families were stronger during the Jim Crow era. (Image: Office of Rep. Byron Donalds)*

June 7, 2024 by David Silverberg

Not all gaffes are equal—some are major, huge, and potentially career-ending.

Perhaps when Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) said on Tuesday, June 4 that Jim Crow practices in the South kept black families together, it shouldn’t be counted as a gaffe, which is generally considered a mistake or a misstatement, usually of an impromptu nature. After all, it was clearly something he had considered and he expressed a genuinely held thought.

However, politically, it was much worse than a gaffe—it was a blunder.

The setting

Donalds was in Philadelphia, Pa., for a Donald Trump-related outreach event to black conservatives. Dubbed “Congress, Cognac, & Cigars” it was held at a club called The Cigar Code, which seeks to provide “a relaxing atmosphere where you can kick back and enjoy our high-quality cigars” along with drinks and food.

Organizers invited attendees to “Immerse yourself in the world of politics, premium cognac, and fine cigars. Enjoy a conversation about the Black Male vote, Leadership, and how Black Men will impact the 2024 vote.”

Donalds (who has sponsored legislation exempting premium cigars from tobacco regulations) was on stage with Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-38-Texas), a fellow black conservative Republican.

In keeping with the tenor of the evening, Donalds, cognac and premium cigar in hand, was clearly relaxed—and it’s at such times that he often provides his most truthful—and damaging—revelations. Like the time in 2021 when he admitted he had been drinking prior to addressing a press conference in the Capitol denouncing masking and President Joe Biden’s stimulus and pandemic relief bill.

This time his statement causing the uproar was this: “You see, during Jim Crow, during Jim Crow the black family was together. During Jim Crow more black people were not just conservative—black people were always conservative minded—more black people voted conservatively. And then, HEW, Lyndon Johnson, and then you go down that road and we are where we are.”

(HEW is the former Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which was changed in 1979 to the Department of Health and Human Services after creation of a separate Department of Education. Jim Crow refers to a character in 19th century minstrel shows that came to stereotype black people and then stand for the entire culture of racial segregation, discrimination and intimidation in the southern United States.)

When Donalds’ statement was reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer, it created an uproar. The Biden-Harris campaign posted a 28-second clip on X with the offending statement and the notation, “Trump VP contender Byron Donalds claims life was better for Black Americans ‘during Jim Crow.’”

Donalds hit back, claiming in his own post that “1. You lied. I never said better. 2. Don’t clip my words. Play the whole thing. Let me help you.”

Accordingly, below is a full text transcribed from the 1-minute, 45-second video posted by Donalds:

“I grew up with my Mom. My Dad and my Mom, things didn’t work out. As an adult, I look at my father and say ‘Bro, I don’t know what happened, but you’re my father and I love you. I don’t know what happened!’ I wasn’t there. But I’m going to tell you this: Growing up, one thing I wanted to do—and this is not about my father, this is about what I wanted to do—is I wanted to be a father to my sons.

“And so one of the things that’s actually happening in our culture, which you’re now starting to see in our politics, is the reinvigoration of black males with younger black men and black women and that is also helping to breed the revival of a black middle class in America.

“You see, during Jim Crow, during Jim Crow the black family was together. During Jim Crow more black people were not just conservative—black people were always conservative minded—more black people voted conservatively. And then, HEW, Lyndon Johnson, and then you go down that road and we are where we are.

“What’s happened in America the last ten years, and I say this because it’s my contemporaries, your contemporaries, you’re starting to see more black people be married, in homes, raising kids, because when you’re home with your wife raising your kids, and then you’re looking at the world, you’re saying: ‘Now wait a minute, time out. This does not look right. How can I get something to my kids?’ It goes back to the conversation about generational wealth. Not just a job, generational wealth. I’m looking at my kids be on my shoulders when they take off in life. That’s what’s happening.”

The reaction

*House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries denounces Rep. Byron Donalds on the House floor. (Image: US House)*

Whatever Donalds intended, the reaction was swift and severe.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-8-NY), the House minority leader, took to the floor of the House of Representatives to angrily denounce Donalds’ statement in a 1-minute, 4-second speech.

“Mr. Speaker, it has come to my attention that a so-called leader has made the factually inaccurate statement that black folks were better off during Jim Crow. That’s an outlandish, outrageous and out-of-pocket observation. We were not better off when a young boy named Emmett Till could be brutally murdered without consequence because of Jim Crow, we were not better off. When black women could be sexually assaulted without consequence because of Jim Crow, we were not better off. When people could be systematically lynched without consequence because of Jim Crow, we were not better off. When children could be denied a high quality education without consequence because of Jim Crow we were not better off. When people could be denied the right to vote without consequence because of Jim Crow.

“How dare you make such an ignorant observation. You’d better check yourself before you wreck yourself.”

The Biden-Harris campaign didn’t just slam Donalds on X.

“Donald Trump spent his adult life, and then his presidency undermining the progress Black communities fought so hard for — so it actually tracks that his campaign’s ‘Black outreach’ is going to a white neighborhood and promising to take America back to Jim Crow,“ Biden-Harris spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.

The Donalds statement blazed across the media landscape like an uncontrolled wildfire, with almost all headlines negative and emphasizing Donalds’ support for Jim Crow: The New York Times, “Byron Donalds, Trump V.P. Contender, Suggests Jim Crow Era Had an Upside;” The Washington Post, “Rep. Byron Donalds says Black families were stronger during Jim Crow era;” Politico: “Byron Donalds expresses nostalgia for the Jim Crow era, when ‘the Black family was together;” NBC News: “Trump surrogate Byron Donalds hearkens back to Jim Crow era when ‘the Black family was together;’ The Hill: “Donalds suggests Black families were stronger during Jim Crow era.”

Innumerable anonymous responses on X were far more extreme, pointing out, among other things, that Donalds would have been lynched for marrying—much less courting—a white woman during Jim Crow.

Donalds has tried to respond and clarify his remarks but his efforts have been comparable to trying to fight a firehose with a squirt gun.

Analysis: Twisted history

Byron Donalds and history don’t mix.

Whether it was the moment in 2021 when he said that Potemkin villages were invented by the East Germans to hide their side of Berlin from the West, to his rage about being sent a copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, to this latest misstatement, it is clear that history is not his strongest subject.

Perhaps he’s right that there’s a discussion to be had about the strength of black families down through the ages.

But as Jeffries pointed out, during the Jim Crow era, the point of segregationist and discriminatory law was not to strengthen the black family. The negative impact of southern oppression on black families is more than amply chronicled in both fact and fiction.

But going beyond the argument over the impact of Jim Crow on families there’s Donalds’ assertion that black voters “were not just conservative—black people were always conservative minded—more black people voted conservatively.”

That’s just factually wrong.

Ending slavery was a radical cause in the United States before the Civil War and ending discrimination after it was part of the liberal agenda. After they gained the right to vote through the 15th Amendment black voters responded and were overwhelmingly not conservative, but Republican. “Conservatism” at the time meant returning to the situation during enslavement or something like it.

Although President Abraham Lincoln ended slavery, after emancipation white southerners tried to segregate the races, i.e., establish a Jim Crow society in the South. The Republican Party opposed and worked against Jim Crow laws and southern racial discrimination, winning black voters’ loyalty.

In contrast, the post-Reconstruction South was solidly segregationist Democratic and white politicians and racists did everything they could to suppress and deny black voting rights. Restoring and protecting those rights was a liberal cause, not a conservative one and politically active blacks responded accordingly.

Where blacks could not express their discontent in political activity or at the ballot box in the South they voted with their feet, resulting in a vast migration northward where there were jobs and far less overt discrimination. They were hardly “conservatively minded.”

After World War II and the victorious fight against Fascism, the wall of racial segregation began to crumble but not before southern politicians did absolutely everything they possibly could to stop civil rights for black citizens. In 1948 then-Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina led a walkout of southerners from the Democratic Party to form his own, segregationist Dixiecrat Party and run for president. In 1964 he switched allegiance to the Republican Party—after President Lyndon Johnson, the president whom Donalds denigrated, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination. In 1968 President Richard Nixon launched his “southern strategy” to position the Party to pick up the allegiance of segregationist voters previously loyal to Gov. George Wallace of Alabama and position the Republicans as the party of disaffected white southerners.

The overwhelming majority of black voters were never “conservative minded” when conservatism meant maintaining Jim Crow, nor did they vote conservatively. Their clear and obvious interest was in moving society forward toward integration and non-discrimination. Indeed, Rev. Martin Luther King excoriated those moderate liberals who did not do enough toward this end in his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”

So Donalds has virtually all of his history wrong. But that’s hardly anything new.

Analysis: The political fallout

As though to provide icing on a very sour cake, Donalds’ latest statement comes two weeks after the century anniversary of the 1924 Fort Myers lynchings, another feature of the Jim Crow South and something that occurred in his own district, no less.

But it also comes at an extremely sensitive time politically.

It comes when history in Florida is being officially re-written to teach school children that before emancipation, “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” thereby justifying bondage as beneficial to those enslaved. When Donalds argues that Jim Crow strengthened black families, he appears to be seeing advantage in a time when official discrimination and prejudice were the norm.

Step by step, school by school, library by library in Florida, Donalds, his Trumpist allies and cultural crusaders are normalizing social situations that existed back when America was supposedly “great.” One has to wonder where this leads. Was America great when women didn’t vote? When alcohol was banned? When lynchings were common? When race riots went unpunished?

“The Apprentice” redux

On another front, there is Trump’s reprise of his “The Apprentice” reality show in picking his vice presidential running mate and the role of Donalds’ remarks in his bid for the job.

The remarks come when Trump, who has made no secret of his racial prejudices, is threatening to make them the law of the land if he is elected president again. Is Donalds attempting to curry favor with a man who says that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America and all Mexicans are “criminals” and “rapists?” Are these the kind of policies Donalds will pursue in the White House if he attains it? Does he believe that if he is elected Trump’s vice president he will promote Jim Crow policies to “strengthen” the black family?

All the candidates, no matter how remote their chances, are under greater scrutiny than usual (although nothing compared to what the winner will receive). Every gaffe, stumble and indiscretion is magnified and blasted across the media landscape.

They are also competing for the favor of a mercurial, unpredictable felon facing jail time.

Donalds is making his bid by showing his loyalty and spewing out a torrent of pro-Trump statements and postings. He traveled to New York to stand by Trump at the trial, he spoke as a passionate Trumper in the Bronx and he’s served as a surrogate for Trump elsewhere, which is why he was in Philadelphia.

But as the Trump vice presidential candidates are learning, unthinking and unblinking loyalty is not enough. The reality show is now in a phase where the wrong statement, the wrong move, an irritable moment or a passing gaffe is enough to disqualify a contestant. For example, when South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) revealed to the world that she shot an innocent puppy, she probably disqualified herself no matter how much Trump might approve.

Will Donalds’ seeming longing for what he regards as the family-friendly days of Jim Crow disqualify him from the Trumpstakes? Only Trump can know for sure. But even Trump, who no doubt himself longs himself for the days of Jim Crow, may experience a moment of hesitation given the strength of the reaction to Donalds’ statements.

However this plays out, it is another expression of Donalds’ sometimes incredible ineptitude as a politician. He may be able to fool some of the people in Florida’s 19th Congressional District all of the time, and he may be able to fool all Americans some of the time, but increasingly he is proving that, as Lincoln noted, he cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

*Rep. Byron Donalds and Rep. Wesley Hunt enjoy cognac and cigars at the Philadelphia event where Donalds discussed Jim Crow. (Photo: Brakkton Booker /Politico)*

Liberty lives in light

Southwest Florida’s politicians attack Trump verdict, courts and the rule of law—and why that’s so dangerous

*The motto on the West Pediment above the entrance to the US Supreme Court building in Washington, DC. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)*

June 3, 2024 by David Silverberg

On March 5, 1770 eight British soldiers opened fire on a threatening mob in Boston in what was then the Massachusetts Colony. Three people in the crowd were killed instantly, eight were wounded and two died later.

The incident is known in American history as the Boston Massacre.

It was an important event in America’s march toward revolution. But almost as important as the incident itself was its aftermath, when American colonists, intending to demonstrate to the world that they were capable of administering impartial justice in their courts, put the British soldiers on trial.

The man who stepped forward to defend the soldiers was John Adams, a prominent lawyer, patriot and no lackey of the king. But Adams fully understood that America, to be credible as a self-governing entity, had to show that whatever the political passions of the moment, law had to prevail over all.

Adams capably defended the soldiers. Six were acquitted; two were convicted of manslaughter and given reduced sentences of having their thumbs branded. The commanding captain, Thomas Preston, was tried separately and acquitted since he had not given an order to fire.

Adams faced intense criticism for his willingness to defend the soldiers but he understood the principle he was defending and its importance to America.

“The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough,” he wrote on its third anniversary. “It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country.”

The Boston Massacre was an important step in America’s march to independence; but the Adams defense was almost as critical in laying the cornerstone for a nation and a new society founded on the principle of the rule of law.

So important is that principle that it is engraved on the pediment above the entrance to the US Supreme Court building in Washington, DC: “Equal justice under law.”

Law and its impartial administration is both the roof protecting the United States from above and the absolute foundational bedrock sustaining it below, enabling a functional, rational, democratic society.

Now law itself—and everything that John Adams and the founding patriots worked to achieve—is under attack because of a verdict in a court case in New York that found former President Donald Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records.

During the trial Trump lambasted and insulted the judge, the judge’s family, the prosecutor and the court system itself for a variety of what he considered sins. He, his attorneys, and his witnesses dripped with contempt for the whole proceeding and those conducting it. But when it was over and he had resoundingly lost and been found guilty, he attacked the trial as “rigged.”

Trump has always attacked anything that hasn’t gone his way as “rigged” and illegitimate—like elections. There is no surprise there.

The Florida enablers

But it’s not just Trump trying to bring down the very notion of law and justice. An army of sycophants, serfs and supporters are taking up his chorus and are seeking to discredit, overturn and destroy the rule of law—and Florida elected officials, including those from Southwest Florida, are in the front ranks.

Last Friday, May 31, eight United States Republican senators issued a statement.

The senators pledged not to vote for any increase to domestic appropriations or spending bills that “funds partisan lawfare;” they will not vote to confirm any political or judicial appointees; nor will they allow any “expedited consideration and passage of Democrat legislation or authorities that are not directly relevant to the safety of the American people.”

The reason for this stubborn refusal to do the nation’s business? As they put it: “The White House has made a mockery of the rule of law and fundamentally altered our politics in un-American ways.”

Included among the eight were both of Florida’s senators: Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.).

This is richly ironic on a number of levels, most prominently because they are taking these steps precisely because President Joe Biden and the US justice system are defending the rule of law and the nation’s politics from un-American crimes by Trump and his minions.

It’s also ironic that what these senators term “lawfare,” a favorite term of Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) cultists, is the simple administration of justice. This supposed “lawfare” is applied to just one man—Trump.

(These protestations are also ironic coming from Rubio, who was so humiliatingly savaged by Trump in the past.)

The statement is a transparent and hypocritical attempt by these politicians to curry favor with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and the MAGA base. But it’s also an expression of the weird, circus-mirror world of Trump, where the application of law is “mockery” and an effort to enforce the rules and punish criminality is “un-American.”

The same impulses and hypocrisies appear to have driven Southwest Florida’s congressmen to similarly denounce the New York verdict.

Upon the announcement of the verdict Rep. Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.) immediately stated on X: “A disgrace to our judicial system and constitutional protections of equal justice for all. Americans see right through the Democrats’ scheme. This is nothing but election interference. President Trump will get justice on appeal.”

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.), usually the most sober and moderate Southwest Florida representative, similarly fell into line.

“The case against former President Trump is an obvious and blatant travesty of justice and a political witch hunt,” he wrote on X. “This is a direct threat to our democracy. This case should never have seen the light of day.”

In a lengthier statement he denounced the trial as “a tactic commonly used by dictators against their political adversaries” and accused the Biden administration and New York prosecutors of “focusing on bringing down a former president and GOP candidate for president. It is clear that this political sham of a trail [sic] has been centered on destroying a candidate rather than fighting actual crime.”

But of Southwest Florida’s representatives, none was more voluble—or extreme—than Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.). He’s been sending out a torrent of propaganda on X and speaking on every media platform that will host him to firmly establish himself as a leading Trumper. In Trump’s vice presidential replay of his television show “The Apprentice,” Donalds clearly hopes that he’s still a candidate so he’s been trying to firmly establish his unthinking and unblinking loyalty to the now-convicted felon.

“What happened in NY is disaster verdict by a crooked judge and a crooked prosecution. Donald Trump is innocent. To hell with what the jury said,” Donalds stated on X immediately after the verdict.

He followed up in a later post: “What happened in NY is a TRAVESTY. Biden’s FAILED as president & rogue prosecutors are now persecuting his chief political opponent. This is not about Republican or Democrat. This is about the political weaponization of our courts, our future as a nation & the American people. America, this is what a political prosecution looks like. Remember in November!”

“You CANNOT respect this legal process when it was rigged from the jump,” he raged the day after the verdict. “REMEMBER: They could not even identify the underlying crime. This legal process was not fair to President Trump & did not protect his constitutional rights.”

Donalds’ denunciations were particularly interesting given his direct attacks on the American justice system: statements like, “To hell with what the jury said” or “You CANNOT respect this legal process” or his charge that the trial “did not protect his constitutional rights,” when Trump could have testified in his own defense and declined to do so.

But all this is especially ironic given Donalds’ reaction to the Trump mob’s invasion of the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when Donalds was in the building.

“We are a nation of laws that have governed this exceptional Constitutional Republic for more than two centuries, and no amount of anger should ever compromise that,” he wrote then. “Our party has always been a party that respects our brave law enforcement, the Rule of Law and the institutions that make America the greatest country to ever exist.”

Apparently three years later those truths don’t apply when it comes to Donald Trump—at least as far as Donalds is concerned.

Analysis: Past and future

This is not the first time in recorded history that a prominent politician has been charged with crimes he disdained and had his followers argue he is above the law.

In 49 BCE Julius Caesar was charged by the Senate with violating Roman law and ordered to return to Rome alone to face charges. However, he felt that his victories and his “dignitas,” his sense of self-worth, put him above the law.

Instead of obeying, he crossed the Rubicon River with his legions and marched south, captured the city and ultimately made himself dictator for life. At that point the only way he could be deposed was by death and he was assassinated in 44 BCE.

It was an example—and a warning—of where societies go when the rule of law is usurped.

But last week’s Trump trial, the verdict and the reverberations can be put into a much larger context.

Why does a world that seemed so stable, so invulnerable and so established now seem in such a deadly and uncertain flux?

The world being attacked is the one that emerged victorious from the defeat of Fascism in 1945 and the fall of Communism in 1991. That world was a rule-based, American-led, democratic, egalitarian, inclusive global order and culture protected by the military might and power of the United States.

But any order has its malcontents. Three individuals in particular led an assault to overthrow this global culture and the Pax Americana.

Osama Bin Laden attacked it with terror and tried to replace it with a Muslim theocracy. Vladimir Putin used the forces of the Russian Republic to try to topple American dominance and re-establish the Soviet Union. And Donald Trump tried to tear down the US Constitution, the US Congress, a US election and overthrow American democracy to assert his absolute dominance.

Today Bin Laden is dead and his movement shattered. Putin is bogged down in Ukraine and the outcome of his reconquest is in doubt. And Trump was stopped by the institutions emplaced to prevent a dictatorship, has been tried in accordance with the American judicial system and has been declared a felon by a jury of his peers.

All the politicians—whether in Southwest Florida or not—and enablers, sycophants and coconspirators disparaging the American system of justice, arguing that this man should have complete immunity from any kind of restraint, are trying to throw off the equality of all people before the law and are picking away at the bedrock foundations of the American edifice.

They know better but they do it nonetheless for petty, short-term gain.

What is worse, they seem to have no understanding of what will follow if they succeed in toppling the justice system they so hate. As noted before, the rule of law is like a sturdy building that protects its occupants from above and below. If it comes crashing down there will be nothing but rubble; no protection from any winds that blow or storms that follow.

What is more, these politicians will be every bit as vulnerable as everyone else—indeed more so. They will achieve equality but an equality of vulnerability amidst a hurricane of chaos. If they succeed in putting Donald Trump in power as a dictator, as they are ultimately trying, they will be even more subject to his whims, his rages and his retribution—and he always lashes out first at those closest to him.

President Joe Biden put it best in remarks he made the day after the verdict.

“The American principal that no one is above the law was reaffirmed. Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself,” he said. “And it’s reckless, dangerous, irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict. Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years. It is a cornerstone of America, our justice system. The justice system should be respected. We should never allow anyone to tear it down. It is as simple as that. That is America. That is who we are. That is who we will always be, God willing.”

John Adams would be proud.

Liberty lives in light

Denial, delusion and disaster: Ron DeSantis and Florida’s climate change

*A building destroyed by Hurricane Ian on Fort Myers Beach, Fla., four months after the storm came ashore in September 2022. (Photo: Author)*

May 19, 2024 by David Silverberg

One month after the earth experienced the hottest April in history, 16 days before the start of what is expected to be an extremely active 2024 hurricane season, five days after Tallahassee was hit with its worst recorded tornado outbreak ever, and three days before Southwest Florida was put under an extreme heat advisory, the government of Florida formally banned use of the term “climate change” in state statutes.

“Florida rejects the designs of the left to weaken our energy grid, pursue a radical climate agenda, and promote foreign adversaries,” Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) stated in a May 15 posting on X.

“Global elites want to reduce the standing and influence of America and the west. Florida says no!” stated a graphic that accompanied the posting.

On that day, DeSantis signed House Bill 1645 into law, which rescinded language in state laws that tried to address or reduce factors contributing to climate change.

As the governor’s statement put it, the law repeals “Obama-era” climate policies. No longer will the state set clean energy goals or take climate change into account in setting state energy policy. It will no longer make an effort to take a leading role in promoting energy conservation or attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. No longer will state agencies try to hold meetings in facilities that acknowledge climate change and try to be environmentally responsible. No longer will state schools, agencies or local governments try to buy reduced-carbon vehicles.

Moreover, local governments are now prohibited from taking environmental actions on their own to reduce energy use or cut down on carbon emissions.

Gas appliances? They can’t be touched by laws or regulations. In fact, the law promotes the use of natural gas.

And don’t think of putting up a wind farm. That’s prohibited along Florida shores (not that Florida has any at the moment).

All this comes a year after DeSantis rejected $354 million in federal funding for improved energy efficiency.

At the time, Rep. Kathy Castor (D-14-Fla.), who had chaired the US House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, accused DeSantis of “pickpocketing Floridians, making the cost of living more expensive. We’re already paying higher property insurance than anywhere else in the country, higher electric bills. He has been a disaster for clean energy and environment in Florida.”

Florida’s latest anti-environmental measures are especially ironic—and self-defeating—given that they apply to a state that is probably the most climatically vulnerable in the country and the most impacted by climate change.

What’s more, they’re out of synch with the perceptions and sentiments of a majority of Floridians.

Facts and the future

In February the Environmental Defense Fund, a global, non-profit think-tank, specifically focused on Florida and the likely impacts of climate change, presenting its findings in a graphic, interactive presentation titled Florida’s Climate Future.

Spoiler alert: all the impacts are bad. Thanks to climate change, when it comes to energy, Floridians can expect greater demands on the electric grid, rising electricity costs and inducing greater unreliability as the climate disrupts the supply. As it is, Florida is already the third-highest energy consuming state in the nation.

*A graphic presentation of the energy impact of climate change on Florida. The fully interactive version can be accessed here.*

Given rising heat, there will be more deaths from heat, more wildfires and hotter sea temperatures. As of last August, Collier County had over 80 days with a heat index over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Lee and Charlotte counties had between 70 and 80. If current trends continue, in 26 years, 2050, Collier County will have 126 days a year with temperatures over 100 degrees, Lee will have 112 and Charlotte will have 111. (And all this comes after the legislature banned cities, towns and counties from mandating heat breaks for outdoor workers.)

*A graphic presentation of the heat impact of climate change on Florida. The fully interactive version can be accessed here.*

But the worst impacts will likely come in storms and floods. “Extreme rain events” like hurricanes are increasing in frequency and intensity and there’s no reason to expect that will change any time soon. The state’s flatness and extensive coastlines already make it uniquely vulnerable to flooding and storm destruction. Hurricane Ian in 2022 was the first hurricane to result in over $100 billion in estimated damages. This is all exacerbated by warming sea temperatures, rising seas and a moister atmosphere.

*A graphic presentation of the impact of storms and floods due to climate change in Florida. The fully interactive version can be accessed here.*

These projections are not lost on property insurance companies who game out the state’s prospects into the far future. In addition to massive losses and payouts insurance companies have had to make for past disasters, the companies’ actuaries are telling their bosses that due to climate change, risks are rising with no prospect for change in the future. It’s a key reason that established insurance companies have fled the state and rates for Florida homeowners are skyrocketing.

A table from the Actuaries Climate Index showing the rising level of risk in the Southeast Atlantic region, which includes Florida. The red bars represent extreme weather events in each particular season. The black line is the level of risk. Note the frequency of the red bars after 2015. The interactive version of the chart can be accessed here.

Insurance companies aren’t swayed by the governor’s denials, the legislature outlawing climate change, or the votes of blindly fanatical climate deniers. They—and every other entity that has to weigh realistic choices—make decisions based on objective, scientific facts and rationally-determined risk.

By any calculation, the odds are very bad. So the companies have fled the state or are avoiding it altogether, to be replaced by less-established, questionable providers. Meanwhile, rates continue to rise for policyholders.

Analysis: Why the delusion?

In a state so subject to such obvious climatic changes, why does its elected leadership so resolutely refuse to acknowledge what is clearly underway?

Some answers seem obvious to even the most casual observer and they’re rooted in basic human nature.

There’s simple inertia, a refusal to acknowledge change in any form. There’s denial, the resistance to facing uncomfortable facts. There’s helplessness, a sense that no action will have any effect anyway.

Added to those are some political reasons peculiar to Florida.

There’s a fear of offending a constituency that’s older and resistant to change—which is also Republican.

Every spring and fall, Florida Atlantic University conducts a Florida Climate Resilience Survey to assess public attitudes on climate.

This year the survey, released on Tuesday, May 14, one day before the governor’s bill signing, found that belief in human-caused climate change had fallen among Florida Republicans from 45 percent to 40 percent—meaning that 60 percent of Republicans don’t believe human activity is a factor in climate change. That’s the 60 percent of Republican voters that Florida lawmakers need to win their primaries.

It also found that older voters are less likely to believe that human activity causes climate change than younger ones (50 percent of Floridians over 50 years of age don’t believe in climate change compared to 66 percent of Floridians under 50).

Given that older Republicans have a preponderant sway in primary elections, it’s far easier for Republican politicians to pander to this demographic than to serve the entire population of the state or do anything to halt or mitigate climate change’s ravages.

As DeSantis’ May 15 posting revealed, opposition to acknowledging climate change is also ideologically rooted. Climate-denying Republicans are still warring against the Green New Deal, a concept that sprouted in 2019 but has been moribund ever since, although it serves as a useful specter to scare a credulous base.

DeSantis has his own special anti-woke crusade that he had hoped to ride to the presidency this year. In his view, anything that smacks of concern for the environment or the planet or acknowledges climate change is lumped together under “wokeness” and is to be denounced and opposed.

DeSantis’ anti-environmentalism is somewhat poignant in that upon taking office in 2019 he drew a sharp distinction from his gubernatorial predecessor, Rick Scott (now senator). Scott had banished the term “climate change” from state government and resisted meeting with scientists to discuss the subject. (He ultimately met them, but only briefly.)

By contrast, DeSantis declared in his inaugural speech on Jan. 8, 2019: “For Florida, the quality of our water and environmental surroundings are foundational to our prosperity as a state—it doesn’t just drive tourism; it affects property values, anchors many local economies and is central to our quality of life,”

He continued: “We will fight toxic blue-green algae, we will fight discharges from Lake Okeechobee, we will fight red tide, we will fight for our fishermen, we will fight for our beaches, we will fight to restore our Everglades and we will never ever quit, we won’t be cowed and we won’t let the foot draggers stand in our way.”

Of course, all that was before his presidential ambitions fueled a culture war against everything “woke” including concern for the environment and the climate.

Now there is a new/old factor driving Florida’s climate change denial: Donald Trump.

Trump has long dismissed climate change as a “hoax.” He took the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord as president. In April, according to an account in The Guardian newspaper, he met with over 20 fossil fuel executives at Mar-a-Lago and promised to give them massive tax breaks and roll back environmental and climatic measures. These included barriers to drilling, a pause on gas exports, and new rules to cut car pollution—but there was an ask: he wanted $1 billion in campaign contributions in exchange.

“Meatball Ron,” having now bent the knee to Trump, has assumed Trump’s anti-environmentalism as well and so climate change denial is in full force in Florida.

Ironically, attitudes among the population of Florida are moving in a polar opposite direction. According to the Florida Climate Resilience Survey, 90 percent of Floridians believe that climate change is happening—even more than in the rest of the US population, where 72 percent believe it.

What is more, Floridians want state and federal government to do more to combat climate change: 68 percent of all respondents wanted more state government action and 69 percent wanted more from the federal government.

“Floridians support strengthening our resilience to the effects of climate change because they are experiencing it. The urgency to act means debate over causes is largely irrelevant,” professor Colin Polsky, founding director of Florida Atlantic University’s environmental school, stated when the survey was released.

While Republicans’ belief in human-caused climate change fell, that recognition surged among political independents, 64 percent of whom believe it, up 11 percent since the last survey in September 2023.

Republican rejection of climate change evidence is more pronounced in Southwest Florida than in the state as a whole.

There have been two regional surveys of public opinion regarding climate change. Both were conducted under the auspices of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. One was conducted a year after Hurricane Irma and released in 2019. The other was released in April 2022—but it was conducted before Hurricane Ian struck in September.

The 2022 Climate Metrics Survey of Southwest Florida found that “People who identify as Republicans are increasingly harder to engage with and persuade on issues of climate. Meanwhile, people who identify as Democrats continue to express significant concerns around climate change and support for solutions.”

Despite these partisan divides, “A total of 87 percent of adults say that climate change is happening either due to human activities (26 percent), natural causes (24 percent), or a combination of both human activities and natural causes (37 percent).” This was an increase from 2019, when 75 percent believed climate change was happening.

However, in 2022 there was greater cynicism about government’s ability to deal with the problem, less inclination toward taking action and greater fatalism toward stopping the change.

For all that, 85 percent of respondents favored modernizing the electric grid, 74 percent favored charging corporations for pollution they caused and 56 percent wanted their city or town to prepare for the impacts of climate change.

Did Hurricane Ian change any minds in Southwest Florida? It will be very interesting to see the next survey that measures attitudes after that storm—and after the 2024 hurricane season.

So taken together, all public opinion research indicates that the vast majority of Floridians believe there’s climate change, they’re acutely aware of it, they want something done about it, they believe government should take action to slow or mitigate it, and they believe humans are causing it to some degree.

However, in true Florida fashion, the state’s governor, its legislators and its whole top political echelon are moving in the exact opposite direction.

But facts are stubborn things. The governor, the legislature, climate-deniers and Donald Trump, Florida’s denier-in-chief, can deny that the climate is changing, they can legislate it out of existence in Florida law, they can prohibit speaking the words and they can (literally) stick their heads in the sand all they like—but the storms keep coming, the heat keeps increasing and the seas keep rising.

It seems that they won’t acknowledge the reality until the water is up to their eyeballs—and starts to boil around them.

Can everyday, sweltering Floridians make a difference? Of course they can, at the ballot box.

Climate change is a reality that no amount of propaganda, denial or delusion can erase. It’s up to Floridians who recognize that reality to reject candidates who deny it and vote like their lives depend upon it—because they do.

*A lone American flag flies over a devastated Times Square in Fort Myers Beach immediately after Hurricane Ian. (Photo: U.S. Air National Guard /Jesse Hanson)*

Liberty lives in light

The Donalds Dossier: Insurance, water and the power of PACs

*Water and insurance: the bane of Florida homeowners.*

May 5, 2024 by David Silverberg

Southwest Floridians know that their region is in the midst of a property insurance crisis and faces long-term water issues.

Insurance companies have left the state, people are having difficulty insuring their homes, and rates are skyrocketing. Much of the crisis is caused by repeated hurricanes devastating the area—and a new and potentially disastrous hurricane season looms.

The water issue is simply ensuring that safe, clean, unpolluted water is available to sustain life in the region.

Right now the water issue has reached a new inflection point. There’s a battle between the big sugar companies of Florida’s interior and environmental groups on the Gulf coast like Captains for Clean Water over how to use the water in a major reservoir.

In the midst of these existential problems, one might expect the congressman representing the area, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) to be actively engaged on behalf of the people of his district, roughly the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island.

However, an examination of the political action committees (PACs) contributing to his campaign reveal the heavy presence of Big Insurance and Big Sugar. It means he’s beholden to these industries financially and less likely to intervene when there’s a conflict between the interests of the companies and those of his constituents.

Which PACs have purchased a piece of Donalds? Their contributions are revealed in filings with the Federal Election Committee (FEC). While these contributions are legal and properly filed, they do reveal patterns of influence that explain Donalds’ handling—or neglect—of key issues vitally affecting Southwest Florida.

As it has since Donalds boasted that “the PACs didn’t get me elected” in 2021, The Paradise Progressive has issued periodic reports on his PAC support.

The issues go well beyond just insurance and sugar. PAC donations reveal a full spectrum of businesses and industries seeking to influence the congressman.

It needs to be stressed that none of this reporting alleges illegality or wrongdoing since these filings are in keeping with federal law. Also, to be compliant, none of these contributions are supposed to be given in exchange for a definite quid pro quo, a specific official action in return for a specific contribution. However, as will be seen, in one case contributions did perhaps “inspire” a very specific legislative initiative.

Big insurance

Donalds has a longstanding relationship with the insurance industry.

In the past session he sat on the House Small Business’ Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations Subcommittee, which oversaw regulations that included the heavily regulated insurance industry.

In this session he sits on the House Oversight and Accountability’s Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee.

On this committee he mainly used his position to bash the Biden administration for a wide variety of reasons, including many related to Hunter Biden and to pursue a presidential impeachment, which went nowhere. However, given the subcommittee involvement in regulatory affairs, it’s no surprise that the insurance industry saw fit to invest in his campaign in this cycle.

Some 16 insurance industry PACs contributed a total of $94,000 to the Donalds campaign in 2023. In the first quarter of 2024 he added $4,000 from the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, Inc., PAC and $7,000 from the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company Federal PAC.

The other insurance industry PACs contributing are (in alphabetical order): American Council of Life Insurers PAC; American Property Casualty Insurance Association PAC; Enact Holdings, Inc. PAC; Liberty Mutual Insurance Company – PAC; Metlife Inc. Employees’ Political Participation Fund A; Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation PAC; National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors PAC; National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies PAC; New York Life Insurance Company PAC; Protective Life Corporation Federal PAC; State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company Federal PAC; The Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers PAC; The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. Federal PAC; and the Wholesale and Specialty Insurance Association PAC.

The bottom line conclusion from all this is that in any conflict between constituents and insurance companies, Donalds is very beholden to the insurance industry and very unlikely to contradict the industry’s interests.

Big sugar and bad water

In Southwest Florida the sugar industry has a major presence. It has always been deeply involved in the legislative process either to maintain federal sugar subsidies or to fend off restrictive legislation.

The industry has also been accused in the past of contributing to the pollution of Lake Okeechobee, a charge the companies have vehemently denied. When released, polluted water from the lake flows down the Caloosahatchee River through Fort Myers, contributing to the growth of blue-green algae, threatening the health of both people and wildlife. The companies have denied causing the pollution and argued that they follow environmentally responsible practices.

However, right now a new battle has broken out.

Sugar companies are suing the US Army Corps of Engineers to access water from the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) reservoir rather than allow it to purify before flowing south into the Everglades and to the coast.

Environmental organizations like Captains for Clean Water are petitioning the sugar companies US Sugar Corp, Florida Crystals and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida to drop the lawsuit. If the lawsuit succeeds, according to the organization, the sugar companies will hoard the water at the expense of all other water users, change the purpose of the reservoir and could use it for their own purposes, polluting it. It could lead to events like the Big Bloom of 2018 when Southwest Florida was hit by both red tide and blue-green toxic algae blooms at the same time.

Donalds has been a major recipient of the sugar PACs’ largesse. In 2023 seven sugar industry PACs contributed a total of $11,000 to Donalds’ campaign. They were: the American Crystal Sugar Company PAC ($5,000), Amalgamated Sugar Company PAC ($1,500), the American Sugar Cane League of USA Inc. PAC ($1,000), the Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative Sugar PAC ($1,000), the Western Sugar Cooperative PAC ($1,000), Florida Sugar Cane League PAC ($1,000), and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida PAC ($500).

Big finance, big banking and big tech

In 2023, after the insurance industry, the next largest contribution, $70,000, was donated by 24 financial services PACs.

This was followed by 18 banking PACs contributing a total of $67,000.

Donalds’ seat on the Digital Assets subcommittee has also made him a magnet for big technology contributions. Accordingly, in 2023 he received donations from the Microsoft Corporation Stakeholders Voluntary PAC ($3,000), Comcast Corporation and NBC Universal PAC – Federal ($2,500), Google LLC NetPAC ($2,000), Meta Platforms PAC (the company owning Facebook) ($1,000), AT&T Inc. Employee Federal PAC ($1,000), Verizon Communications, Inc., PAC ($1,000) and Charter Communications Inc., PAC ($2,500), a broadband connectivity and cable operating company.

In the first quarter of 2024, Donalds received $3,500 more from Comcast/Universal PAC, $578 from ROC Media LLC, a company that does targeted digital messaging based variously out of Sheridan, Wy., and the Virgin Islands, and $258 from Better Mousetrap Digital, a Vancouver, Canada-based digital marketing company.

Energy, nuclear and fossil

Examination of Donalds’ 2023 contributions reveals some differences from his 2022 cycle.

One of the most striking changes is in the energy sector.

For all of the Sunshine State’s sunshine—and its potential for solar power—Donalds has instead championed nuclear power.

According to Congress.gov, 14 of Donalds’ 53 bills (roughly 26 percent) in the current Congress related to the nuclear power industry, mostly deregulating it or in some way favoring it.

(A note on this: Congress.gov is the official count of the US Congress. It shows Donalds sponsoring 53 standalone bills, nine resolutions and four amendments, or 66 pieces of legislation altogether in the 118th Congress. Donalds’ office counts him as sponsoring 77 pieces of legislation.)

Donalds benefited from energy industry PACs and seven of them contributed a total of $25,500 in the 2024 cycle. Fossil fuel PACs included those from the companies Sinclair, Valero, Marathon and Exxon Mobile as well as NextEra Energy, a utility infrastructure company, and Duke Energy, an energy holding company. Also contributing was the overall trade group for fossil fuels, the American Fuels and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association PAC.

While the fossil fuel companies have all diversified their energy sources in past years, it is interesting to note that the premier nuclear industry PAC, the Nuclear Energy Institute’s Federal PAC, did not make a contribution, which an observer might otherwise expect. Of course, that could change during the course of this year’s campaign.

Ideological PACs

In addition to industry PACs, Donalds received a variety of contributions from fellow members of Congress and ideologically-driven organizations.

In 2023 these included the Eye of the Tiger PAC run by House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-1-La.), which contributed $5,000 to Donalds’ campaign. The Scalise for Congress committee also contributed $2,000.

The Let’s Get to Work PAC of Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) donated $5,000. Other members of Congress whose PACs have contributed include: Reps. Jim Jordan (R-4-Ohio) (Jim Jordan for Congress, $2,000); Jason Smith (R-8-Mo.) (Mr. Southern Missourian in the House PAC, $5,000); Patrick McHenry (R-10-NC) (Innovation PAC, $5,000); and John James (R-10-Mich.) (Mission First People Always PAC, $2,000). Former Wisconsin congressman and current Fox News commentator Sean Duffy (Duffy for Wisconsin) contributed $2,000.

In the first quarter of 2024, the Lean Forward America Fund, run by Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-38-Texas), another African American conservative member of Congress, contributed an unusually large $15,601.74 to Donalds’ campaign.

The curious case of the Kochs and Americans for Prosperity

When he first ran for Congress in 2020 Donalds was backed by Americans for Prosperity, an ideological PAC backed by the extremely conservative David and Charles Koch brothers of Wichita, Kansas. Its contributions put him over the finish line in both the primary and general elections in what was then a very tight race.

But Americans for Prosperity is missing from this cycle’s list of Donalds’ PAC donors. One reason for that may be Donalds’ embrace of earmarks, special appropriations requested by members of Congress for their districts.

Initially denounced by Republicans, Party members changed tack in 2022, embracing earmarks first with disgust and then enthusiastically when they won control of the House.

In the first year that earmarks were again permitted Donalds didn’t bother to request any for the 19th Congressional District, subjecting him to local criticism (“SWFL loses out on federal millions when Donalds won’t ask for cash”). He has changed that since then and now entertains requests from constituents.

But that may have alienated Americans for Prosperity, which has remained staunchly anti-earmark despite the Republican change of heart.

Another reason may be that the Koch brothers very publicly backed former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for president and Donalds is an outspoken Trumper.

Whatever the reason, Americans for Prosperity were not among Donalds’ donors in this cycle.

However, the Koch Industries PAC remained a backer. It contributed a total of $4,000 in 2024 and $2,000 in 2023.

Analysis: The mother’s milk of politics

There has been money in politics going back to the days when Marcus Licinius Crassus bankrolled an aggressive young Roman politician named Julius Caesar.

It’s certainly nothing new. Money has been called the “mother’s milk of politics” and Byron Donalds certainly knows how to suck at that teat.

“Folks, I like money,” Donalds told the Conservative Political Action Committee on Feb. 25, 2022. “Can we be honest about this? I like money!”

Donalds may not be a productive lawmaker or an effective advocate for his Southwest Florida constituents but he is a relentless and persistent fundraiser.

His fundraising appeals have headlines like “Stopping the cheating Democrats dead in their tracks.” They feature statements like: “Next to Crooked Joe INTERFERING in the 2024 election, what’s the one common denominator across the Left’s many Witch Hunt [sic] against President Trump? SOROS. Soros-funded DAs, Soros-funded prosecutors – all accomplices to Crooked Joe’s attempt to DESTROY his chief political rival like a Third World Marxist.”

It’s shrill and extreme but it seems to work—and even if Donalds didn’t write this purple prose himself, it goes out under his name and with his approval.

Donalds enters his re-election campaign with a substantial war chest. According to the 2024 1st quarter filings, as of March 31 he had $3.2 million (or $3,249,767.73, to be exact) on hand. Of that, $2,259,178.60 came from individual contributions and of that roughly half, $1,166,795.32, came in donations under $200, so the donors don’t have to be individually reported. He has already spent $2.5 million ($2,571,446.38) on the campaign.

The PAC contributions are much more modest: a total of $371,134.15. But it’s the PAC contributions that reveal Donalds’ ties to the various industries and businesses that keep him in office.

And one case in particular reveals the connection between money and legislation and Byron Donalds.

The smokin’ stogey

The image of cigar-chomping politicians doing deals in reeking, smoke-filled back rooms with other puffing politicos is an old one.

But in the case of Donalds, when it comes to cigars, the scene is more literal.

Donalds is a fan of cigars. He even has a “cigar chair” in his Washington, DC office for the occasional smoke.

*Alex Lorusso, a conservative online journalist, works on an interview in Rep. Byron Donalds’ “cigar chair” in his Washington Office on Nov. 7, 2023. (Photo: Office of Rep. Donalds)*

But Donalds’ affinity for cigars goes well beyond simply smoking them—and illustrates the PAC-Congress connection.

Political contributions are supposed to be for general campaign purposes; they’re rarely tied to specific pieces of legislation or official actions—which if done improperly is illegal.

In the spring of 2023, Donalds received $5,000, the legal limit, from Swisher PAC, the political arm of Swisher International Inc., a tobacco company based in Jacksonville, Fla., which sells cigars among its many products. He also received $4,000 in two contributions from the Premium Cigar Association PAC, which represents high-end cigar and pipe tobacconists.

On Nov. 9, 2023 Donalds introduced House Joint Resolution (HJRes) 99 to “Amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to Exempt the Premium Cigar Industry from Certain Regulations.”

Under the bill a premium cigar would not be classified as a “tobacco product” and so would not be subject to regulations covering other tobacco products like cigarettes. These regulations include prohibiting sales of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21, marketing to children, selling fruit or candy-flavored products to entice underage children to smoke and making false or misleading claims that a tobacco product isn’t harmful.

The exemption has been the goal of the premium cigar industry for some time.

After introducing the bill, on Dec. 13 Donalds received an additional $1,000 from the Premium Cigar PAC.

Like the rest of Donalds’ legislative proposals, HJRes 99 hasn’t gone anywhere. It sits in the House Energy and Commerce’s health subcommittee, where it has remained since the day after it was introduced.

But it illustrates the relationship between PACs and members of Congress in general.

And in Donalds’ case that’s a pretty tight relationship.

*An archetypal scene of a smoke-filled room from the 1933 movie, The Invisible Man. (Image:Universal)*

Of historical note: This article marks the 500th post of The Paradise Progressive.

Liberty lives in light

Even challengers praise Collier County Election Supervisor

*Collier County voters participate in the 2018 election. (Photo: Author)*

April 29, 2024 by David Silverberg

Collier County’s Supervisor of Elections and her team are dedicated to providing “secure, ethical elections,” their work is “excellent,” “they do a great job” and “the way elections are run in Collier county, they are run smoothly.”

Those words of praise for county Supervisor of Elections (SoE) Melissa Blazier and her team came from—of all people—the two candidates who are trying to unseat her in this year’s Supervisor of Elections race by alleging election unreliability.

The unlikely accolades were uttered by Timothy Guerrette and David Schaffel as they testified regarding the “Resolution for a Legally Valid 2024 General Election” on Tuesday, April 23.

The resolution was introduced by Collier County Commissioner Chris Hall (R-District 2). It asserted that the 2022 election in Florida was faulty and it would have imposed new, disruptive conditions on the 2024 election count. Ultimately, the county Board of Commissioners chose not to advance it, effectively killing it.

Nonetheless, the fact that two of the candidates and the incumbent all testified at the meeting highlighted their respective policy prescriptions, qualifications and shed some light on what they might do in office.

Supervisor of Elections Melissa Blazier

Melissa Blazier, 46, is the current sitting SoE. She came out swinging against the resolution from the very moment it was shared with her by Commissioner Chris Hall (R-District 2).

In an April 18 message to Hall, she warned that his resolution was “deeply flawed and highly unnecessary” and “riddled with erroneous conclusions.”

Most of the resolution’s demands, she wrote, “are either already incorporated into existing law, are in direct violation of existing law or would require technology that is not yet available or authorized for use in the State of Florida” and asked him not to pass “this egregious resolution.”

She repeated these arguments when she testified remotely at the meeting.

Blazier has served as an election professional in Collier County for over 18 years.

“I was trained by the best, so for over 17 years I worked under Jennifer [Edwards, the previous supervisor] and I have no plans in changing the way that we conduct elections in Collier County, any of our voter registration, voter outreach, elections. Our goal is just to improve,” she told The Paradise Progressive in an interviewed published July 3, 2023.

Improvements are what Blazier and her office have been steadily making during her time in office, mostly of the unheralded, back-office variety, included improving access to archived information, handling public information requests, improving security and streamlining office processes.

In addition to her years of experience in the Supervisor’s office, Blazier 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.

Educationally, she has a magna cum laude Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Hodges University. In 2010 she graduated from the Associate Leadership Collier program spring class of 2010, the 2014 Leadership Collier class and the Leadership Marco class of 2019.

Since July 2023, Blazier has raised $69,104.55 for her campaign, according to county campaign finance records. Much of it was from her own pocket.

Tim Guerrette

Timothy Guerrette, 56, took a cautious position during the commission debate, calling for “a” resolution rather than “this” resolution.

“I want to let you know that I support a resolution that is seeking to improve our elections here in Collier County and send a message to Tallahassee we are pro-actively seeking ways here in Collier County to improve our elections,” he said.

He praised Collier County and its election staff for their dedication to “secure, ethical elections in Collier County.”

Guerrette has no previous election experience. He’s 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 and says in a campaign video that he will bring “competence and integrity back into the voting process.” During his testimony he said that wanted to make sure that Collier County remained the “gold standard” of elections and that once in office he’d make sure that “We are running smooth elections, there is nothing to see here.”

Since beginning his quest for office in March 2023, Guerrette has raised $113,772.93, according to Collier County campaign finance records. 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.

He also received contributions from members of the Collier County Board of Commissioners. Commissioner Rick LoCastro (R-District 1) contributed $260.25 in September 2023 and Commissioner Dan Kowal (R-District 4) contributed $600 in November.

David Schaffel

Dave Schaffel, 63, fully supported the resolution.

Schaffel presented himself as “a resident here in Collier County. I spent my entire 40-year career in the information technology field in the private sector specializing in big databases, data analysis, business intelligence and security. I’ve been a successful IT entrepreneur, investor and public company executive.”

However, nowhere in his testimony did he provide any specifics of employment, names of companies or institutions, educational qualifications, past election involvement or specific accomplishments as an entrepreneur. His website is similarly vague.

Nonetheless, he said, “In the last few years I have immersed myself in learning about the technology behind our election systems as well as the Florida election statutes that oversee the process.”

While strongly supporting the resolution, he also made the point “that this resolution in no way disparages or criticizes the excellent work of the many volunteers that work the polling places during our elections or the many hardworking public servants employed in the Collier County Supervisor of Elections office.”

Suspicion of election results is the cornerstone of his campaign. A campaign video opens with questions about the result of the 2020 election. “Corrupt, bloated and out-of-touch bureaucrats are almost always the problem and rarely the solution,” he says. He calls himself a “rock-solid conservative and America First patriot.”

In his testimony to the commissioners, Schaffel had a great many suspicions about aspects of Florida elections including voting by mail, chains of custody and machine versus hand counts of ballots, although he made no specific charges (which were included in the resolution).

He said he and other election activists had been rebuffed in Tallahassee when they tried to promote legislative change in voting procedures. They were convinced that technological vulnerabilities had led to hacking and vote-flipping. As an example, he said that a street had its addresses flipped to create undeliverable mail but he provided no specifics or sources for the charge. It was unclear whether this incident even occurred in Florida at all.

Ultimately, he opposed the use of technology in general. “As a technologist…when it comes to our elections, given our current statutes and our current lack of transparency, that less technology would be the best,” he said.

For all that, when questioned by Commissioner Burt Saunders (R-District 3), Schaffel had nothing but praise for Blazier and her office.

Asked if he was satisfied by the way elections were conducted in the county, Schaffel responded, “Yes, I think the way elections are run in Collier county, they’re run smoothly.”

While he didn’t trust election machine companies and the tendency of officials to accept their assurances, he had no problem with the office or staff.

“This is not a disparagement – they are doing their jobs in that office,” he said. “They do a great job of running the election according to statute. And I want to make it absolutely clear that that is the case.”

To date, Schaffel has received $12,447.54 in campaign contributions, mostly from his own pocket. However, one notable outside contribution came on Jan. 12 of this year: $1,000 from the Friends of Chris Hall Political Action Committee—the commissioner who introduced the election resolution.

Analysis: Making the system work

The discontent with election processes reflected in the election-alteration resolution is an echo of election denialism from the 2020 presidential election and Blazier’s two challengers reflect this.

By their own testimony they denied that there was anything at all wrong with Blazier’s performance or that of the Collier County’s elections office. They praised the volunteers and professionals who conduct the county’s elections.

Why, then, are they running? Is the SoE office so lucrative and desirable that it’s worth spending all the money they’re investing to attain it? Is it so powerful that it can change the world?

Both Guerrette and Schaffel are running on the suspicion that something is wrong in elections.

Schaffel is more specific of the two, pointing to supposed vulnerabilities in vote counting and communications and alleging hacking and vote-flipping—without providing specifics. He’s a proponent of the anti-machine wing of the election-denial movement, one that sees hand counts as more reliable, a position taken by local farmer and grocer Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III.

But neither has any experience or relevant credentials in election administration. Guerrette comes out of the world of law enforcement and has some management experience but it’s nothing that compares with Blazier’s 18-plus years specifically in the Collier County office.

Both say they want “improvements” in election management. But the Collier County SoE has been improving steadily and incrementally throughout its history—and someone like Blazier knows where improvements need to be made. Neither Guerrette nor Schaffel would actually be in a position to make knowledgeable improvements if elected.

As was pointed out repeatedly during the commissioners’ meeting, Hall didn’t question his own election results and that’s been true with election-deniers since 2020; they’re so obsessed with contesting the top line races they ignore all the other down-ballot results. In 2022 Collier County conducted 44 different elections, from state and county officials, to constitutional amendments, to judges to bond issues, none of which have been criticized.

Given the deep-seated disbelief and mistrust among a slice of Collier County voters, there is no result and no solution that would ever allay their suspicions. Indeed, electing either of them would make Collier County elections far less reliable and compliant.

Sometimes it takes the people in place who know how to make something work to make it actually work properly. That’s the case in Collier County.

Both Guerrette and Schaffel, when pressed, acknowledged that Collier County has had clean, honest, competently administered elections. That’s the result of the experienced, knowledgeable administration of Melissa Blazier. Neither offered anything better.

The conclusion seems inescapable: When it comes to the Office of Election Supervisor in Collier County, Fla., perhaps there is no wisdom wiser than that in the old saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”—and by their own admission, the challengers don’t believe anything here needs fixing.

*Collier County, Fla., voters line up to cast their ballots in the 2020 election. (Photo: Author)*

Liberty lives in light

A rare moment in time: Abortion dangers and possibilities in the Sunshine State

*A demonstration in favor of women’s reproductive rights at the Collier County, Fla., Courthouse on Oct. 2, 2021. (Photo: Author)*

April 10, 2024 by David Silverberg

Imagine, if you will, that it is a few minutes to midnight on Tuesday, April 30, 2024.

In Florida’s towns and cities crowds gather in the darkness on courthouse steps and town squares to mark the imminent implementation of the “Heartbeat Protection Act,” the state’s six-week abortion ban.

At each gathering, speakers address the crowds, many of the women in Handmaid costumes. As the clock nears midnight, the speaker raises a copy of the pamphlet containing the Roe versus Wade decision.

Then, at midnight, the speaker sparks a flame and sets the Supreme Court decision alight, marking the end of a woman’s right to choose in Florida.

*A burning copy of the Roe v. Wade decision. (Photo illustration: Slate)*

The pamphlet burns quickly. An assistant strikes a bell that mournfully tolls 12 times. The fire dies into darkness. The bell’s sound fades into a solemn moment of silence. It is one minute past midnight, May 1, 2024.

Then spotlights come up and focus on the unscrolling of large banner that has on it the words of Amendment 4:

“No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”

The crowd cheers and waves small flags bearing the words of the amendment that were earlier distributed. They chant: “My body, my choice, my vote, my voice.” And then they march.

The media visuals are spectacular and spread across the state, the nation and the world.

And the battle to pass Amendment 4 is formally joined.

Or perhaps that’s too dramatic and impractical. Maybe anti-choice towns and cities in Florida won’t provide a permit for a midnight gathering or it’s too much to organize on short notice.

Maybe a less complex form of observance is also an option.

Perhaps at midnight on April 30-May 1 supporters of Amendment 4 can open their windows or go outside on their porches, and decks and lanais and simply bang a pot or pan for five minutes to register their protest and alert the world that they are mobilized and ready to work to change Florida’s Constitution.

It’s a common form of protest in countries where people fear retaliation and punishment for their views. There’s even a name for it: “cacerolazo,” a Spanish word derived from “stew pot” (similar to the word “casserole”) and it’s a time honored type of dissent. In recent years it was mostly used in South America to demonstrate against everything from government repression to economic austerity.

Imagine a cacophony of banging pots rising from Florida’s midnight darkness; a protest—and a warning.

Whatever form it takes, the coming into force of Florida’s abortion ban should not go unmarked.

But this year the abortion fight has an interesting wrinkle and it’s one that pro-choice activists should use to the max.

A wrinkle of timing

When the Florida Supreme Court issued its abortion rulings on April 1 it set up an interesting political dynamic.

In one ruling it declared that the six-week abortion ban could go into effect in 30 days. That is scheduled to occur at midnight, May 1.

In another ruling it declared that Amendment 4 legalizing abortion could go on the ballot and be decided on Election Day, Nov. 5.

It is 188 days (6 months and 4 days) between those dates.

During that time Florida women will be stripped of a right to choose that they enjoyed for the previous 50 years under Roe v. Wade. They will feel what it is like to lose a fundamental right, to have a heavy hand descend on their lives and have no recourse or appeal. The media will carry stories like those in the past from Ohio and Indiana or Texas about Florida women who suffer because Florida has outlawed safe, legal abortion.

But that period also provides a powerful incentive for pro-choice advocates to make their case for passing Amendment 4 with the 60 percent majority they need to add it to the Florida Constitution.

It should not be allowed to slip away.

Reactions and implications

There has now been sufficient time to react to the Florida Supreme Court’s rulings and across the board, political analysts and pundits view it as a disaster for Florida Republicans both in the state and quite possibly nationally. A tsunami of commentary is already breaking and will gather force and volume as Election Day draws nearer. (Of note: Early voting begins Oct. 26.)

Still, some voices stand out.

President Joe Biden’s campaign is arguing that the abortion decisions make Florida winnable for Democrats.

“We definitely see Florida in play, and unlike Donald Trump, we have multiple pathways to 270 [Electoral College votes] that we’ve been able to keep open,” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, the campaign manager for the Biden-Harris reelection team, told reporters after the Supreme Court rulings.

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Florida Democratic candidate for Senate, called the rulings “a game-changer.”

“I think that millions of Floridians regardless of party, we know that this is not a partisan issue, are going to come out to the ballot box and make sure they protect their right to choose and their freedom,” she stated. She has used the rulings to hammer her opponent, Sen. Rick Scott, who supports a national abortion ban.

Florida pundit and Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson, who had a long career as a down and dirty Republican political operative, called the rulings “consequential” in a post titled, “Welcome To Ground Zero: Florida Puts Abortion On The Ballot.”

The amendments, he wrote, “will reshape the race in Florida — particularly down-ballot,” overturning Republican calculations. “This was the last thing they wanted,” he noted.

“Pissed-off women are dangerous women, and the six-week bans on abortion are having a massive political ripple effect in the country,” he wrote. “The Florida Democrats should focus on tightening the GOP’s current 800,000 registration advantage and ramping turnout with women voters.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who pushed for the six-week ban when he was running for president and signed it into law, struck back—feebly.

At a press conference in Davie, Fla., on April 4, DeSantis said that Florida voters would reject Amendment 4 and an amendment to legalize recreational marijuana as too radical and “very, very extreme.”

He also expressed a belief that many Florida voters are too ignorant to understand or vote for the amendments.

“I think Florida voters over the past four or five cycles have developed a skepticism on these amendments generally because they’re always written in ways that are confusing,” he said. “You don’t necessarily know what the intent’s going to be. So I think there’s a certain segment of voters, they default. Just vote ‘no’ on these things. Because they know that these things cost tens of millions of dollars to get on.”

Alleged vagueness in the wording was also the argument used by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and her allies when they argued against including Amendment 4 on the ballot before the Supreme Court.

But the Supreme Court rejected their arguments. “Here, there is no lack of candor or accuracy,” stated the Court’s opinion. “…the ballot language plainly informs voters that the material legal effects of the proposed amendment will be that the government will be unable to enact laws that ‘prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict’ previability abortions or abortions necessary to protect the mother’s health. It is undeniable that those are the main and material legal effects of the proposed amendment.”

(The entire ruling is available for download at the end of this article.)

The rulings also had the effect of forcing Donald Trump, Florida resident and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, to issue a statement to clarify his position on abortion, which he did in a video on April 8. In it he took credit for appointing the US Supreme Court judges who overthrew Roe v. Wade, said that abortion should be left to the states and then declined to either endorse a national ban, as anti-choice activists had hoped, or set a time limit when abortions should be legal.

*One view of Trump’s abortion position. (Illustration: M. Wuerker/Politico)*

His operative paragraph was: “My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint. The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state. Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be.”

*Another cartoonist’s view of Trump’s abortion statement. (Illustration: Andy Marlette)*

It was a statement that attempted to have it all ways and it satisfied no one. Today, Wednesday, April 10, while questioned on a tarmac in Atlanta, Ga., Trump said he would not sign a national abortion ban if elected president.

Analysis: A rare moment in time

The timing of both the ban and the amendment present Floridians with an extremely rare political opportunity. Like a slingshot propelling a stone, the ban will give force, momentum and impact to the amendment effort. With the experience of repression, people will know and understand what they’re trying to achieve by passing the amendment.

The momentum is not all on one side, of course. Opponents will know that they have to preserve a ban that’s already in place. But at the moment, there is little evidence of the enthusiasm and determination to match the pro-choice side. However, opponents can be expected to mobilize so the conflict will be intense.

Another positive indicator for amendment advocates is the success of pro-choice measures in previous elections, even in very conservative states.

Wilson noted this in his analysis.

“The Democrats should take lessons from the abortion ballot questions in Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio,” he wrote, referring to recent victories for abortion rights.

“This isn’t simply about abortion qua abortion.

“It’s about the heavy hand of government overreach. It’s about Ron DeSantis deciding when you should know if you’re pregnant. It’s about monitoring women. It’s about turning doctors into criminals.

“The winning formula is out there on this issue. Democrats would be wise to use it. The ads, messages, and strategies in successful models of this issue are more libertarian than you might expect…and draw a percentage of women Republicans and conservative-leaning independents across the line.”

In all, Florida—and other states, like Arizona—are poised for an epic battle over women’s abortion rights, one that will ripple down the ballot and shape the nation.

It’s a rare moment in history, as rare as a solar eclipse.

But unlike an eclipse, its outcome is in the hands of the people on the ground. And in this case, those people can ensure that the sun comes out to once again shine on the Sunshine State.

*The solar eclipse of April 8, 2024. (Image: NASA)*

Click on the button to download a copy of the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling on Amendment 4.

04-01-24-fl-supreme-court-amendment-4-opinion_sc2023-1392 Download
Florida Supreme Court Ruling

Liberty lives in light

An exemplary election, a MAGA defeat and a stage set for November: Lessons from the Naples City election

*Collier County Supervisor of Elections Melissa Blazier at work. (Photo: Author)*

April 2, 2024 by David Silverberg

The election for the Mayor and City Council of the City of Naples is now finalized, certified and complete—and holds some lessons for voters both in Southwest Florida and beyond.

On Friday, March 29, the Collier County Canvassing Board certified the results for the non-partisan election. The incumbent mayor, Teresa Heitmann, won her race by 22 votes over competitors Councilman Gary Price and Ted Blankenship. A race for a third seat on the city council was decided by 34 votes.

*The final results of the Naples City election. (Chart: Supervisor)*

Because the margins were so tight—in the initial, unofficial count on election night, Heitmann was leading by just 12 votes—both races were subject to recounts.

For those unfamiliar with it, the City of Naples, Florida is a small, incorporated municipality of roughly 19,000 people. It resides within Collier County, whose Supervisor of Elections oversees its elections. There were 16,726 eligible voters in this contest, according to the Elections Office and turnout ran about 51 percent.

On the one hand, the smallness of the sample and the specificity of the issues—chiefly, controlling development—in the race make the election results unique to the city.

But on the other hand, given the closeness of the races and the ideological intensity of some of the partisans and candidates, there are larger lessons to be learned.

Lesson 1: Competence won

First, despite the smallness of the electorate, this was not a simple election. Whenever an election is this close and the outcome this uncertain, the supervisor and team overseeing the election count have to be at the top of their game to ensure the accuracy, integrity and legality of the results.

Indeed, sometimes simply making a system function as it ought is a true test of competence and effectiveness. Elections have been under scrutiny and pressure ever since Donald Trump decided to reject the results of the 2020 ballot and lie about its outcome.

In this regard, the Collier County elections office, under the leadership of Supervisor Melissa Blazier, acquitted itself in exemplary fashion. It’s in such instances that the 17 years of experience she had in election management come into play and prove its value.

While there were rumors and accusations about the results, Blazier addressed them in an X posting around noon on the day of the recount.

“Hi! Us again to alert you to some misinformation regarding the City of Naples mayoral race. We get it – the City of Naples races were CLOSE! So close we did a machine recount for both the mayoral race and for city council. The recounts confirmed the results of both races.

“There are some rumors out there that provisional ballots could have changed the results of the mayoral contest, particularly provisional ballots that were cast due to party affiliation,” she wrote. She noted that Florida is a closed primary state where voters must be members of the party on the ballot to vote in the primary and that they had to change their party affiliation by Feb. 20 to vote in the Presidential Preference Primary, which was held the same day.

“On March 22, the canvassing board was presented with 18 provisional ballots due to voters disputing their political party affiliation and casting an illegal ballot which were all rejected by the canvassing board in accordance with Florida election law.”

She continued: “During the review of these 18 provisional ballots, the canvassing board and members of the public who observed the process were presented with the voters’ information and evidence as to why the provisional ballots should be rejected in accordance with Florida election law. This included where the voters live. All 18 of these provisional ballots were not located within the City of Naples which means that the ballot they were issued did not contain the mayor or city council race.”

To date, these conclusions have not been challenged.

In fact, Councilman Ted Blankenship, the third place finisher in the mayoral race, conceded defeat the night of the election, stating in a Facebook post:

“God Bless Naples!

“Thank you to each and every one of you for standing behind me. Together, we ran a race focused on the issues important to our community and our country.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t work out in our favor.

“It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve the people of Naples these last four years. I am disappointed in the results of tonight’s election, but my love for this community has not diminished in the slightest.

“Best wishes to those who were elected to serve our great town!”

Blankenship demonstrated civility and his concession was principled; unlike Trump, he didn’t call fraud or disparage the parties involved.

But his defeat provided its own lesson.

Lesson 2: MAGA doesn’t rule Naples

*Alfie Oakes shakes hands with Ted Blankenship during a campaign meeting at his restaurant, Food & Thought 2. (Photo: Blankenship Campaign)*

The city election was non-partisan in the sense that the candidates did not run under party labels. But that is not to say that parties and partisans weren’t involved.

Blankenship was the Make America Great Again (MAGA) candidate, endorsed by grocer and farmer Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III, an extreme Trumper and MAGA activist. Oakes’ Citizens Awake Now Political Action Committee contributed to his campaign. He was also endorsed by the Collier County Republican Executive Committee, where Oakes is a committeeman, and which contributed $20,000 and an advertisement worth $1,500.

The city results contrasted with the past results in Collier County, where in the 2022 election all the Oakes-endorsed candidates won their races for the county Board of Commissioners and School Board, giving him almost complete dominance of the county. In this he effectively mobilized his thousands of MAGA followers and his Seed to Table market as a political platform.

The resulting county dominance has resulted in passage of anti-federal ordinances, an anti-science inspired restrictive public health law and termination of fluoridation of the county’s water.

But the city election proved that Oakes’ sway stopped at the city line. This came despite the overwhelming Republican advantage in registered voters (10,526 Republicans to Democrats’ 2,523). The results prove that a majority of Naples Republicans are not MAGA/Oakes Republicans—essentially, they’re two separate parties.

Lesson 3: Every single vote counts

There is nothing like an election whose outcome is decided by 22 ballots to drive home the point that absolutely every single vote counts—and that the counting must be done honestly and accurately.

The City of Naples election will hardly rock the nation—but in the upcoming election that will determine the next president, whether women will have the right to choose and if marijuana will be legalized, every single ballot will be precious and prized.

That election will also determine whether Blazier will retain her position as Supervisor of Elections. In this she’s up against two opponents who have absolutely no previous experience in election management and whose chief motivations for running are the discredited conspiracy theories and Big Lie allegations lingering from the 2020 election.

Tim Guerrette in particular, is backed by Oakes and as of last November had received over $89,000 in cash and over $18,000 in in-kind contributions as compared to Blazier’s roughly $62,000 and nearly $9,000 in in-kind contributions.

Guerrette has nothing like the experience and knowledge that Blazier brings to the task. Oakes has attacked machine counting of ballots, which was crucial in ensuring the accuracy of the Naples results so Guerrette would presumably terminate that if he was able.

Ultimately, if a MAGA candidate won the Supervisor of Elections position in November, voters in Collier County would never again have the confidence that their votes were being accurately, competently and neutrally counted—and in a tight election like that of Naples, that would make a big difference.

While the City of Naples election may not have been a preview of the outcome of the August 20 primary election and the Nov. 5 general election, these are some of the important lessons it provided.

And it brought home again just how critical it is for every citizen to have the vote, to exercise it—and to preserve it by keeping America a democracy.

For more information and analysis of the City of Naples election and in particular the funding behind it, see Sandy Parker’s Analyzing the 2024 Naples Mayor and City Council Elections.

Liberty lives in light

The Donalds Dossier: A ‘bloodbath’ defense, a dictator’s VP and the future of a soul

*Former President Donald Trump with Rep. Byron Donalds (Photo: Office of Byron Donalds)*

March 20, 2024 by David Silverberg

Last Saturday, March 16, Donald Trump, campaigning in Ohio, said: “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.” Given Trump’s past encouragement of violence and his past incitement of a mob attack on the US Capitol, the resulting furor might be understandable. However, Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republicans rushed to Trump’s defense, saying that he was only referring to the auto industry.

*Republican candidate Donald Trump makes his “bloodbath” statement at a rally in Ohio. (Image: YouTube)*

One of the MAGA loyalists vociferously defending Trump was Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), whose Southwest Florida district covers the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island.

“FAKE NEWS ALERT,” he posted on X the next day. “Yesterday, President Trump held a rally in OH. He spoke about how outsourcing the US auto industry would create an economic bloodbath. Now media is deliberately twisting his words in an attempt to dupe the American people. This ‘bloodbath’ hoax is SHAMEFUL.”

In and of itself Donalds’ reflexive defense of Trump was unsurprising. However, another statement was, in its way, even more extreme.

On March 7, Donalds was asked in an interview with the newssite Axios whether if he served as vice president in a Trump administration he would certify the Electoral College votes in the 2028 election.

Donalds said he wouldn’t do so automatically. “If you have state officials who are violating the election law in their states … then no, I would not,” he said, adding that “I already know” states did not follow election laws in 2020.

When asked if he agreed with then-Vice President Mike Pence’s certification of the results on Jan. 6, 2021, Donalds said “you can only ask that question of Mike Pence,” (which doesn’t answer the question, since Donalds was being asked for his opinion of Pence’s actions and had nothing to do with Pence’s opinion).

Donalds’ response raises the possibility—indeed, the likelihood—that if Trump won the presidency with Donalds as vice president, Donalds would enable a possible permanent, lifetime, unelected Trump presidency (really, a dictatorship) by tossing out Electoral votes in any election certification over which he presided.

Donalds is already on record voting to overturn the 2020 election, which he did on Jan. 6, 2021 before the Capitol was invaded by the Trump-incited mob that Donalds characterized that day as “lawless vigilantes” and “a bunch of lunatics.”

That day too, Pence certified the election results—for which action the mob attempted to lynch him.

Eyes on the rise

Donalds’ defense of a Trump “bloodbath” and his willingness to support a lifetime Trump presidency once again puts the spotlight on his longstanding quest to become Trump’s vice president.

Donalds himself has become coy about his aspirations. Last year when the idea apparently first occurred to him or he had some encouragement, he seemed especially eager. Last June he posted in a fundraising message: “…I haven’t heard nearly as much discussion about who the Republican nominee for Vice President should be. It’s critical that the nominee is another America First warrior who will stand up to the radical Left no matter what kind of witch hunts the radical Left and the Deep State throw at the ticket.” There was little doubt who he had in mind.

But in October last year when asked about a potential vice presidential slot at a Fort Myers town hall, according to a Naples Daily News article, he responded, “The speculation is out there. I’ve not talked to the president about it (but) if he goes, ‘All right, Byron, that’s what I want you to do,’ then yeah, all right let’s roll. Because you know it’s about the country.”

Nothing seems to have happened in the intervening time to indicate that Donalds is any closer to being tapped for vice president than was the case then. In fact, if anything, Donalds is further from the possibility.

But it’s worth asking, from Trump’s perspective: what would Donalds bring to a Trump ticket?

Assets

In a traditional political calculation, the vice presidential candidate is picked to balance the top of the ticket based on region, ideology, race, age or gender. Presumably, this “balance” attracts sufficient voters to make a winning majority.

Of course Donald Trump has tossed away all traditional calculations. There’s just no telling what his criteria would be for his vice presidential candidate—although the high likelihood is that it would be blind personal loyalty, subservience and a willingness to obey any command no matter how criminal, unconstitutional or even treasonous, especially given that he encouraged the attempted lynching of Pence when he refused to commit an unconstitutional act at Trump’s command.

But based on traditional calculations, the first and most obvious thing that Donalds would bring to a Trump ticket is just the fact that he is African American.

At its most basic, an African American on the ticket would shield Trump from charges of racism. It might attract the votes of a small sliver of other African Americans.

But Donalds is not the only African American willing to provide racial cover for Trump. He is competing with the much more prominent Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) who ran his own race for president, lost, and then very conspicuously endorsed the man who beat him.

The same applies to Ben Carson, who did the same thing in 2016. After his failed presidential bid he was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the administration. Carson has been actively serving as a Trump surrogate on the campaign trail.

So Donalds must stand out in some other way and the way he appears to have chosen is by ostentatiously trumpeting his total personal allegiance and loyalty to Trump on every media platform available. He has completely bought into every Trump policy and position, no matter how extreme. He has relentlessly attacked President Joe Biden and his administration, proclaimed his belief in the Big Lie of a stolen election in 2020 and was the first Florida Republican politician to endorse Trump when he announced his current run in November 2022.

Yet, for all this loud loyalty, Trump has repeatedly snubbed and ignored Donalds since he first ran for Congress in 2020. (See “The Donalds Dossier: He’s just not that into you, Byron,” Oct. 30, 2023.)

The public can only guess why Trump continues to overlook and ignore Donalds. However, there are some liabilities that might be factors.

Liabilities

The first liability is that aside from a tiny fraction of the extremely conservative congressional Freedom Caucus, Donalds has no base of his own and what there is, is tenuous as well. It appears to consist mainly of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-3-Colo.), who appears about to lose her seat, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-14-Ga.), who was kicked out of the Freedom Caucus for being too extreme even for its members, and Rep. Chip Roy (R-21-Texas), who nominated Donalds for Speaker in January 2023.

*Rep. Byron Donalds sits uncomfortably between Reps. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene while they both heckle President Joe Biden during his State of the Union speech in 2022. (Photo: Reuters)*

His support from other members of Congress is small, judging from the few PACs that contributed to his campaign in 2023. These include House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-1-La.), whose Eye of the Tiger PAC contributed $5,000 to Donalds’ campaign in 2023 as well as Scalise for Congress, which contributed $2,000. Other members of Congress whose PACs have contributed include Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Reps. Jim Jordan (R-4-Ohio), Jason Smith (R-8-Mo.), Patrick McHenry (R-10-NC), John James (R-10-Mich.) and former Wisconsin congressman and current Fox News commentator Sean Duffy.

After two terms Donalds is relatively unknown to the public at large, although he’s been working hard to become more prominent. But he would bring no national following to the ticket. Voters, especially black voters, would be mystified by his presence and likely as not would recoil from what they discovered on closer examination.

Also, despite his clear and undisguised ambition, Donalds has lost every election that he’s entered among his fellow Republican members of Congress. He lost his bid to be Republican conference chair and two bids to become Speaker of the House.

He made these efforts despite having a record that did not qualify him for an office higher than the one he already occupies. He has no significant legislative successes to date, nor can he boast of any congressional achievements, either major or minor. He’s still just a sophomore lawmaker grasping for promotion to the junior class. He doesn’t stand out intellectually, influentially or politically. (It was his presumption in this regard that enraged TV host Joy Reid when she interviewed him following his first bid for the Speakership.)

There is some debate whether a vice president could come from the same state as the president but this has largely been dismissed by analysts, who believe it would be permissible. However, it would introduce a complicating factor and element of uncertainty into any campaign.

More significant would be the searing scrutiny Donalds would undergo as a vice presidential candidate—and which he might not survive. He has already admitted to a drug-related arrest as a young man but there have been previous allegations of wrongdoing that would be re-investigated with far more rigor than in the past.

His private life would become wide open, including all the circumstances of his first marriage, divorce and remarriage. Any other skeletons would tumble out of their closets as well.

In examining the totality of Donalds’ pronouncements, actions and legislation, the portrait that emerges is that of a professional politician, almost wildly driven to rise on the national stage in any venue he can find; it doesn’t matter if that’s as a vice presidential candidate, a gubernatorial candidate or a House Republican leader.

The steppingstone

For voters in the 19th Congressional District, these are abstract considerations over which they have no influence. But in practical, immediate terms, what does Donalds’ approach mean for voters in Southwest Florida, who will have to decide whether to renew his contract in November?

“We’re a stepping stone for him in his ‘illustrious’ career,” Kari Lerner, Donalds’ Democratic opponent, said in an interview with The Paradise Progressive earlier this month. “I think the people of Southwest Florida deserve more than to be a stepping stone. I think they deserve more than to be stepped upon.”

Donalds’ political rise is not going to be enabled by attending to the mundane needs of his Southwest Florida district. There, the ongoing concerns are water, development, population growth, algal blooms, the Everglades, conservation and the tourist economy with the occasional hurricane recovery thrown in—hardly sexy national issues that are springboards to higher office. As Lerner noted, for Donalds Southwest Florida is a steppingstone, not a destination.

So while he has done things like submitting earmarks for projects benefiting the district—after some intense prodding—and writing letters when his constituents were afflicted with industrial pollution, his legislative record regarding his district’s core concerns is barely existent. He has not used whatever leverage he has in the Republican House and with the Republican leadership to advance any meaningful measure improving the lives, health or prosperity of his constituents beyond simply introducing 59 bills that have almost all gone nowhere. (Only one, the FISHES Act, House Resolution 5103 has had a subcommittee hearing.)

Instead, he has pounded the media pavements at every opportunity to raise his profile, grasped at every possible opening for higher position and made sure to reaffirm his utterly blind and unquestioning loyalty to Donald Trump.

This does not rebound to the district’s benefit, especially with Gov. Ron DeSantis, on whom Donalds turned his back in favor of Trump. The governor is in a position to veto appropriations to the region or dispense any favors or assistance if needed and he’s known to keep score and retaliate.

Basically, Southwest Florida has an ambitious but distracted representative whose chief focus is on his next possible step up the political ladder rather than on the sands and substance of the district he calls home (and that just barely, since gerrymandering is the only reason his home address is in the district’s boundaries—a favor of the governor, by the way).

On Nov. 5, Donalds’ contract will be up for renewal. District voters should think long and hard whether they should vote to renew it. In a year when so many loyal, traditional, lifelong Republicans have been exiled from the Party by Donald Trump, do they really want to send back to Washington to act and speak on their behalf a fanatically subservient Trumper, a man who is willing to do whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump president for life? This might be the year they want to make a change.

Meanwhile, Donalds has pursued—and is likely to keep pursuing—offices for which he is unqualified by any record of achievement as measured by traditional political calculations and expectations. In each case he has failed to attain his goals when subjected to the judgment of his peers and political elders.

Of course, in this he is likely encouraged by the example of his idol and hero, who attained the highest office in the land despite a complete absence of qualifications, knowledge or fitness.

As he has throughout his political career in Southwest Florida, Donalds has had to square a very difficult circle: he’s an African American in an 85 percent white, heavily conservative MAGA district, where a significant strain of white racism could be expected to influence voting.

What is more, he is mightily laboring in service to a presidential candidate whose racism is blatant, undisguised and appears to extend to Donalds himself.

Donalds has overcome this contradiction by presenting himself as even more extremely Trumpist/MAGA than the most extreme MAGAs in his district and nationwide—with the possible exception of Donald Trump himself.

Clearly, Donalds’ calculation is that the purity of his belief and loyalty will be sufficient for his MAGA voters, his fellow congressional Republicans and Donald Trump himself to overcome any racial prejudice they may harbor. Put another way, they’ll accept him if he’s sufficiently useful to their cause.

The irony is that Donalds’ rise in electoral politics to this point and in this place would have been impossible without the civil rights, racial integration and African American political success of the past century, progress that Trump, MAGAs and white supremacists are trying to undo by making America “great” again.

And, of course, if Trump is elected and establishes a dictatorship, as Donalds has stated he is willing to enable, there won’t be any electoral politics any more for anyone to rise, much less African Americans of any ideological persuasion.

Joe Biden ran for president at age 76 in 2020 because he recognized that he was fighting for nothing less than the soul of America.

An unkind critic might liken Donalds’ defense of Trump’s bloodbath pronouncement and willingness to promote a Trump dictatorship to selling his own soul to gain worldly prominence and power.

The state of Donalds’ soul is up to Donalds himself, of course. But as he continues to commit his soul to Donald Trump, he might want to consider the words of Matthew 16:26 in the New Testament: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

Liberty lives in light

Preview of a purge to come: Donald Trump’s treatment of the Republican National Committee

*A montage of images from The Purge movies.*

March 17, 2024 by David Silverberg

Tuesday, March 19, Republican voters will have the final opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice in Florida’s Presidential Preference Primary.

There’s hardly any point in doing so, though. The Republican nominee is known. All his competitors have dropped out and the Florida Republican Party has already endorsed him. There is no suspense here.

Early voting results in Lee and Collier counties are reflecting the inevitability of the outcome and the lack of enthusiasm. As of Sunday, March 17, in Lee County only about 20.25 percent of voters had participated by mail and in-person voting. In Collier County that was only 17.91 percent and in Charlotte County it was 17.17 percent.

The participation rates may go up when the final in-person voting occurs on Tuesday.

But not only is there little mystery about the primary outcome, there’s also little mystery about what a Trump presidency will mean should he accede to the presidency by electoral or other means. If there’s any doubt, people need look no further than the Republican National Committee (RNC) in Washington, DC.

On March 8, Ronna McDaniel (née Romney) stepped down as chair of the RNC. Despite being described as “unfailingly loyal to Trump” by The New York Times, all her past fundraising, hard work and promotion of Trump wasn’t enough. Among her many sins was her insistence on holding debates open to all the Republican candidates, none of which Trump attended.

“It is a little bit bittersweet to be with all of you here today as I step down as chair after seven years of working with you all,” she said in her parting remarks.

Taking her place was Michael Whatley, chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, and Lara Trump, wife of Trump’s son Eric, as co-chairs. Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump campaign advisor, was named the RNC’s chief operating officer. It put the RNC entirely in Trump’s hands.

Observers should regard the takeover of the RNC as a dress rehearsal for a Trump presidency. The way that Trump is treating the organization is the way he will treat the United States—and non-Trump Republicans, or as he calls them, Republicans In Name Only (RINOs)—if elected.

So what are the takeaways from the RNC takeover?

The purge

The first thing that Lara, Whatley and LaCivita did was fire 60 members of the RNC staff and cancel numerous existing contracts. Those who wished to reapply for their jobs could do so and be vetted on the basis of their loyalty to Trump rather than the Party.

The political professionals working at the RNC are hardly radicals, Marxists or Democrats; these are dedicated lifelong Republicans committed to the Party and its goals. The most senior of them had already weathered the Trump presidency, the Big Lie, the insurrection and the midterm elections.

But it wasn’t enough. As Charlie Kirk, head of Turning Point USA, the Trumpist youth organization, stated in a post on X on March 11, “Bloodbath at the RNC is underway. 60+ firings just today. This is excellent. The anti-Trump sleeper cells all have to go. The RNC is getting ready to win.”

Rick Wilson, a Florida-based veteran political operative, co-founder of the Lincoln Project and author of the book, Everything Trump Touches Dies had a very different take on the RNC purge. In a March 11 Substack post titled “The MAGA Mafia’s RNC Bust-Out,” Wilson wrote:

“The presumption that in 2024, nine years into Trump’s reign as the GOP’s dominant force, the RNC is stacked to the gills with secret RINO Fifth Column types is beyond ludicrous. Everyone in that building has survived the last few years by being as much of a Trump loyalist as can be imagined, but it does point to the Paranoid Style of MAGA politics. The Purity Posse is riding to the RNC, boys! Mount up!”

The war on competence

It is more than likely that the RNC staffers with institutional knowledge and professional competence will be replaced with people whose only qualification will be the depth of their fanaticism.

The same is likely to apply if Donald Trump attains the presidency. All of the proven knowledge, competence and capability of existing civil servants, diplomats and even—perhaps especially—law enforcement will be erased in favor of pure fanaticism in the service of Donald Trump. Unlike the clear qualifications that now govern government service, hiring will be done on the vague and subjective basis of personal loyalty and ideological purity. Even the military won’t be spared. The country and all Americans will suffer from the extreme loss of competence in running the nation’s affairs. The potential for corruption is immense and almost inevitable as has been proven repeatedly in Third World dictatorships.

This kind of behavior will leach down to the grassroots and it can already be seen in Southwest Florida with election challenges by ideologically driven, unqualified MAGA candidates to proven, veteran candidates for school boards, county commissions and election supervisors. The results have already resulted in School Board paralysis and in Collier County an extreme, MAGA-dominated Board of Commissioners that has passed anti-federal and anti-public health ordinances.

Nepotism and corruption

Like so many autocrats before him, Trump so needs personal loyalty from those around him that the only people he really trusts are family with blood or marriage ties. This was in evidence in his presidency when he entrusted a variety of sensitive tasks to his otherwise inexperienced and unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner and elevated his daughter Ivanka to senior advisor.

Now with Lara as RNC co-chair, he can be secure in the knowledge that she will impose his will on the Republican Party.

As Wilson put it: “Lara Trump is there as the eyes and ears of the Family. Chris LaCivita is there to bleed every last drop of revenue and resources to a) the Trump effort and b) his friends and allies. Everyone who gets the jobs and contracts canceled en masse this week will be a LaCivita ally or crony. Lara isn’t sophisticated enough to understand what happens when all this rolls forward, but it won’t matter much.”

The same will apply if he becomes president. Donald Trump can be expected to draw on a variety of family members to do his bidding at the highest levels of the American government. This will run counter to American law and practice of prohibiting this kind of incestuous inside dealing, which violates American principles of merit, competence and honesty in government, replacing it with cronyism, corruption and outright theft.

If president again Trump will undoubtedly treat the United States Treasury as his personal piggy bank and all the previous Republican pieties about stewardship of taxpayer dollars and constraining government spending will be rendered null and void.

From a Party standpoint the change means starving the entire down-ballot ecosystem of the funds it needs to run candidates and campaigns at the state and grassroots levels.

As Wilson put it: the new RNC leadership “will bleed the RNC to a desiccated husk. They will break it, kill off any institutional knowledge or expertise in their desire to root out what human-flounder hybrid Charlie Kirk called ‘RINO sleeper cells.’ They will merge the operations into Trumpworld, and everything in Trump World exists to serve only Trump.”

Grassroots mayhem

More than anything else, what this dress rehearsal means for grassroots-level, conservative Republicans—like the Midwestern Republicans who reside in Southwest Florida—is that a lifetime of party loyalty and adherence to principle is now a hindrance.

This has already manifested itself in the MAGA takeover of Florida Republican Party executive committees. Traditional Republicans have been steadily pushed out over the past several years as committed MAGAs propelled the Party Trumpward.

A Republican—in Southwest Florida or anywhere—now has to be a total Trumper to comfortably remain in the Party. As an example of the consequences of apostasy, last year state House Rep. Spencer Roach (R-76-DeSoto, Charlotte and north Lee counties) had a bullet fired into his home when he dared to challenge the MAGA takeover of the Lee County Republican Party. In a January 2022 op-ed in the newssite Florida Politics titled “No Coronation for Donald Trump in ’24,” he dared to say that while he wasn’t a never-Trumper he also wasn’t an only-Trumper.

There will now be no non-Trumper Republicans of any kind in Trump’s party. There is no diversity or free thought there. Party members must totally endorse any Trump pronouncement, delusion or crime that he commits. The choice is between being a total-Trumper or RINO.

If there was any question of this before, Trump’s actions at the RNC make it official.

Again, Wilson puts it best: “This wholesale slaughter in the RNC is one more sign that the MAGA GOP isn’t simply post-partisan; it’s post-organizational, post-rational, and just another opportunity to monetize Trumpism.”

He continues: “This case of institutional [everything Trump touches dies] means the end of the line for the old GOP. The state committeemen and committeewomen, the state organizations themselves, the major donors, the people who work their way up to get convention seats and tickets are all in for a crashing disappointment. The RNC’s work in voter registration, research, digital, communications, and turnout will wither and die before summer. All that will remain is the RNC’s ability to sluice money (minus a little handling fee and the vig) into Trump’s gaping maw.”

If Trump accedes to the presidency either by election or other means these practices and proclivities will go nationwide.

At the organizational level, Trump will undoubtedly carry out a similar purge of what he and former advisor Steve Bannon have called the “deep state;” i.e., all the experienced, professional civil servants who make the government run to serve the American people. Because their loyalty is to the nation and the Constitution and not to Trump personally, they will be purged, en masse and immediately. The functioning of the country will come to a halt.

Taking their place will be pure Trump loyalists, people who will carry out Trump’s orders no matter how illegal, unconstitutional or even insane.

The country’s needs and priorities will be ignored; the only needs and priorities that will count will be those of Donald Trump himself.

In a way, Trump’s takeover of the RNC is a good thing: it provides such a clear preview of what a Trump presidency will mean.

And that also gives loyal patriots of all party affiliations the time and incentive to organize, mobilize and defend America from what is obviously a clear and present danger from within.

Liberty lives in light

Florida takeaways from President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech

*President Joe Biden delivers the 2024 State of the Union address. (Image: CSPAN)*

March 8, 2024 by David Silverberg

While President Joseph Biden’s State of the Union address to the nation last night, March 7, touched on the full spectrum of local and international issues facing the country, some items were of particular relevance to Florida—and seemed directly addressed to the state.

Seniors and Social Security

“Tonight, let’s all agree once again to stand up for seniors!” said Biden.

Senior issues Social Security and Medicare are particularly relevant to Florida.

With 20 percent (5.5 million) of its 20.8 million residents aged 60 and older, Florida is second only to California in numbers of seniors. It outnumbers the state senior populations of 20 other states combined, according to the Florida State Plan on Aging 2022-2025, which was based on 2021 figures.

What is more, a high proportion of the 900 people moving to Florida daily are seniors, according to the Plan.

“Florida’s future is linked to the financial security and physical health of its older population,” it states.

Given these demographics, Social Security and Medicare are key federal safety-net programs for the population.

“Many of my Republican friends want to put Social Security on the chopping block” said Biden, drawing catcalls and denials from Republican lawmakers in the chamber.

However, the record supports Biden on this and the main Republican attack on Social Security has come from Florida’s own junior Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).

On March 30, 2022 Scott unveiled an 11-point (later 12-point) “Rescue America” plan in collaboration with former President Donald Trump. Among its points: “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”

Biden called the plan “outrageous” at the time and pointed out that it would kill Social Security. Scott later denied that he had any intention of ending the program and even Trump denounced any intent to harm it. But there have been Republican rumblings of discontent with it ever since (indeed, there has been Republican opposition to it since 1935 when it was initiated).

In his State of the Union address Biden was firm in his defense of seniors and the key safety-net programs.

“If anyone here tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age I will stop them!” he declared. “Working people who built this country pay more into Social Security than millionaires and billionaires do. It’s not fair.”

He continued: “We have two ways to go on Social Security. Republicans will cut Social Security and give more tax cuts to the wealthy. I will protect and strengthen Social Security and make the wealthy pay their fair share!”

Biden’s defense of senior programs was echoed by Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who is running against Scott for Florida’s Senate seat.

“It has never been clearer that Social Security and Medicare are at stake this November – and in order to protect these essential programs, we have to beat Rick Scott, the architect who single-handedly wrote the plan to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block,” she wrote in a statement to The Paradise Progressive. “Our Florida seniors – including my mom – have been paying into Social Security for their whole lives, expecting it would be there to support them in their well-earned retirement. Unlike Rick Scott, I will never allow our parents’ and grandparents’ Social Security and Medicare to be threatened in the Senate or anywhere else.”

Biden also touted his efforts to bring down drug costs by empowering Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies.

“This year Medicare is negotiating lower prices for some of the costliest drugs on the market that treat everything from heart disease to arthritis,” he said. “Now it’s time to go further and give Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for 500 drugs over the next decade.”

He also stated that he wanted cap to prescription drug costs at $2,000 a year “for everyone!”

Women’s health and choice

Biden called on Congress to guarantee the right to use in vitro fertilization and restore women’s right to choose.

Last year Florida enacted a law banning abortions after six weeks.

“Like most Americans, I believe Roe v. Wade got it right,” he said, crediting Vice President Kamala Harris for her work defending reproductive rights.

He blasted Trump, “my predecessor,” for being instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade and boasting about it.

“There are state laws banning the right to choose, criminalizing doctors, and forcing survivors of rape and incest to leave their states as well to get the care they need,” he noted.

“Many of you in this Chamber and my predecessor are promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom,” he said. “My God, what freedoms will you take away next?”

He announced: “If Americans send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you, I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again!”

He also noted that medical research into women’s health issues has always been underfunded and he intended to change that, in part with an initiative on women’s health research led by First Lady Jill Biden.

However, he challenged Congress: “Pass my plan for $12 billion to transform women’s health research and benefit millions of lives across America!”

Book bans, history and education

Given the prevalence of book banning in Florida and legislative rules dictating the history taught in the state’s schools, Biden’s comments on the subject seemed aimed directly at Tallahassee.

After denouncing efforts to suppress voting and calling for passage of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, bills to protect the franchise, Biden addressed a wider issue.

“…Stop denying another core value of America—our diversity across American life,” he said. “Banning books. It’s wrong! Instead of erasing history, let’s make history!”

In the course of calling for increasing Pell Grants for working and middle class students to attend college and reducing the burden of student debt, he added “While we’re at it I want to give public school teachers a raise!”

Florida is currently ranked the 48th state in the nation for teacher pay at $47,500. A bill passed in the current state legislative session would raise teachers’ base pay to $65,000 and may go into effect if approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). However, the state is seeing an exodus of teachers due to legislated curriculum restrictions, ideological pressures, attacks on teachers’ unions, book bans and opposition to personnel diversity and inclusion.

Analysis: Florida, the world and the future

Although broadly addressed to the nation and the world, the program presented by Biden will have significant impacts in Florida if enacted.

But his proposals are unlikely—to put it mildly—to be advanced in the current Republican-dominated House of Representatives, which can barely keep the government functioning and whose leadership is subservient to the whims and prejudices of Biden’s predecessor.

Nonetheless, the vigorously delivered, directly confrontational speech seems to have energized Democrats and may have won over significant numbers of anti-Trump Republicans and independents.

That may just translate into votes on the ground in Florida. The challenge for Democrats will be to sustain the momentum and widen their coalition into November.

As Biden put it: “My fellow Americans the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are it’s how old our ideas are? Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are among the oldest of ideas. But you can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back.”

He laid out his vision: “I see a future where we defend democracy not diminish it. I see a future where we restore the right to choose and protect other freedoms not take them away. I see a future where the middle class finally has a fair shot and the wealthy finally have to pay their fair share in taxes. I see a future where we save the planet from the climate crisis and our country from gun violence.

“Above all, I see a future for all Americans!” he insisted. “Let’s remember who we are! We are the United States of America. There is nothing beyond our capacity when we act together!”

Liberty lives in light