Reducing rancor and fighting fluoridation: Two sides of Collier County, Florida

*The crowd gathered at the “Reduce the Rancor” event at the Naples United Church of Christ. (Photo: Author)*

Feb. 19, 2024 by David Silverberg

On Feb. 7 over 700 people gathered for a “Reduce the Rancor” forum at the Naples United church of Christ, to calmly, rationally discuss handling political differences and bridge them in respectful, civil ways.

A week later, on Feb. 13, the Collier County Board of Commissioners, following three hours of public comment, chose to take a step backward in time, ignore scientific evidence, and end fluoridation of Collier County’s water. Fluoride had been added to Collier County’s drinking water since 1985 in an effort to reduce teeth cavities and improve overall dental health, in keeping with recommendations from a wide variety of organizations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to the American Dental Association and the American Medical Association among many others.

The two events may seem unrelated; one a polite conversation by the county’s leading citizens, the other a formal, governmental function considering a chemical process. However, each displayed the differences playing out in this county and in the country as a whole between rationality and emotion, expertise and suspicion.

There was another difference: the forum provided a common ground for a theoretical discussion of behavior; the Board made a decision that will actually affect people’s health.

The forum

*Panelists at the “Reduce the Rancor” event. From left to right: Andy Solis, Francis Rooney, Mike Love, Nick Penniman, Dick Gephardt and Sharon Harris-Ewin. (Photo: June Fletcher)*

The “Reduce the Rancor” forum was sponsored by Greater Naples Leadership, a non-profit organization promoting civic engagement and training, the League of Women Voters, the Naples Airport Authority and the church.

While political partisans have rallies to fire up crowds and mobilize the faithful, the “Reduce the Rancor” forum was a kind of rally for people who want to restore some sort of calm and civility to public dialogue.

It featured six speakers, all accomplished local residents, from all political sides. Andrew “Andy” Solis, a Republican, was a former Collier County commissioner from District 2. Francis Rooney, also a Republican, represented the 19th Congressional District from 2017 to 2021, after a term as US ambassador to the Holy See. Richard “Dick” Gephardt, a Naples resident, was twice a Democratic candidate for president and served 28 years in the House of Representatives. A media perspective was provided by Nick Penniman, retired publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and lead director of NewsGuard, a company that evaluates accuracy in media, and Tim Love, a veteran advertising executive and author of Discovering Truth, a book on media accuracy. Rev. Sharon Harris-Ewing, a leader of the Interfaith Alliance of Southwest Florida, rounded out the presentations by focusing on values beyond just politics.

“Civil discourse requires some specific shared values,” she noted, observing that some of the values and skills that enable that discourse comes from faith and “an open mind and an open heart,” as well as humility and respect for others, a sentiment that was echoed by other panelists.

The forum was moderated by Mike Kiniry, the producer of the “Gulf Coast Life” program from WGCU-FM. But it was introduced by its organizer, Gunther Winkler, president of Greater Naples Leadership and a native of Austria.

In introducing the program Winkler recalled growing up in a war-shattered Austria, where people wondered how their misfortune had come about. “It was divisiveness,” he said, recounting the violent Nazi takeover of the country. Today, he said, he is seeing the same demand for picking sides and calls for violence that occurred then. However, today “we have the power to reverse this”—hence, his work in creating the forum.

The speakers attempted to get at the causes of the political rancor being experienced in Collier County and in the country generally. It was blamed on the political climate, social media, a mainstream media playing up the extremes and on the personalization of politics.

Only one panelist, Rooney, took aim squarely at an individual as the cause of rancor in the public square. Asked who was chiefly responsible for the current discord and told that he did not need to mention names, he said: “You know who, and it starts with a T”—a striking statement given that Rooney in his first term was an adamant and outspoken defender of Trump.

“There are individuals who fire this thing up and the biggest one of all, I think, is Donald Trump,” he said. “He exerts a magnetic influence over an awful lot of Republicans—not the ones like me who are financing Nikki Haley, by the way.”

Solis, who served District 2 from 2016 to 2023, during the worst of the COVID pandemic, faced sometimes bitter and vituperative attacks for trying to protect Collier County residents from the worst of the disease.

He blamed personalization of issues and the use of threats and insults against elected officials as a prime cause of the national mood of rancor and distrust.

During his time in office, he said, “at least once a week I’d have to say, ‘You know, insulting someone that you’re trying to get to see things your way is an interesting strategy because it’s not working.’ As soon as something becomes personal it takes it out of a discussion about the issues and makes it a personal thing and that gets in the way of having a good discussion about what the issues really are.”

The full, 2-hour, 19-minute discussion can be seen here.

The Board of Commissioners

*Beth Sherman at the Collier County Board of Commissioners meeting on Feb. 13. (Image: CCBC)*

One of the people who has done that accusing in the past was Collier County anti-vaccine activist Beth Sherman. In 2021, during discussion of an anti-federal ordinance, she angrily accused Solis of supporting mandatory vaccinations, a charge he vehemently denied. At the time she also denounced COVID vaccinations in general, the Naples Community Hospital for denying patients hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, and called the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection a false-flag operation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She then demanded commissioners pass the ordinance or resign.

That was a bitter and contentious discussion, full of passion and accusations, the very thing that the people at the “Reduce the Rancor” forum were trying to mitigate.

But this time, when Sherman stood before the Board of Commissioners again on Feb. 13 as they considered removing fluoride from Collier County’s water, she didn’t have to make threats or accusations. The Board was firmly in anti-fluoride hands and everyone knew it.

She just read her argument that fluoride deleteriously affected people’s brains, thyroid and bones and infringed on a citizen’s right to opt out of treatments. Fluoridization, she said, also violated a Collier County ordinance passed in April that, among other measures, prohibits implementing directives from the World Health Organization, which favors fluoridization. Among other charges, she alleged that the US Department of Defense was censoring information on the deleterious effects of fluoride.

At the meeting civility and order were sternly enforced by Commissioner Chris Hall (R-District 2), the chair, who warned participants against displays of emotion or outbursts, in stark contrast to previous proceedings. Commissioner Rick LoCastro (R-District 1) was absent following a warrant for his arrest on battery charges against his girlfriend, a medical emergency and a subsequent arrest, incarceration and bonding. He joined the proceedings remotely.

But while the demeanor of the commissioners and the speakers was restrained and polite and there was no vitriol or personal attacks, the substance of the testimony reflected the same passions, fear and even paranoia that governed the opposition to COVID vaccinations.

This was given most dramatic expression by Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III, the farmer, grocer and political activist who fought vaccine mandates during the pandemic. He and his Citizens Awake Now Political Action Committee endorsed and funded two of the commissioners, Hall and Dan Kowal (R-District 4).

(The full, verbatim, text of Oakes’ speech follows this article.)

It was Kowal who introduced the motion to end fluoridation, arguing that it was a health treatment being administered without recipients’ consent. It violated the April 2023 ordinance, he said, there was no legal requirement that it be maintained and the county would save about $200,000 per year by ending it.

While there were some defenders of fluoridation, the vast majority of speakers, already alerted and mobilized for the discussion, opposed it. Commissioner Burt Saunders (R-District 3) expressed skepticism but ultimately chose to support it and in the end the Board voted unanimously to end fluoridation.

A video of the entire roughly 3 hour session of the Board of Commissioners can be seen here. Discussion of fluoridation goes from mark 1:10 to the final vote at 3:52.

Analysis: Rancor and reason

The “Reduce the Rancor” forum with its surprisingly high turnout demonstrated that there is a large constituency in Collier County for the rule of reason. It was a kind of rally for people who want to restore some sort of calm and civility to public dialogue.

The fluoridation vote, though, demonstrated that these are not the people in charge of the county’s government right now. While the discussion before the Board was civil, the logic underlying the opposition showed evidence of the kind of anti-science, anti-expertise, anti-government, suspicious conspiracy theorizing that characterized the anti-vaccine movement during the COVID pandemic.

Once the anti-fluoridation motion passed, dentists and oral hygienists in the county began expressing their opposition, mostly in letters to the editor of the Naples Daily News but by then, of course, it was too late.

Collier County has now taken two votes against mainstream public health measures. This comes at a time when COVID is resurging. According to data from the Florida Department of Health, there have been more than 98,000 cases of COVID-19 in the state since the start of the year. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a JN.1 variant causing 92 percent of cases across the country.

While this is not the deadly and novel COVID virus that struck the world in 2020 it nonetheless shows that public health risks remain. Whether they will be met with a measured, rational, scientific response in Collier County remains to be seen in light of votes taken by the Board of Commissioners to weaken public health measures.

So perhaps the common lesson of the “Reduce the Rancor” forum and the Board of Commissioners vote is this: It is fine to support civil dialogue and reasoned, logical disagreement but unless there’s a willingness to act on behalf of reason, unreason will triumph—and then no amount of openness, or dialogue and respect, will make any difference at all.

___________________

*Alfie Oakes addresses the Collier County Board of Commissioners on Feb. 13. (Image: CCBC)*

The speech by farmer and political activist Alfie Oakes to the Collier County Board of Commissioners merits quotation in full.

This is a verbatim transcript of his remarks. Additions for clarity are marked in brackets [ ] and incomplete thoughts are marked with ellipses (…). Otherwise, it is unedited.

“So, thank you for hearing me today. As you know this is somewhat personal to me, my father that passed away back in 2013, a couple years before his passing was up here fighting with the commission to get the fluoride out of the water. It was something he was very passionate about. I had the privilege of my father, while he never made a lot of money, he drove a 300-dollar car, when I was at the age of 11 and he spent 900 dollars for a reverse osmosis system for our house because that was more important to him than the car that he drove but he didn’t want to damage mostly us kids but the whole family with the fluoride when he found out that the only way to get fluoride out of the water was with reverse osmosis. So, he was way ahead of the curve on a lot of things and I have, except for one time, when I was in like third or fourth grade there was a fluoride supplement that they made us take it and my father found out about it and lost his mind. That’s the only time that these teeth have ever seen fluoride. They don’t look like they have too many cavities, do they?

“So, I’d also like to talk about…we find out a lot about who is on the right side of things by…who, what I call our enemies are and when I see something that’s reported or that’s encouraged by the World Health Organization or by [Adm.] Rachel Levine [US Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services] and even the World Economic Forum and promotes this fluoride and you have to ask yourself ‘Why?’

“I was lucky enough to attend an event over in Mexico this past summer and it was the first time that I’d ever heard – and I heard this gentleman say it again today – the first time I ever heard that fluoride actually calcifies the pineal gland, it’s that element that calcifies your pineal gland.

“So, I’ve been lucky in that my pineal gland hasn’t been calcified. Maybe it’s why I have eternal energy. I get up at four o’clock in the morning and go until 10 o’clock at night. I have…the pineal gland is represented in ancient history as the third eye, our connection into our spirituality. It’s also what I consider a driving force. When I hear that the IQ has been lowered of all these reports of these kids that are taking tested, their IQs are directly proportional to how much fluoride that’s in the water, it’s stunning but when I think about that in a logical sense it makes sense because I don’t believe that, like some of these doctors here, who, their vessel is filled with knowledge from the university, I think that real learning comes from the lighting of a fire and the lighting of the fire is that pineal gland. That’s our fire that connects us to our spirituality, it gives us drive.

“I got a high school education. I’ve done pretty well because I got the fire burning. And, and this is intentional – if you don’t think this is intentional, to dumb us down, to keep control of the people in this country, then I don’t think that you’re paying attention.

“The fluoride…unfortunately, I’m going to take a few minutes – because there’s a hundred different things said that I was going to bring up today but the fluoride is not the only problem. So, as we know, that the fluoride that they’re putting in the water is not naturally occurring fluoride. It’s man-made substance, it’s toxic to us. When they found out how well that worked to poison us and dumb us down back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, in 1977 they just decided they were going to put folic acid in the bread. Folic acid in all the bread, 99.9 percent of all the bread in this country has folic acid in it. It’s, again, another man-made substance. It’s poisoning us. And, you know, I don’t think…thank God we’re not putting the folic acid in the water or we’re getting that out but I might be back here asking everyone to put poison labels on all bread in Collier County that has folic acid in it because it’s just another sham from the same people that are trying to bring us down.

“And, you know, the difference between right now and when my Dad was here 13, 14 years ago whenever it was, fighting against the fluoride is, we don’t trust the white coats any more. They got up here and put on the same show. I just listened to them, they – you say not to say the same things over again? – almost every one of their talking points from the university are exactly the same talking points and they’ve been using it over and over again, it’s the same thing when I sat here with my father 14 years ago that they used. As a matter of fact, the gentleman got up, Johnny Johnson [President of the American Fluoridation Society and a former pediatric dentist], he goes around the whole state doing this, I don’t know whether he’s paid or not. It doesn’t matter to me but you have to wonder what is driving it. What’s the driving force? Why are they trying to do this? Why are they trying to put a neuro-toxin in our water that’s poisoning us?

“You know, I never had to take a shower where my skin was absorbing, a hot shower where it opens up your pores and have a neuro-toxin pour into your skin. Thank God I wasn’t! But everybody else in this county has been subjected to it and it’s certainly time that we, like Mark Twain said, it’s hard sometimes to realize when you’ve been duped, it’s hard to admit it but I think we need to, you know, time for us to be responsible. We have a great group of commissioners up here so that I think is going to make the right decision. I’ve never felt more blessed to live in this great county, Collier County. Thank you.”

Mr. Oakes’ remarks can be seen in the Board of Commissioners video from mark 3:12 to 3:17.

Liberty lives in light

Staring into the nightmare: What would life be like under a Trump dictatorship?

An examination of the nature of dictatorships, democracy and possible futures, nationally and locally

*Soldiers line the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during protests in June 2020. (Photo: Martha Raddatz via Twitter)*

Feb. 4, 2024 by David Silverberg

As he has so many times in the past, Donald Trump is facing utter ruin.

This week is expected to be especially brutal. He’s facing a potentially devastating fine in his New York fraud case. He could be denied immunity from prosecution in another case. The US Supreme Court could agree with the Colorado Supreme Court and keep him off the ballot for violating the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment and make him ineligible for election. Oral arguments in that case are scheduled for this coming Thursday, Feb. 8.

But Trump has faced seeming doom before. In August 2016 Time magazine declared his campaign in a complete meltdown. His Access Hollywood remarks seemed to put him outside the realm of redemption. His defeat seemed almost inevitable—and then he came back and won.

*Time magazine covers from Aug. 22 and Oct. 24, 2016. (Image: Time)*

So as dark as the moment may seem for Donald Trump—both in the public view and likely by his own reckoning—it does not mean he is down and out. If the word “resilient” seems too praiseful, perhaps his sheer stubbornness, his endurance born of pure rage and ego is a better description of his ability to survive odds against him.

But if he does weather these storms and goes on to win the Republican nomination as he seems on course to do, it is worthwhile to ask: What would America be like if he went on to win? More particularly, what would life for Americans be like?

It’s worth asking the question because it puts the stakes of this election into perspective.

It can be said with confidence that the results of a Trump accession to power—whether electoral or through other means—would not result in a presidency. It would result in a dictatorship.

If past is any prologue, an American dictatorship would mean the end of individual “inalienable” rights, the end of democracy, the end of the Constitution, the end of a free press, the end of independent courts, the end of elections, the end of representative government, the end of security for individual persons and property.

Does all this sound too alarmist? Overblown? Unlikely?

It may be alarmist but the alarm is merited—and history provides a guide.

In the daily life of Americans a Trump dictatorship would mean a media diet of all-Trump all the time. It would mean an attempt to stamp out any objective reality and its replacement with a world conjured by the mind of Donald Trump; a combination of delusion, wishful thinking and pure lying that has been called “Trumpality.”

It would be a world based on this one man’s whims and caprices, where rationality and law would be discarded in favor of his appetites and urges, whether those were for power, wealth or sex, and where he would have absolute immunity from any restraint or consequence for any action, no matter how murderous or extreme.

It would mean an effort to stamp out individual will and independent thought outside the bubble of Trump-thought.

And it’s worth remembering that past loyalty is no guarantee of future reward. No expression of allegiance, of fealty, of complete subservience would ever be enough. Trump has turned on people who were otherwise slavishly loyal when it suited him or when suspicion crept into his mind.

The same would apply to cities, counties and states and their officials and representatives. Would Southwest Florida be spared? Certainly not. No matter how Trumpist and Make America Great Again (MAGA) it already is, it would be under the Trump heel just as much as any other place in the country.

What is more, this dictatorship and its oppression would not be driven just by Trump. It would be propelled by an army of enablers and sycophants pursuing their own ambitions. They would be competing to push the most radical, extreme measures and their measures would be ever more intrusive and petty. As it is, the fervor of his followers has grown with every obstacle he encounters. He has become their version of virility, their model of behavior, someone to be worshipped, not just supported; in short, their god.

Women would especially feel the heavy hand of a Trump dictatorship. His contempt for women is exhaustively documented and even led to an $83.3 million civil judgment against him. Not only would women’s right to abortion be terminated everywhere, their right to participate in society, even their right to vote, would be in jeopardy as all other rights in the Constitution were threatened.

As Trump and his worshippers demonstrated on Jan. 6, 2021, he and they are willing to go outside the law and use violence to get their way. They may not even wait for the verdict of the 2024 election before they attempt to impose their will. And in states like Texas and Florida—and in places like Collier County and Marco Island, Fla.—there are moves to break away from the “commanding hand” of federal law and the Constitution and leave its protections and lawful restraints behind.

Can all this dread be justified? Do all these warnings have any merit?

A look at history, the nature of dictatorships and Trump’s own past behaviors and statements provide ample cause, not just for concern, but for a vision of a dark, dreadful future that would follow a Trump victory.

But it also needs to be emphasized: This is not the way things must be, just the way they could be. And every voting citizen has it within his or her power to determine how things will be.

The nature of dictatorships

*Adolf Hitler addresses the German Reichstag. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)*

Dictators don’t lack for support. All past dictators have provided benefits to some element of the population they ruled. They were put in place by people who wanted that dictator in power, often enthusiastically. Those who opposed and dissented were crushed, killed or repressed.

Dictatorships are also governed by an internal logic of power, which can provide some indication of their future actions.

Americans have seen other dictatorships abroad but have never experienced one on their own soil. They have not been ruled by an authoritarian power since they overthrew the rule of King George III in the American Revolution. They have not had one imposed by military coup. They have certainly never chosen to be governed by a dictator who came to power in a free election.

So today there is little experience or appreciation in America of what a dictatorship means and how it manifests itself in everyday life.

Because this would be Trump’s second effort to hold power, it would be different from the chaotic and amateurish first administration. Now there are elaborate MAGA plans in place to overhaul the government to concentrate executive authority. The kinds of guardrails and institutional checks that hindered Trump’s worst instincts last time would likely be swept away.

An example of the direction that dictatorships take occurred on April 26, 1942. It’s not a date emblazoned in anyone’s memory but it should live in infamy.

It was significant because on that day Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany, asked for and was granted more power than any other human being has ever wielded.

In a very long, rambling speech to the Germany Reichstag, Hitler reviewed the world situation. But toward the end he got to the point.

The only thing that was important was victory, he said. “Nobody at this stage can insist on his vested rights and all must know that today there are only duties to be fulfilled.” (Emphasis ours.)

All the rights that Germans had enjoyed under constitutional parliamentary government—and there were quite a few—were now irrelevant, he was saying. Those rights had been abused and weakened ever since he took power in 1933 but now he was asking that they be formally swept away altogether.

“Therefore, I ask all the German Reichstag the definite assurance that I possess the legal authority to see to it that every individual performs his duty and that I may condemn such cases which in my opinion do not fulfill their duties to be imprisoned or to be deprived of their office and position no matter who they be or what rights they may have acquired and especially because there are only very few exceptions among millions of decent people.”

In other words, Hitler was asking—and was granted—the sole, unchecked, unrestrained power of life and death over every German and every human being under German control. No one any longer had any inherent, “vested” rights, including the right to live.

He and he alone would decide their fate. What was the basis for making his judgments? As he said: “my opinion.” If he thought someone needed to be out of the way he now had the legal authority to eliminate that individual in any way he saw fit.

It was as great and absolute an authority as any single individual has ever held—and it was the logical outcome of the Nazi dictatorship.

This is the ultimate end goal of all dictatorships and it would be the logical end point of a Trump dictatorship.

In contrast, in the American Declaration of Independence, the Founders stated: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

The idea that people have “inalienable” rights is the cornerstone, the absolute, fundamental bedrock of the United States. In fact, American rights are so fundamental they’re embodied in a Bill of Rights that was immediately amended to the US Constitution.

Democracies respect and protect human rights. Dictatorships crush them. A Trump dictatorship—like any dictatorship—would attempt to crush those fundamental rights.

Why? Because the animating principle of a dictatorship is the will of the dictator and subservience to that will, not the will and rights of the people. People’s inalienable rights get in the way of dictatorial rule, so dictators can’t abide them.

Trump’s whole life and his past administration was an effort to bend the American people and the world to his will and his will alone.

This was tellingly revealed on June 1, 2020 in a telephone call Trump held with the nation’s governors in the midst of the George Floyd protests.

“You have to dominate,” he told the governors. “If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time. They’re going to run over you. You’re going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate.”

American presidents don’t “dominate.” They lead, govern, preside, inspire, convince, sometimes cajole. The language of domination had not been used in American political discourse before. It’s not democratic language, especially from a president working under a system of checks and balances and serving the people. It’s the language of a tyrant.

It’s also worth remembering that total domination by one person means total submission by all others.

To date, that has not been the American way.

So it’s worth remembering just what rights Americans currently have that will be put in jeopardy by a Trump dictatorship.

The end of freedom

Right now Americans are free people. They can think what they like, say what they want, and protest if they feel the need. They can assemble without hindrance and petition government for a redress of grievances. If dissatisfied with a decision or policy they can appeal it through the courts.

All those rights, which people simply assume they have now, would be gone in a Trump dictatorship.

In dictatorships free thinking is prohibited. People are expected to think the way the dictator wants them to think and any deviation is punished. No expression of any other viewpoint is allowed.

Nowhere on earth is this more rigidly enforced than in North Korea, a country for which Trump has expressed admiration. “I may be wrong, but I believe that Chairman Kim has a great and beautiful vision for his country, and only the United States, with me as president, can make that vision come true,” he said in 2019.

Nor has Trump respected freedom of assembly and the right to protest and petition government. On the same day he called for domination, Trump had non-violent demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd forcefully cleared from Lafayette Square outside the White House so that he could be photographed holding a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church. The incident was widely condemned as a violation of the First Amendment. It would only be a foretaste if he got in power again.

The end of press freedom

Trump has been at war with the media from the time he descended the escalator in Trump Tower to declare his candidacy on June 16, 2015.

Most recently, on Jan. 16, he called for suspending the broadcast licenses of CNN and NBC because they cut away from his victory speech in Iowa.

Right now that kind of retaliation against the media for coverage he doesn’t like is purely rhetorical and theoretical. But in a Trump dictatorship it would be imposed with the power of the state.

One of the fundamental causes of the American Revolution was British repression of the American press. It’s one reason that freedom of the press was written into the First Amendment.

As his Jan. 16 remarks make clear, under a Trump dictatorship there would be no freedom of the press—for anyone, including media that’s now considered sympathetic to Trump. It would all be under his control. There would no longer be coverage of an objective truth; the only “truth” would be the “truth” that Trump allowed. To see what that would be like, one has only to read his Truth Social postings.

Reporters, editors, broadcasters—anyone involved in professionally communicating with the public and especially journalists covering the presidential campaign—have to be aware that anything they do to advance the candidacy of Donald Trump will ultimately result in their repression, possible imprisonment and loss of freedom if he wins.

The first Trump administration is close enough in time that people can remember what life was like while he was President; there was a constant, non-stop stream of news about Trump. If it wasn’t his latest tweet, it was his latest outrage, his latest gaffe, his latest pronouncement. He dominated the airwaves, the news pages, the Internet, the morning breakfast table.

Even in exile he was constantly in the news.

Now, imagine him in power again and dominating the media using state authority. The media would no longer provide coverage; it would only uncritically propagate whatever he wanted delivered. It would be all Trump all the time. He would literally be like Big Brother, a constant, inescapable, overwhelming presence. There would no longer be news, there wouldn’t even be conversation any more, there would only be Trump. He would even insert himself into peoples’ dreams.

The reason for government

Since human beings have inalienable rights, states the Declaration of Independence, “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

A dictatorship doesn’t exist to secure people’s rights nor do people consent to provide its “just powers.” It has no “just” powers, only power. A dictatorship exists solely to assert and implement the will of the dictator.

In the United States, the people’s consent to be governed is expressed through elections where they make their will known. For democracy to function, all parties have to accept the will of the majority as expressed through the election results.

Donald Trump most spectacularly rejected the election results of 2020 expressing the will of the majority of the American people that Joseph Biden be their president. He lied about the legitimacy of the election, he tried to use every stratagem he could to overturn the results (for which he is facing trial in Georgia), he explored the idea of using the military to seize voting machines and cancel the ballots, he attempted to have fake electors invalidate the results, and when all that failed, he incited a mob to stop the certification of his opponent and even murder Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump’s refusal to accede to the will of the people was made clear in a conversation that Jenna Ellis, one of Trump’s lawyers, recalled to Georgia prosecutors.

A few weeks after the 2020 election, she said that Dan Scavino, one of Trump’s advisors, told her that “under no circumstances will the boss be leaving,” in reference to Trump. “We’ll just stay in power.”

She replied, “Well, it doesn’t quite work that way, you know that.”

Scavino responded, “We don’t care.”

Trump was ultimately forced to leave office. However, if he is elected in 2024 it is unlikely that he will ever voluntarily leave office again no matter what the election results—even if there are any elections again during his lifetime.

Truly, it will be the end of American democracy, as Biden has pointed out.

His people and his movement

*A Trump-incited mob attacks the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Tyler Merbler)*

Dictators don’t come to power in a vacuum; it takes an army of enablers, enforcers and encouragers to put them in power and keep them there.

If Donald Trump proved anything to the world it was the unfortunate truth that there is no bottom to the barrel he can scrape for willing sycophants, miscreants and grifters to do his will.

If elected, Trump will bring back all the incompetents and parasites who served him in the first term as well as an even more mendacious and malicious cast of new characters. Indeed, applications are already being taken.

He will likely pardon all the criminals who have been justly imprisoned since January 6th and put them in charge of the nation’s business.

Former general and Englewood, Fla., resident Michael Flynn is one example. After losing his position as national security advisor and being convicted of lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Flynn was pardoned and participated in the infamous Dec. 18, 2020 Oval Office meeting where he argued for seizing voting machines, declaring martial law and overturning the election results.

Once a dictatorship is established it develops a momentum of its own. Those who put the dictator in place have a vested interest in keeping him in power. A dictatorship builds a machine of repression that keeps chugging just to keep itself in existence.

There is a story from Africa that in 2008 when 83-year-old President Robert Mugabe, a dictator by all measures, lost the parliamentary and presidential elections in his native Zimbabwe—an election he expected to reliably keep him in power—he was ready to leave.

An army general sat him down and told him: “It’s not your decision.” Mugabe had to stay in power even if he was tired and ready to retire, said the general, because all the forces vested in his dictatorship needed him in place and could not allow him to leave. So Mugabe and his allies overrode the elected will of the Zimbabwean people using violence and fraud and his disastrous presidency continued for nine more years—only then was he was overthrown by the army.

It’s the same with all dictatorships. They need to be self-perpetuating. As Winston Churchill once put it: “Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount.”

Even if the charismatic figure is no longer at the helm, autocratic governments don’t automatically revert to democracy. Instead there’s a scramble at the top to replace the old dictator with a new dictator and since disputes in a dictatorship aren’t settled with elections, it opens the nation up to political strife, palace intrigue and even civil war.

Feeling the evil

So how would citizens feel a Trump dictatorship in their everyday lives, in Southwest Florida and everywhere else?

Aside from an all-Trump-all-the-time media, they wouldn’t be able to speak freely, think freely or feel protected by law.

It would be like living in an abusive relationship with a deranged, mercurial and unpredictable spouse, someone given to sudden rages, temper tantrums, and violence but with absolute power over your life.

You would have to self-censor, worry who was listening when you spoke, suspect that you were committing some unintended sin, and fear authorities who would not be there to protect you but to protect him—from you. Like so many people oppressed in so many places around the world you would have to build a secret life just to stay sane and determine reality and you would never know who could be trusted.

In 2020 the American people emerged after four years of an abusive relationship with their president. However, they had the comfort of having been protected by a Constitution and Bill of Rights, institutional checks and balances, a Congress that impeached him twice, and a tradition of democracy. Most of all they were protected by patriots in government who courageously worked hard to do what was right.

But Trump, his MAGA mob and the eviscerated Republican Party are determined to do away with all that in a second administration. If it comes to pass there will be no guardrails, no protections, no restraint, certainly no checks or balances and “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” as Trump stated in 2022.

That means there would be no recourse to courts or the legal system in the event of disputes or grievances or simply to seek justice. With the judicial branch neutered, corrupted or perverted, as it always is in a dictatorship, there would be no remedy, appeal, or relief for everyday people.

Moreover, with the state revolving around a single personality there wouldn’t be any way to rationally consider a decision, whether in government or personal life.

Why? Because in a law-ordered society, behavior is built on rational rules and logical laws. A person can base his or her decisionmaking on reasoned considerations and expect society to respond with equally rational reactions. Of course, there are people who violate laws but then they face rationally formulated penalties and they know it. (As the saying goes: “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”)

But in a personality-based society, rewards and punishments are based on the whim and capriciousness of the dictator and no one can reasonably anticipate his responses.

There was an interesting example of this in Congress last October when Rep. Tom Emmer (R-6-Minn.) looked like he was going to get the Speaker’s gavel in the House of Representatives.

Although Emmer had not previously supported Trump, Trump told the world that Emmer had changed because Emmer had told Trump he was his “biggest fan.” Then, when Emmer, seeking support for his speakership, posted a video of Trump saying that, Trump was infuriated. He thought it sounded like they were too close. He instantly turned on Emmer, worked the phones, disparaged him as “totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters” and a “Globalist RINO” (Republican In Name Only) and Emmer’s candidacy immediately sank.

It was a perfect illustration of a tyrant turning on a follower for irrational reasons. There was no way Emmer could have known in advance that posting his video would offend Trump. No sensible calculation could have warned him or induced caution on his part. No thinking being could have anticipated Trump’s purely emotional response.

Emmer only suffered a blow to his ambitions. In a full-on dictatorship people suffer far greater punishments for far smaller offenses.

Nor is there any protection for those who believe themselves to be loyal. Indeed, the closer a person is to a dictator, the more precarious the person’s position and the more drastic the punishment at the dictator’s whim. As the careers and reputations littering the road to and from Trump’s White House attest, no one has proven this to be true more than Trump.

So all those Republican politicians who think they’ve made their careers and solidified their positions by endorsing Trump or who think they can publicly pander to the MAGA base while expecting he won’t win, or are actively working to make this man president, should think again.

In Southwest Florida that means its congressional delegation of Reps. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.) and lately and belatedly Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.), all of whom have bent the knee or are aggressively promoting his candidacy. They will be as vulnerable and defenseless against Trump’s wrath as any other citizen if he wins and takes office again, perhaps even more than most. Furthermore, they will have the special onus of knowing that their endorsement helped put him in position to destroy them if he chooses.

A better way

*The Statue of Liberty. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)*

These are only a few of the potential consequences of a Trump victory in 2024.

This essay doesn’t even go into the probable effects on the civil service, the economy, which would be thrown into chaos, the likely roundup of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, the institutionalized racism and the catastrophic effects on America’s place in the world. (As The Washington Post’s Max Boot pointed out, a Trump victory “could be the end of the Pax Americana. We would then enter a chaotic post-American world where rogue states committed aggression with impunity, democracies cowered and trade ties frayed. Sea lanes turning into shooting galleries would become the norm, not the exception, with the US economy paying the price.”)

Some people have been awake to the threat of a Trump dictatorship from the moment in 2022 when he declared his candidacy again. More and more traditional Republicans who voted for him in 2016 are publicly repudiating him now. A parade of his past officials, the people who worked most closely with him and know him best, have come forward to warn of the danger he presents.

And Biden has clearly and explicitly explained the choice before the American people.

“Trump’s assault on democracy isn’t just part of his past. It’s what he’s promising for the future. He’s being straightforward. He’s not hiding the ball,” he said in a speech on the third anniversary of January 6th.

Despite this, Trump retains his grip on the Republican Party. Republican elected officials at all levels are falling into line behind him. Locally, the Florida Republican Party as a whole is expected to take a formal vote to endorse Trump at a meeting in Wesley Chapel, a town near Tampa, this coming Saturday, Feb. 10.

Nationally, Trump retains the power to block badly needed legislation like border and immigration reform and aid to Ukraine and Israel. He is already imposing his will on right-wing media.

There’s no guarantee that the overt threat to the Constitution and American democracy will wait until Election Day to play out. Some kind of action could occur sooner, especially if his candidacy is invalidated in court.

But for everyday, law-abiding citizens the defense lies in the ballot and if all goes as planned the balloting will be completed on Nov. 5, 2024.

Americans, including conservative Southwest Floridians, have to understand and fully appreciate that this election is not “normal.” This is not politics as usual. This is history, it is epochal and the alternatives are stark: this is a choice between freedom or tyranny, darkness or light, good or evil, democracy or dictatorship.

It is not enough to simply vote. Americans who want to preserve their democracy need to get active in every possible legal, civilly-responsible way to achieve the outcome that keeps darkness at bay.

Right now Americans have the power and freedom to choose their own destiny. They can work and vote to keep their power and freedom or give it all to a would-be despot.

As Biden put it in his January 6th speech: “This is the first national election since the January 6th insurrection placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy. We all know who Donald Trump is. The question we have to answer is: Who are we? That’s what’s at stake. Who are we?”

On one thing and one thing alone, those who would defend democracy should heed Donald Trump’s words.

On Jan. 6, 2021 he said in his speech on the Ellipse: “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

He’s right. Unless Americans fight Trump like hell for their country and their democracy this year they’ll lose it all.

Game on.

Liberty lives in light

New study shows costs to SWFL of toxic water but congressional bills to help remain neglected

*A sign warns of red tide at the entrance to Delnor-Wiggins State Park in Naples during the 2018 Big Bloom. (Photo: Author)*

Jan. 22, 2024 by David Silverberg

While a new study puts a price tag on the cost of harmful algal blooms (HABs) in Southwest Florida, two bills meant to help protect the region’s clean water are languishing in the US House of Representatives, ignored and forgotten by the member of Congress who sponsored them: Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.).

One bill is the Harmful Algal Bloom Essential Forecasting Act (House Resolution (HR) 325). It would ensure that federal agencies monitor potentially HABs even if there’s a government shutdown. The other is the Combat Harmful Algal Blooms Act (HR 1008), which would make a slight change to existing legislation so that HABs are treated like other natural disasters and victims receive federal benefits.

The importance of the legislation was highlighted by the release last Tuesday, Jan. 16, of a new report, Impacts of Water Quality on the Southwest Florida Economy, a 177-page study sponsored by the local environmental organizations Captains for Clean Water, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, and the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation.

The value of water

Last year the organizations commissioned the outside consulting firm Greene Economics LLC, Ridgefield, Wash., to do an extensive and thorough analysis of the precise value of clean water to Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties.

The study found that the value of clean water is massive: it provides $18 billion in value to the coastal economy of the three counties.

The study found that of all the threats to that water like hurricanes, saltwater intrusion, and wastewater pollution, the most costly and dangerous were HABs like red tide and blue-green algae. A major HAB has the potential to cost Southwest Florida $5.2 billion in coastal economic losses, $17.8 billion in property value losses, and $460 million in commercial and recreational fishing losses. It might take out 43,000 jobs in the coastal economy, according to the study.

In 2018 an extensive and persistent HAB (what The Paradise Progressive dubbed “the Big Bloom”) of both red tide in the Gulf of Mexico and blue-green algae in the Caloosahatchee River and along the interior shoreline, tormented Southwest Florida.

The Big Bloom led to a variety of measures meant to cope with future blooms. Then-Rep. Francis Rooney, who represented the 19th Congressional District, the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island, from 2017 to 2021, brought together all the federal agencies and local governments dealing with HABs to fashion a coordinated response.

As a result of that conference, held on May 7, 2019, Rooney drafted the two bills and introduced them in 2019. (For a fuller discussion of the Big Bloom and the politics of HABs, see the May 26, 2021 article, “Water warning: The politics of red tide, algae and lessons from the Big Bloom.”)

During Rooney’s tenure, the bills never made it out of committee.

When Rooney’s successor, Byron Donalds, took office in 2021, the Harmful Algal Bloom Essential Forecasting Act was the first bill he introduced, on March 17 of that year. The Combat Harmful Algal Blooms Act followed on the 24th.

However, like all other legislation he has introduced, Donalds did nothing to advance his own bills. The bills did not move past the introductory phase in the 117th Congress.

Following his re-election in 2022, Donalds reintroduced the bills in the 118th Congress. However, as before, Donalds did nothing to advance them and to date they have not even received subcommittee consideration, the first step toward passage.

Instead, Donalds has concentrated his efforts on out of state political campaigning for former President Donald Trump, attacking the current administration and pursuing his own political ambitions. According to the official congressional database, Congress.gov, Donalds has introduced 63 bills in the current Congress and advanced none of them.

Analysis: The importance of clean water

Water is essential to human existence in the otherwise swampy and hostile tropical environment of Southwest Florida—but not just any water. It must be clean water, consumable by humans, beneficial to animals and nourishing to plants.

Legislation cannot stop HABs but these two pieces of legislation are at least steps that will help Southwest Florida monitor potential blooms and then, when they occur, help businesses and individuals get the same kind of relief and support they would receive in the event of a disaster like a hurricane.

HR 325, the Harmful Algal Bloom Essential Forecasting Act, is especially important given the continuing threat of government shutdowns. Once a rare and very damaging occurrence due to partisan brinksmanship, the US federal government now faces a shutdown every other month as Make America Great Again (MAGA) representatives refuse to vote for essential appropriations.

Ironically, Donalds, a member of the extreme MAGA House Freedom Caucus, has consistently voted for shutdowns by vocally opposing critical appropriations. Of all the members of Congress he should be actively pushing this measure to protect Southwest Florida from the consequences of his own votes.

What is more, it’s not just Southwest Florida that faces the damages of HABs; they’re occurring around the country—indeed, the world—with increasing frequency and intensity given the increase in pollution and changes in climate.

The need to deal with them transcends political party or region. In the United States this is attested to by the fact that HR 325’s only co-sponsor in this Congress, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, (D-7-Mich.), is from Michigan, another state dealing with persistent HABs. Slotkin’s district is centered in the city of Lansing and Lake Lansing has suffered from HABs.

Slotkin is a co-sponsor of another bill, the Protecting Local Communities from Harmful Algal Blooms Act (HR 132) that does the same thing as HR 1008. This bill, introduced by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-16-Fla.) on Jan. 9, 2023, has six cosponsors; one other Republican, Rep. Mike Kelly, (R-16-Pa.), and five Democrats, three of them Floridians: Reps. Darren Soto, (D-9-Fla.), Kathy Castor (D-14-Fla.) and Frederica Wilson (D-24-Fla.). (The other Democratic co-sponsor is Rep. Hillary Scholten, (D-3-Mich.)).

Interestingly enough, Donalds is not a HR 132 co-sponsor. (The Paradise Progressive reached out to Donalds’ office by e-mail with a question and a request for comment on his bills but received no reply or acknowledgment as of post time.)

Commentary: Paying attention at home

Legislation that helps Florida cope with HABs is vital to the state and region. The Impact report makes clear the specific dollar cost of these events to the region’s economy, industry, quality of life and jobs.

Passage of these measures would benefit the region, at least ensuring that people get some advance warning of developing HABs despite even a government shutdown. If a HAB occurs, people would be entitled to the same government benefits they would get if struck by a hurricane.

But for Southwest Florida to get the aid of this legislation these bills have to be nurtured, advanced and developed by the congressman who introduced them. They have to be pushed through the subcommittee and committee process and then presented to the entire House. That takes work, attention, effort and, most of all, concern for the district and its people.

So far that hasn’t been shown by Donalds on these matters.

Perhaps it’s time for Donalds to worry a little less about New Hampshire, Hunter Biden and Donald Trump and a little bit more about Lee and Collier counties and show that he can actually do the job he was elected to do.

Liberty lives in light

The Iowa caucuses, Florida and the fate of DeSantistan

*Gov. Ron DeSantis tries to navigate the snows of Iowa. (Photo: AP)*

Jan. 14, 2024 by David Silverberg

Tomorrow is the day of the long-awaited—or long-dreaded, depending on your perspective—Iowa caucuses.

As this is written the Hawkeye State is being battered by a brutal blizzard and plummeting temperatures. Because caucus-goers must make their preferences known in person (they don’t actually fill out a ballot but submit slips of paper) attendance—or lack thereof—will greatly affect the outcome.

The general expectation is that former President Donald Trump will win in a blowout. That’s the way the polling has been going. But given Mother Nature’s intervention there could be a surprise, or surprises. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) might beat Trump or do much better than expected. Former South Carolina Gov. Nimarata Nikki Randhawa Haley could get “smoked” as former New Jersey governor Chris Christie predicted—or she could smoke DeSantis or even Trump.

The state of Florida is going to be affected by the outcome, given that there are two Florida men running against each other. That impact will extend beyond the question of who will be the Republican presidential nominee; Floridians may feel the effect of this distant contest in their everyday lives.

So it makes sense to go beyond just the presidential horserace aspects of the contest and weigh the impact of possible outcomes on the Sunshine State.

The respective standings of the Republican presidential candidates in Iowa as of today, based on aggregations of polls by ABC/FiveThirtyEight.com. The chart shows Trump at 51.3%, Haley at 17.3%, DeSantis at 16.1% and Ramaswamy at 5.7%. (Chart: 538)

Florida Man 1: The White House or the jail house

Despite his high-profile residence in the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Donald Trump has had surprisingly little impact on his adopted state. He rarely weighs in on state politics or policies except to insult and denigrate its governor whom sees as an ungrateful traitor.

Trump is preoccupied with his presidential bid, staying out of jail and keeping his financial empire intact. If he wins Iowa he simply goes on to the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23 and then follows the trail to the nomination at the Party convention on July 15 in Milwaukee, Wis. Other than little bumps along the road for trials, appeals and potential disqualification for insurrection, it’s a pretty straightforward progression as long as he stays out of jail.

This should not have a direct impact on Florida or its legislative session now under way. If Trump becomes president he will establish himself as dictator and presumably favor Florida in his decisionmaking, although this is never to be taken for granted with Trump.

However, one area that should concern Floridians, especially in the Southwest, is his pledge to “drill, drill, drill” starting on day one. While oil platforms are unlikely in the waters immediately off of Mar-a-Lago (after all, he wouldn’t want to spoil the view), they could be permitted in the eastern Gulf off Southwest Florida, something that Floridians have fought for years. If Trump decided to allow them, there they would be—and in a dictatorship, Southwest Floridians would have no recourse or appeal. That’s life under a tyrant.

There is another Florida possibility that’s unconnected to either Iowa or the presidential campaign. It’s been raised by Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, and that is that Trump could lose Mar-a-Lago in a court judgment. If that happened, he might cease to be a Florida man and take up residence in a federal prison or abroad.

If he left Florida one way or the other, it seems unlikely that Floridians would feel any impact of his departure or absence in their daily lives—although traffic might improve around Mar-a-Lago.

Florida Man 2: The fate of DeSantistan

Far more significant for Floridians is the fate of the state’s governor. Here, the impact of the Iowa caucus outcome is likely to be felt at street level.

It needs to be remembered that at stake in Iowa is not just the future of DeSantis, his presidential ambitions and his political campaign. Rather, the Iowa results will be the first step in telling the world whether America wants to be Florida, or more specifically, DeSantis’ Florida—what has been called DeSantistan (with thanks to Diane Roberts of Florida Phoenix for the term).

It’s not just DeSantis being judged in Iowa; it’s everything that DeSantistan has come to mean: the book-banning, vaccine-denying, woke-stopping, gun-toting, immigrant-hating, teacher-bashing, college-crushing, abortion-ending, vote-restricting, media-taunting, Disney-destroying, Trumplike tropical culture that defines this peculiar peninsula right now.

If DeSantis wins in Iowa he’ll be able to claim validation for his cultural crusade. It will be a triumph all the sweeter for the long odds and unexpected outcome. He’ll be able to argue that the DeSantian model is attractive to the American public at large (even if it’s endorsed by just a handful of frostbitten Iowans) and he will take it to the next stop in New Hampshire. He will pursue his cultural agenda, touting it as a model for the entire country. He will strive to make America DeSantistan.

Within the confines of the Sunshine State, the state legislature, with its Republican supermajority, is likely to remain cowed and subservient in the face of a possible DeSantis presidency. After all, a President DeSantis would bring many potential benefits and rewards, both for the state and for the legislators personally—and also nasty, petty penalties for defiance or apostasy.

As they did last year, the legislators will likely “stay the course,” as DeSantis called on them to do in his State of the State address last Tuesday, Jan. 9. They will probably continue to enact his priorities while each one jockeys to prove him or herself more DeSantian than the others. It will mean a continued race to the right and into further depths of abortion prohibiting, educational inquisition, voter suppression, science denial and cultural crusading. Bills to these effects are already under consideration.

However, if DeSantis is defeated in Iowa that could all change—and the bigger the defeat, the bigger the change.

The definition of “defeat” is variable: a loss to Trump would not be surprising but a loss to Haley, especially a big loss, would be crushing and personally humiliating. Imagine, losing to a girl!

A decisive defeat could end his presidential campaign altogether. Numerous observers, including the wickedly wise Karl Rove, have pointed out that Iowa is a “do or die” moment for DeSantis. If he loses he will still likely limp to the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary, where there is an actual vote. But a loss in Iowa will send him to the Granite State wounded and crippled.

Back at home DeSantis would still be governor of Florida for the next two years but his standing in the state would be vastly diminished. He would no longer be the face of the future with the potential to provide great rewards or significant punishments.

Indeed, this year the Florida legislature is showing some signs that the extreme DeSantis-Make America Great Again (MAGA) fever is beginning to break.

For example, a bill to ban abortion in virtually all instances (House Bill 1519) is getting the cold shoulder from Senate President Sen. Kathleen Passidomo (R-28-Naples) and House Speaker Rep. Paul Renner (R-19-Flagler and St. Johns counties), the top lawmakers in both houses. Similarly, a bill to virtually end mail-in balloting and require more hand counts of ballots (Senate Bill 1752)—pet peeves of Trump and 2020 election deniers—received a similarly cold reception from Passidomo.

The cooling of ideological ardor, combined with the governor’s prolonged absence from the state while campaigning elsewhere, has apparently loosened DeSantis’ hold on the minds of state lawmakers. A decisive defeat in Iowa could actually awaken them from their cultic thrall and evolve a spine in some of them, despite party demands for complete submission.

After a beating in Iowa and the end of his campaign, DeSantis would likely return to Tallahassee, lick his wounds and govern for the next two years but without the presidential urgency and drive that has propelled him so far. As he stated in his State of the State speech, he would stay the course and continue with existing policies, likely without the bombast and drama that has marked him to date.

However, he would also be governing in the looming shadow of a possible Trump presidency and while Trump may be forgetful of land values and real estate appraisals he never forgets an enemy or a perceived turncoat. If Trump wins, DeSantis would likely be targeted for arrest and imprisonment on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of a Trump dictatorship. (Trump probably wouldn’t wait for the following day to order DeSantis’ arrest but would have him seized on some pretext after taking the inaugural oath at noon.)

In the event that President Joe Biden is re-elected there would be none of the truly dire consequences for DeSantis and the state. The governor would continue denouncing Biden from the safety of the Governor’s Mansion for two years and then play baseball, cogitate in a think-tank or practice law while awaiting his next presidential chance in 2028, secure in the expectation that there would be another chance because the election would be held as planned.

Grassroots Floridians will likely feel the impact of a DeSantis defeat in a more moderate legislature and less draconian laws, somewhat freer democracy (or at least less restrictive balloting), and less hatred, prejudice and rage against citizens who fall outside the governor’s political base.

By contrast, a DeSantis win in Iowa will likely see more efforts by Florida Republicans to force political unity on the Florida population to guarantee solid backing for his continued quest for the nomination and general election. The totalitarian impulse is strong in the Sunshine State. After all, last year there were calls to officially make Florida a single-party state. Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-11-Citrus, Hernando and Sumter counties) introduced a bill to outlaw the Democratic Party based on its 1860 support for slavery (conveniently overlooking Republican support for keeping slavery in the states where it already existed). Republican Party Chair Christian Ziegler announced that the Party’s “work is not done until there are no more Democrats in Florida.”

Today Florida is still a multiparty state, there are still Democrats voting in it and Christian Ziegler has been expelled from the Party chairmanship. Now the fate of Florida’s political culture rests in the frozen mittens of Iowa Republicans.

As for Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Floridians are unlikely to feel any shock waves if these candidates somehow emerge from Iowa’s icy grip. They have not had an impact on Florida to date and unless one of them succeeds to the presidency, it’s hard to see any state impacts from either of them.

Of caucuses and confusion

In 2020, six Democratic candidates entered the Iowa caucuses to jockey for the presidential nomination. In a surprise, Peter Buttegieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, received the largest proportion of votes and the most delegates after a confusing, delayed result that took several days to sort out. In the end it didn’t matter because Joe Biden became the nominee and the 46th President of the United States.

The results of the Republican Iowa caucuses this year could be similarly confused. We all may not know for days who won or in the end the results may be inconclusive. Ultimately, they may not matter at all.

There’s also one other possible outcome: if he somehow loses, Trump will no doubt declare that he actually won, the caucuses were rigged and the results are invalid. He’ll blame the weather, illegal migrants, and George Soros.

It could happen. After all, this scenario has occurred before. And his MAGA cultists will no doubt believe him.

Sidebar: A caucus mystery solved?

In American political parlance, “to caucus” means to “gather” or “confer” and “a caucus” means a gathering or conclave.

The origins of the term “caucus” are obscure. When this author was researching his book Congress for Dummies in 2002, he discovered there was no definitive etymology for the term. Some observers thought it was originally a Native American term. That seemed unlikely because the word sounded Latinate. Other sources believe it derived from colonial drinking clubs or from shipbuilding caulkers “caucusing” together.

On a visit to Scotland last summer, this author became aware of a Scottish drinking cup called a Quaich (pronounced “quake”). According to Scottish sources, the word is Gaelic and means a cup of friendship or comradeship. It was a Celtic variation of a low-class Latin word for cup, which happened to be “caucus.”

So the American political term “caucus” may derive from the time of Roman Britain and Latin’s influence on language throughout the isles. As people gathered to drink and share cups, they also shared thoughts and concerns. Perhaps Scottish settlers brought their quaiches and the even older term for cup to the New World. In the centuries since, the word has evolved to its current political meaning.

This is a theory, of course. Someday, perhaps some sharp linguistic graduate student will definitively nail down the sources and proofs. But it makes sense and it’s pleasant to think of a caucus as a group of friends gathering together to share a common cup of spirits, conversation and good cheer. It’s a warm image particularly appropriate to the frozen fields of Iowa.

At any rate that’s the explanation this author most enjoys, so he’s sticking with it. Slàinte Mhath!

*A Scottish Quaich. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons).*

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

Part III – A democracy, if you can keep it: Collier County, Fla., and the war on competence

*A group of Collier County residents huddle in prayer prior to a Board of Commissioners meeting in the Commission chamber on March 28, 2023. (Photo: Author)*

Jan. 3, 2024 by David Silverberg

What will be the shape of Collier County, Florida’s next century? This year’s election has the potential to significantly mold its future well beyond just the next year.

As the United States as a whole faces a stark election choice between democracy and dictatorship in 2024, so Collier County voters face important choices between candidates who represent radically different approaches to governing, educating and most importantly, counting ballots.

It is important to note that August 20—not the general election date of Nov. 5—is the operative election date for some of these races, which will be decided in the Republican Party primary. (This is also not to be confused with the Florida Presidential Preference Primary, which is scheduled for March 19.)

In keeping with the dominant political complexion of the county, all the candidates are Republicans by name and party affiliation, except for the School Board, whose elections are non-partisan.

In fact, however, some of the governing philosophies at issue are so radically different that some candidates could be said to be Republicans, while others belong to what is a separate de facto Make America Great Again (MAGA) party.

Another issue that is very important for the future of Collier County is the role of religion in public affairs. There is a vocal and active Christian nationalist political movement in the county seeking to impose its religious views. One commissioner, Chris Hall (R-District 2) openly stated that “there is no separation of church and state.” School Board member Jerry Rutherford (District 1) maintains the same and has tried to insert religion into school board meetings.

Will the wall of separation between church and state be demolished in Collier County? The election will go a long way toward making this determination.

Collier County Board of Commissioners

Of the five seats on the Collier County Board of Commissioners, three are up for election: Districts 1, 3 and 5.

Because all candidates are Republicans, this race will be decided in the Republican primary election on Aug. 20.

As of Nov. 5, 2023, two of these offices were uncontested. In District 1 Commissioner Rick LoCastro had no opponent. The same was true for William McDaniel in District 5.

But District 3 is an entirely different story.

The district is a broad swath of largely rural land that goes from the county line in the north, along Route 75 on the west and south and Wilson Blvd. on the east. It includes communities like Golden Gate, the Vineyards, and Island Walk.

*Collier County Commission District 3. (Map: CCBC)*

The sitting commissioner is Burt Saunders, 75, Republican, a lawyer by profession and an experienced official. Originally from Hampton, Va., he moved to Florida in 1978 to attend graduate school. He received his law degree from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., and his master of laws degree from the University of Miami. He first served as the Collier County attorney before being elected to the Commission in 1986. He was then elected to the state House of Representatives in 1994 and the state Senate in 1998 where he served until 2008 before returning to the Board of Commissioners in 2016. As of Nov. 5 he had raised $7,500 for his campaign.

*District 3 Commissioner Burt Saunders. (Image: CCBC)*

Saunders is facing three Republican challengers for his seat.

Floyd “Tag” Yarnell, 53, is a litigation lawyer who calls himself a “Constitutional Conservative” and states he “will make decisions based on his faith and reverence to America’s founding principles.” As of Nov. 5 he had raised $22,450 for his race, the most of any of the candidates. The contributions came from a variety of individuals, many of them fellow lawyers.

John Johnson, 80, originally from Chicago, is a Collier County resident who held a wide variety of jobs including heavy equipment operator, farmer, motel owner, construction company owner and painting contractor, before retiring in 2020. As of Nov. 5 he had raised $4,220 for his campaign.

Frank Roberts, 34, is a tax attorney and former US Air Force Judge Advocate, who received his law degree from Ave Maria School of Law. As he puts it in his campaign biography: “He resides in Golden Gate Estates just outside Naples with his beautiful wife of 11 years, Kaitlyn, and three daughters where they happily raise chickens free from HOAs [homeowners associations] and with minimal government interference.” As of Nov. 5 he had not raised any money for his campaign.

Saunders’ seat is under threat because he has consistently been a voice for moderation and reasonable governance in the face of radical MAGA efforts. In August he was the lone vote against the Collier County anti-federal “Bill of Rights Sanctuary” ordinance, which asserted a county right to nullify federal law. He objected to its vagueness and unenforceability.

During the Aug. 22, 2023 Commission discussion on passage of that ordinance, prominent MAGA farmer and grocer Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III, after denouncing the “tyrannical” federal government, took direct aim at Saunders: “I understand, Burt, that you might not want to vote yes on this but you know, we as the electorate also have the choice not to vote for you when it comes up again.”

Saunders ignored the threat and voted against it anyway.

Similarly, in April he opposed an extreme anti-public health ordinance and resolution, which also passed over his lone dissenting vote.

During the COVID pandemic, Saunders voted in the majority to impose mandatory public health protection measures to protect county residents, incurring the wrath of those who opposed vaccinations and dismissed COVID as a hoax.

In the 2022 election, Oakes targeted two commissioners who had voted for COVID protections, Andy Solis (District 2), who declined to run for another term, and Penny Taylor (District 4). The candidates he backed, Hall and Dan Kowal (R-District 4), won.

“A year and half ago we said we’d get rid of them and here we are,” Oakes boasted during a post-election celebration at his market, Seed to Table. “Look, Bill McDaniel up here! Conservatives, America First, own Collier County now, praise the Lord!”

Supervisor of Elections

This year Collier County will face a contested race for the position of Supervisor of Elections.

Like the County Commission, this race will likely be decided in the Republican primary on Aug. 20.

Until now, local elections have been judged clean and results were accepted by all parties in Collier County. The office has never had a scandal or a challenge to its vote counting.

Collier County was created as a separate governing entity in 1923. It was served by a Supervisor of Registration of Electors before the office was changed to Supervisor of Elections in 1965. After serving four years as registrar, Edna Cribb Santa became the first Supervisor in 1965 and held the post for 16 years until 1981. She was followed by Mary Morgan, who served 19 years until 2000.

The most recent supervisor was Jennifer Edwards, who held the office for 23 years and retired in April 2023.

Edwards nominated her deputy, Melissa Blazier, 45, as her replacement.

“Melissa’s 17+ years of experience in the Supervisor of Elections office, vast knowledge of Florida’s election laws and rules, and her comprehension of the complexities of conducting elections would allow for a seamless transition as we head into the 2024 Presidential Election Cycle,” Edwards wrote in her March 31 retirement letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). “Melissa is unquestionably the most qualified person for this position and is prepared and ready to continue Collier County’s tradition of conducting excellent elections.”

Blazier has also been active in a variety of civic and political organizations including membership in the League of Women Voters, Men’s Republican Club of Collier County, Naples Republican Club, Republican Club of South Collier County, Republican Women of Southwest Florida Federated, and the Women’s Republican Club.

DeSantis followed Edwards’ recommendation and appointed Blazier as supervisor.

This year, Blazier is facing two challengers.

David Schaffel, 63, provides no background on his profession or career on his campaign website, except to call himself a “successful businessman and IT entrepreneur.” He says in a campaign video that he is a “rock-solid conservative and America First patriot.” He questions whether the 2020 election was stolen and says that as supervisor, his focus “will be on securing and restoring trust in our elections.” As of Nov. 5, he had not reported any donations to his campaign or spent any money on it.

The more serious challenger is Timothy Guerrette, 56, a former chief of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, from which he retired in 2021 after 31 years of service. He has also worked as a real estate broker and since retirement has hosted an “Uncensored 239” podcast. He has experience in police operations and management. He’s running on a platform of “safe, secure, ethical” elections and says in a campaign video that he will bring “competence and integrity back into the voting process.”

As of Nov. 5, Guerrette had raised $78,262 for his campaign. Many of the donations came from active and former law enforcement officers, including $1,000 from the Friends of Carmine Marceno Political Action Committee. Marceno is the sheriff in neighboring Lee County.

By contrast, as of Nov. 5, Blazier had raised $56,468 for her campaign, mostly from individuals, including her predecessor, including $25,000 she loaned her own campaign.

The opposition to Blazier appears to be less about her as an individual and more about distrust of the whole election process by disappointed MAGAs. This in turn seems largely based on former President Donald Trump’s disproven charges of 2020 election fraud and his attempt to overthrow the election’s outcome.

Despite Collier County’s record of election stability and accuracy, Oakes has alleged that mechanical vote counting was suspect.

“I will be challenging the Superintendent of Elections to clean up and do away with computer calculations for voting,” Oakes told The Paradise Progressive in an interview on Dec. 14, 2022. “We should have hand counts. In Europe they don’t take three weeks,” to reach a conclusion, he noted, referring to other elections around the United States that took long times to tabulate. While he said he liked Edwards, he called her “a little bit naïve and if you put her hand on the Bible, she would swear there is nothing corrupt going on there. I don’t think that’s true.”

Hand counting ballots has become a MAGA rallying cry even though it flies in the face of state law. As Blazier put it in a June 28, 2023 interview with The Paradise Progressive, changing away from machine counts “would have to be changed in law. That’s not something we can decide to do. And certainly not, given the deadlines we have to certify an election, it’s not possible to hand count—and I’m talking about one race. When you think about the general election ballot, we have over 30 contests on that ballot, with over a hundred different ballot styles that we would potentially have to hand count. I know that no one likes to hear this, but machines are more accurate than human beings are.”

School Board

Like all school boards in Florida, Collier County’s is a non-partisan race. If any candidate receives 50 percent plus one in the primary election, that person is elected. Otherwise, its makeup will be decided in the general election on Nov. 5.

Two school districts are up for election this year: District 2, currently represented by Vice Chair Stephanie Lucarelli, and District 4, represented by Erick Carter.

Lucarelli, 49, has served on the Board since 2016. She previously worked as a teacher in New Jersey, where she received her teaching certificate from Rutgers University.

Erick Carter, 53, also took a seat on the Board in 2016. Originally from South Carolina, Carter was an instructor with a national ballroom dancing company when he discovered Southwest Florida in 1992, met his wife Anita and settled in Naples, where today they run Salon Zenergy, a hair and cosmetology salon.

Lucarelli and Carter have provided a moderate, secular approach to education and school board decisions since taking office in 2020.

With Chair Kelly Lichter (District 3) providing the swing vote, both voted in the majority to approve the appointment of Superintendent Leslie Ricciardelli despite a less experienced MAGA contender for the position backed by Oakes. They also rejected mixing religion into School Board proceedings with an invocation prior to Board meetings.

As of this writing it is not certain that Lucarelli and Carter will run again since they have not declared their candidacies.

The only declared School Board candidate is a Collier County resident running in District 2 named Pamela Shanouda Cunningham, 49, whose campaign website and video declares her to be an “unapologetic conservative.” She claims that Collier County children’s futures are “being sold out to big government bureaucrats who want to indoctrinate, not educate; career politicians who want to teach them what to think, not how to think.” She wants to put “parents in classrooms, not the liberal elite” and “restore greatness to the American classroom.”

Cunningham provides no biographic material on her website although she titles herself “Dr.,” and provides no academic credentials. She has never run for public office. The Collier County Citizens Values Political Action Committee lists her as Republican.

She did not respond to an e-mail or phone call from The Paradise Progressive seeking further information.

Analysis: The war on competence

In 2024 Collier County voters face a choice whether to uphold a secular, constitutional, effective local government or to veer off in a radical, extreme, religious direction.

The MAGA candidates running represent a continuation of the Trumpist war against expertise, experience and competence.

When he was president and especially during the COVID pandemic, Trump waged war on experts and the value of experience. He lacked experts’ knowledge and education, so he denigrated and dismissed them as “deep state” or “liberal elite” and belittled their knowledge. Then, when he lost the election, he deliberately promoted a Big Lie to overturn the results and questioned the integrity and neutrality of election officials who counted the votes.

The echoes of that anti-expertise, anti-competence, election-denying attitude continue to resonate and can be seen in the choices before Collier County.

In Burt Saunders Collier County has a seasoned, prudent commissioner with extensive experience in law and government at the state and local levels that is unmatched by his challengers.

In Melissa Blazier the county has a veteran, knowledgeable Supervisor of Elections with extensive experience. In addition to having helped oversee elections for the past 17 years, she is certified as an Elections/Registration Administrator by the National Association of Election Officials’ Election Center and is a Master Florida Certified Elections Professional through the Florida Supervisors of Elections.

In Stephanie Luccarelli and Erick Carter the county has experienced school board members with an abiding interest in education and the welfare of students, teachers and parents.

The people seeking to replace these veteran officials are running based on old suspicions, distrust of expertise and conspiracy theories.

The Supervisor of Elections position is a case in point.

This is an extremely important position because it’s the foundation for all other governance and elections. The public has to have confidence in its outcomes and especially in its absolute neutrality and integrity.

It’s worth remembering that the Supervisor of Elections oversees not only general elections but party primaries as well. For example, if candidates from two different Republican Party factions vie for a seat, everyone has to be confident that the Supervisor will not favor one faction or another in any way and that the intra-party vote count will be fair, unbiased and accurate.

The complaints about the election process appear to come from the 2020 outcome that Trump supporters didn’t like. But the Supervisor job is much broader than that.

There seems to be little understanding of the true complexity and nature of the job by its critics or challengers. As Blazier pointed out, a Supervisor may be overseeing over 30 different ballots on everything from constitutional amendments to judicial elections to the Collier County Mosquito Control District (which has two seats open this year), the Soil and Water Conservation District (four seats) and various fire control and rescue districts, not to mention mayor and council seats in Everglades City, Marco Island and Naples.

More than anything else, the Supervisor job is an accounting job; it’s all about numbers, vote counts, meeting deadlines and adhering to all applicable laws and getting everything out the door promptly, whether that means mail-in ballots or election results. A law enforcement or business background may include aspects related to the Supervisor’s job but nothing compares to over 17 years of on-the-job training and experience like that held by Blazier.

By contrast, her challengers have nothing in their backgrounds indicating any familiarity—or even previous interest—in election management. They have never been involved in administering elections or even served as poll workers.

Additionally, Blazier comes from an unbroken tradition of election excellence and integrity that stretches back to the founding of Collier County. Overthrowing all that knowledge and expertise, especially by an ideologically-driven MAGA opponent, would call into question the integrity and accuracy of all future election results including those for intra-party contests.

Another case in point is the Collier County School Board where Rutherford and Moshier, the two MAGA school board members, have consistently failed or proven unable to do the hard, necessary work of budgeting—and they campaigned on cutting that budget. When confronted with a real spreadsheet, they froze. Rutherford, with Moshier’s support, introduced time-consuming and irrelevant distractions like the controversy over an invocation. They have shown next to no interest in the actual nuts and bolts of providing educational excellence for students.

When ideological loyalty trumps competence the results are eroded services, misguided management and ineffective operations, not to mention poor decisionmaking in budgeting, administration and conservation. In the current case, if Collier County voters reject competence for fanaticism this year they’ll start to feel the effects in 2025, when novice officials take office and start bungling operations and mishandling their responsibilities.

Of course, all these considerations will be moot if Donald Trump is elected and overthrows American democracy. All these offices and the procedures for selecting their officeholders are based on democratic, legal procedures, consent of the governed and the supremacy of law and the Constitution. In a dictatorship the dictator simply appoints his own loyalists based on the blindness of their fealty. Competence is no longer a consideration and public consent is dismissed.

So going into 2024, Collier County voters are faced with seasoned candidates with experience, knowledge and proven competence in their fields or unseasoned MAGA amateurs running on grievances, conspiracies and blind belief.

One course will result in a county that is run on behalf of its residents with effectiveness, efficiency and integrity. The other will lead to ignorance, intolerance and most of all, incompetence.

That would not be a great way to start Collier County’s second century.

______________________

In case you missed it:

Part I – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead in politics in America

Part II – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead abroad

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

Part II – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead abroad

*America will have to navigate stormy waters overseas in the coming year. (Photo: Hai Thinh)*

Jan 2, 2024 by David Silverberg

This year, American politics will not be happening in a vacuum; they will be profoundly affected by events and actors overseas.

Of course, American elections never really occur in isolation; they’re always impacted by the rest of the world. However, since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 there has rarely been a more volatile, dangerous and, indeed, explosive international situation. This is an election that will truly determine the fate of the world.

This year Americans will feel foreign influences at home like never before, whether they’re aware of them or not, even in a place as obscure and far from centers of power as Southwest Florida.

What are Americans likely to experience from abroad as the year proceeds to its political climax on Election Day, Nov. 5?

The arsenal of democracy

*President Franklin Roosevelt gives his “Arsenal of Democracy” address.*

On Dec. 29, 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt gave a radio speech to the American people. “This is not a fireside chat on war,” he said at the outset. “It is a talk on national security.”

He reviewed the threat to the world of Nazi and Fascist conquest. He argued that the United States must support Britain’s resistance to Adolf Hitler and that Americans could not be complacent behind two great oceans.

Toward the end of the talk he said, “We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.”

Today the exact same speech could be given with the same emphasis, just substituting “Russia” for “Germany,” “Putin” for “Hitler” and “terrorism” for “Fascism.”

There are other similarities to today and Roosevelt noted them in a paragraph in his speech, which deserves full quotation:

“Let us no longer blind ourselves to the undeniable fact that the evil forces which have crushed and undermined and corrupted so many others are already within our own gates. Your government knows much about them and every day is ferreting them out. Their secret emissaries are active in our own and in neighboring countries. They seek to stir up suspicion and dissension, to cause internal strife. They try to turn capital against labor, and vice versa. They try to reawaken long slumbering racial and religious enmities which should have no place in this country. They are active in every group that promotes intolerance. They exploit for their own ends our own natural abhorrence of war. These trouble-breeders have but one purpose. It is to divide our people, to divide them into hostile groups and to destroy our unity and shatter our will to defend ourselves.”

Now, as then, these “trouble-breeders” are active in America, only now they’re on social media and have own media networks and one broadcast network in particular. They will be extraordinarily active in this critical year.

America remains not only the arsenal of democracy but the fulcrum of world politics, the indispensable nation without which rule-based democracy cannot exist. As such it is the focus of every enemy of democracy and every would-be conqueror who would pull it from its pedestal. Every American’s television, computer, smart phone, printed page and any other form of communication is a target.

However, their efforts are likely to also likely to be “kinetic,” including terrorism, sabotage and physical violence.

The war fronts

The course of the year and the future is being shaped by war, which is the most uncertain of all human endeavors. America’s tomorrow is being forged on distant battlefields today.

The war in Ukraine will determine whether the United States remains a superpower, whether the Ukrainian people remain independent and democratic, and whether NATO and the West remain strong. Alternatively, if America, Ukraine and the West fail, a despotic Russia will rebuild an empire of fear and oppression, spread it to Europe and reduce the United States to a vassal.

As the year dawns, neither side can retreat. For Ukraine the struggle is an existential one: if Ukraine loses it ceases to exist. The same is true for Russian President Vladimir Putin: if Russia loses he ceases to exist. As a result there’s no end in sight right now and the war seems set to continue in its current state for at least another year.

Putin is 71 years old. If he dies or is killed during the course of the year the entire equation will change. There were strong rumors in October that he suffered a heart attack. However, he reappeared in public. As long as he is alive the course of Russian policy and warmaking will likely remain as it has since the invasion a year and ten months ago. His opponent, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, 45, has to stay alive too—but the Ukrainian war effort is less dependent on the will of a single man.

The war in Gaza will determine whether the United States remains a vital participant in the future of the Middle East, whether Israel and its neighbors will ever achieve peace, whether the people of Gaza will survive, whether Iran and its allies will dominate the region and whether the United States can sustain a two-front defense of the West and the democracies.

In its first phase Hamas won its war. Its Oct. 7 attack achieved strategic surprise, punctured the image of Israeli dominance and invulnerability and especially humiliated the vaunted Mossad intelligence agency. It ended moves toward Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab states. It forced Israel to deal with Hamas as a government in order to negotiate for captured hostages. It stirred up global antipathy to Israel and intensified worldwide anti-Semitism. It also delivered a personal blow to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose entire life was built on fighting terrorism.

For Russia and Iran, it opened a new front against the United States and distracted world attention away from Putin’s aggression. It put the United States on the defensive in justifying the overwhelming Israeli response. It forced choices in American military production capabilities, diverting them away from Ukraine. Despite the atrocities committed by its fighters (warning: this video is extremely graphic), Hamas successfully prompted an overwhelming and often indiscriminate Israeli response, costing it international support and leading to condemnation.

All Hamas has to do in the year ahead to win its war is simply survive since Netanyahu set the Israeli war goal as destroying it. Israel seems unlikely to achieve its goal before the year is out.

But Netanyahu is one of the most extraordinarily stubborn and determined human beings on his planet. He is absolutely focused on destroying Hamas to the exclusion of all other considerations. If all other factors remain the same he will continue Israel’s current course no matter how long it takes or what it costs in blood, treasure, or prestige.

That will mean more protests, more isolation of the United States and Israel and more casualties and hardship for civilian Gazans at the hands of both Hamas and Israel. It will mean more mobilization for the enemies of the US and Israel and intensified attacks and challenges on widely disparate and diverse battlefields on land, at sea and in the air. The Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea are just the start.

It may also mean that yet another front opens or a third major war suddenly breaks out somewhere during the year.

For everyday Americans it will mean something else as well: the increased likelihood of terrorism.

“Blinking red lights everywhere”

*FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Dec. 5, 2023. (Image: CSPAN)*

On Dec. 5, Christopher Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was asked if he saw the kind of “blinking red lights” that were going off before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“What I would say that is unique about the environment that we’re in right now in my career is that while there may have been times over the years where individual threats could have been higher here or there than where they may be right now, I’ve never seen a time where all the threats or so many of the threats are all elevated, all at exactly the same time,” answered Wray. “I see blinking red lights everywhere.”

Following the Hamas attack on Israel, said Wray, a “veritable rogue’s gallery of foreign terrorists” called for attacks on the United States and “the threat level has gone to a whole other level since Oct. 7.”

Sure enough, on Dec. 14, police in Denmark, Holland and Germany announced they had foiled a Hamas terror plot in their countries.

This is only the beginning. Given the tensions, stakes and desperation in so many theaters there will undoubtedly be terror and mass casualty events in the United States this year, some of them severe. What’s more, the intensity, stress and threats—and likely, number of events—will escalate as Election Day draws closer. There may be efforts to stop voting or scare people away from polling places.

The organized terror plots by groups from abroad such as Hamas or countries like Iran can often be foiled by good intelligence and detective work. But there is a significant domestic terror threat as well that simply cannot be anticipated. Some lone shooters, random crazies and violent extremists will get through.

There’s no solution to this at street level. Americans will just have to be alert, cautious and aware of their surroundings at all times, especially in large gatherings of any nature. Never has the old adage, “if you see something, say something” been more applicable.

But Americans will also need to show courage and calm and carry on. The saying “freedom isn’t free” is usually used in reference to military sacrifices. This year as Americans carry on their daily lives and fulfil their civic duties, they will have to keep in mind that their rights and freedom come with a cost in vigilance and potential danger but that it’s worth facing.

“Carefully, accurately, surgically”

*Yevgeny Prigozhin in uniform from Rostov-on-Don in a June 24, 2023 video he released in the midst of his mutiny.*

On Nov. 7, 2022 Yevgeny Prigozhin posted comments on the Russian equivalent of Facebook.

It was the day before the US midterm elections. “We have interfered [in US elections], we are interfering and we will continue to interfere,” he boasted. “Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once.”

Prigozhin, known as Putin’s chef and close counselor, was head of the Wagner Group mercenaries. He was widely believed in Western intelligence circles to be mastermind of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election that put Donald Trump in the White House. He oversaw troll farms that flooded American social media with divisive and disruptive messages and promoted Trump’s candidacy. His operatives organized pro-Trump rallies and posed as Trump operatives and spread disinformation. His hackers attempted to penetrate election offices.

Much of this activity took place in Florida, according to the 2019 report issued by retired FBI director Robert Mueller.

Prigozhin had the temerity to threaten Putin when he led a mutiny last June. He got his reward in August when a plane he was riding in crashed in Russia, killing him and his closest associates.

As Russia has interfered in US elections ever since 2016, so it can be expected to attempt to interfere in the 2024 election—and probably already is doing so. Prigozhin will not be at the helm so the style will be different but he may have already been replaced by someone more capable.

With so much at stake, with active combat around the world, all of America’s enemies can be expected to try to determine the outcome of the US election. This will not only take the form of social media interference and disinformation, it will also likely involve direct efforts to skew vote counts and penetrate election offices.

It may also include old-fashioned direct corruption, blackmail and bribery, subverting elected and appointed officials and making covert contributions to specific election campaigns at all levels of government. It will likely include Russian support for Trump’s candidacy, given his admiration for Putin and his antipathy toward Ukraine.

There is no doubt that Russia will be covertly promoting anti-Ukraine sentiment among American voters. Opposition to Ukraine among Republican members of Congress is already playing into Putin’s hands.

“Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us,” Olga Skabeeva, a Russian TV personality on state TV said when Republican members of Congress blocked an aid package to Ukraine and Israel just before the December recess.

Dmitry Drobnitsky, a Russian American affairs analyst, added: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone.”

As Americans sort through their social media feeds and information from media of all sorts this year, they should be aware that they are targets of hostile powers pursuing their own agendas. As with the threat of terrorism, watchfulness and awareness will be essential. When it comes to information, especially outrageous, incendiary and extreme “news” items, healthy skepticism, vigilance and verification of sources will be critical to staying in touch with reality.

The border and immigration conundrums

Migrant flows to the US southern border are already at record levels. They will likely skyrocket as the year proceeds.

Why? Because people hoping to reach the United States are very well aware of the American political situation. This year may represent their last, best chance to migrate to the United States and enter in an orderly, legal way. They may be poor and desperate but they’re not stupid.

Also, America’s opponents will want to put as much pressure on the administration as possible, so there may be an element of foreign agitation in promoting northward migration.

Then there are the factors that are driving a northward migration around the world: poverty, war, oppression, fear, and the ravages of climate change. At the same time there are the attractions: hope, freedom, promise and the chance for a better life.

But the surge at the border will no doubt be a major headache and vulnerability for Biden this year. He is constrained in his response by existing law and established procedures, while Trump and the Republicans have no such constraints and don’t have to offer solutions that actually work. They already are and can be expected to exploit the situation to the full.

If Biden wins, US immigration and border policy will continue to function on systematic, legal principles and will likely improve with time and additional resources.

But by contrast, Trump continues denouncing immigrants in purely racial terms as he has done since he began campaigning for president in 2015. “They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done,” Trump said of them during a rally in New Hampshire on Dec. 16. His solutions embody hatred, prejudice and rage.

In the notorious Project 2025 plan for governing after his election, Trump supporters envision reshaping government to give Trump unconstrained power. Their ideas include building large concentration camps and conducting mass raids and roundups of undocumented migrants. During Trump’s presidency migrant families were separated and conditions for migrants declined precipitously. Treatment is likely to become even more draconian if he’s re-elected and assumes dictatorial powers. And he would no doubt revive plans to build a massive, ineffective and exorbitantly expensive wall along the US southern border.

All this creates an incentive for migrants to get to the United States in 2024 while they still have a reasonable chance of entering.

That there is stress at the border is undeniable. But the issue has been so politicized and distorted that it’s difficult to get an accurate, objective assessment of the situation.

Trump and Republican politicians know that alarm about migrants polls well and agitates the base. However, they’ve so overhyped the situation that their more extreme allegations are suspect. They’ve charged that the border under the Biden administration is “open,” meaning that there are no controls at all. In fact there is a structure and enforcement mechanism to deal with asylum seekers and attempted crossers both legal and illegal —but it’s under strain.

Govs. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) and Greg Abbott (R-Texas) in the past year used transports of migrants to places like Martha’s Vineyard and Washington, DC as political stunts to score publicity points while in fact making virtually no difference in coping with migrant flows.

Will these stunts continue in the new year? They may, but there is also the possibility that they’ll die down. With Trump the Republican nominee there’s no reason to seek the kind of publicity that the migrant flights and buses brought to the two men, who were competing for the nomination. Also, with Trump and Republicans wooing Hispanic voters, these kinds of expensive antics may be counterproductive.

Rational analysts of all persuasions have long agreed that what is needed is comprehensive immigration reform. Major bipartisan attempts were made in Congress in 2007 and 2014, both of which were stymied by recalcitrant anti-immigration politicians.

Republicans in the House passed a Secure the Border Act last year, one of their only legislative successes. The bill was a partisan codification of Trumpist border measures and went nowhere in the Senate.

There is virtually no prospect for any real progress being made on immigration or border security in 2024. Congressional Republicans are following an entirely Trumpist playbook, while Trump is advocating a Hitlerian approach to immigration. Whatever solutions Biden proposes or measures he takes will be attacked by Republicans, whose real interest is in maintaining the status quo so that they can keep using the issue to flay the administration.

Another potential reason for Trump to exploit the border situation has been floated by Joyce Vance, an attorney who served as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Alabama during the Obama administration. After examining Trump’s social media postings, Vance concluded: “Trump is preparing to claim the 2024 election was stolen from him when he loses” and will blame the loss on voting by undocumented migrants allegedly allowed into the country by the Biden administration and the Democratic Party.

While there’s no way to know in advance if this will happen, and new immigrants won’t be eligible to vote in this election, it would certainly be in keeping with Trump’s modus operandi of lying and discrediting realities he doesn’t like.

So the prospects for the year ahead are for Trump’s rhetoric on immigrants to keep getting uglier, Republican exploitation of the situation to increase and get more apocalyptic, numbers of migrants and their suffering at the border to keep growing, strains on border security mechanisms to keep expanding and the rewards of finding practical consensus solutions to stay elusive. It’s not a formula for success and until there’s comprehensive immigration reform it’s a situation that will not be solved any time soon.

Meanwhile, in Florida specifically, DeSantis’ anti-immigrant rhetoric from the campaign and the anti-immigrant measures that the legislature passed in the last session will continue to dry up the state’s workforce, cripple its businesses and hurt its economy, resulting in higher prices and lower productivity.

Any kind of rational progress on these issues will have to wait until 2025. If Democrats take both the House and Senate, there may be the start of bipartisan work toward a sensible solution as there was in 2007 and 2014.

And yet, there’s hope

In his 1940 “Arsenal of Democracy” talk, Roosevelt said that he had received many telegrams (anyone remember those?) suggesting what he should discuss on the radio.

He singled out one in particular: “The gist of that telegram was: ‘Please, Mr. President, don’t frighten us by telling us the facts.’” Roosevelt decided to ignore that plea. “Frankly and definitely there is danger ahead — danger against which we must prepare,” he said. “But we well know that we cannot escape danger, or the fear of danger, by crawling into bed and pulling the covers over our heads.”

It is startling to read the text of that speech now. The challenges of that time were so similar to those of today.

And the solutions that Roosevelt proposed then apply today as well.

“We have no excuse for defeatism,” he said. “We have every good reason for hope—hope for peace, yes, and hope for the defense of our civilization and for the building of a better civilization in the future. I have the profound conviction that the American people are now determined to put forth a mightier effort than they have ever yet made to increase our production of all the implements of defense, to meet the threat to our democratic faith.”

Eighty-four years ago, Americans heeded that call. They backed Britain, put forth the effort, and when war came to them, they won it.

They can do it again.

Despite all the dangers and threats enumerated above—and in particular the domestic danger of a Trump dictatorship—there is another way that events can all play out this year.

In this scenario Americans rally, they become active, they understand what’s at stake and they decide to commit to defending democracy at home and abroad. Their efforts pay off: Trump and Trumpism are crushed decisively in every state and so overwhelmingly that his inevitable lies about a stolen election and accusations of fraud are seen for the desperate delusions they are; the law is upheld; the guilty are punished; Ukraine is supported; Putin is defeated; terrorism stopped; and America returns to civility and constitutionalism.

This is a real, possible outcome.

But, of course, it’s an outcome that people have to want and work to achieve.

The year lies before us. Roosevelt said it so well in closing his speech: “As President of the United States, I call for that national effort. I call for it in the name of this nation which we love and honor and which we are privileged and proud to serve. I call upon our people with absolute confidence that our common cause will greatly succeed.”

The American people did it then and they can do it now.

*There can be calm after a storm. (Photo: Author)*

________________________

Coming next, Part III – A democracy, if you can keep it: Collier County, Fla., and the war on competence

In case you missed it:

Part I – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead in politics in America

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

Part I: A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead in politics in America

Jan. 1, 2024 by David Silverberg

There are inflection points in human history, monumental years when everything changes.

This is such a year—and everyone can see it coming.

This is a year when the fundamentals of the future will be determined both at the ballot box and on the battlefield. Even little old Collier County, Florida, having marked a century of existence, will be fundamentally shaped for its next century.

It will be an interesting year but not a fun one. Indeed, it will be dangerous, stressful and frightening.

There’s no avoiding that reality. The stakes are immensely high, the main players are desperate and popular passions in America are at a pitch unseen probably since the 1860s. Abroad, the outcome of wars now underway will shape the international order and new wars may break out. At home, Americans will decide whether they will be governed under democracy or dictatorship—if their election even goes off as planned.

It’s an immense, almost overwhelming canvas. It will take three articles to cover it.

On Sept. 18, 1787 when he was leaving the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked whether America was to be a monarchy or a republic. He famously replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

A “republic” simply meant that America wouldn’t have a monarch. The word “monarch” consists of the Greek words “monos”—“one”—and “archy”—meaning “power” or “authority.” America would not be governed by a single individual wielding all power.

Since Franklin’s time the American republic has become progressively more democratic.

This year will determine whether America will stay a democracy—if Americans choose to keep it.

That’s what the articles that follow will examine and try to analyze for the coming year: what is likely to happen and how best to respond to it?

Let’s start at home.

Democracy or dictatorship

There’s simply no other way to say it: the outcome of the 2024 presidential election will determine whether America stays a democracy or becomes a dictatorship.

Former President Donald Trump has made no secret of his authoritarian intentions. If elected he aims to demolish every institution restraining him (like the Constitution) and exact vengeance on every person who opposes him, now or in the past. He has called them all “vermin.”

Even when Fox News host Sean Hannity tried to give him an opportunity to deny the charges of authoritarianism, Trump didn’t take it.

*Sean Hannity asks Donald Trump if he would be a dictator if elected, at a town hall in Iowa on Dec. 5, 2023. (Image: Fox News)*

At a Fox News televised town hall meeting in Iowa on Dec. 5, Hannity tried to shoot down the alarms about Trump’s intentions: “You are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?”

“Except for day one,” Trump answered. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

Hannity looked nonplussed, which made Trump laugh. “I love this guy,” Trump said to the crowd. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no. Other than day one.’ We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”

Without a doubt, if elected, Trump will make himself dictator—starting day one and every day afterward. The dictatorship will be driven not only by his own thirst for vengeance, retribution and desire for total control but also by the people he will unleash and encourage. He and his cultists at both the high and low ends of the political hierarchy are determined to impose their will on the American people and the world regardless of the consent of the governed.

Also fueling Trump’s determination is the fact that unless he goes to the White House he will otherwise go to jail due to all the criminal charges and accusations against him.

On Dec. 19 the Colorado Supreme Court issued a historic ruling that Trump was ineligible for the state’s Republican primary ballot because he had engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. As to be expected, the ruling is being appealed to the US Supreme Court. On Thursday, Dec. 28, Maine’s secretary of state also ruled that Trump is ineligible for the primary ballot there. That decision will also be appealed.

Throughout the year expect court rulings to drop like bombs, with Supreme Court rulings making the biggest explosions of all.

Meanwhile, Republicans around the country are trying to find ways to ensure that Trump gets the nomination when the party convention convenes on July 15 in Milwaukee, Wisc.

Regardless of how the Colorado, Maine and other rulings play out, Trump has maneuvered himself into a position of either winning everything or losing everything. There is no middle ground. If he wins he becomes dictator, he pardons everyone who committed a crime on his behalf, and he attains absolute, unrestricted power. If he loses, he forfeits his life, his fortune and his own freedom.

This situation makes Trump—and his cultists—very desperate and very dangerous.

On Jan. 6, 2021 Americans saw that Trump and his co-conspirators were willing to break every norm and law and destroy the Constitution to stay in power. The people around him were arguing for a military coup to seize voting machines, cancel the election results and name false electors. Trump himself incited an insurrection to overthrow the government and even murder the vice president to stay in power.

In 2024 there is a real possibility that Trump and his followers will use violence and foment civil war or civil disturbance to get their way. If he faces incarceration or they see a loss looming at the polls some people may even try to prevent the election from taking place at all.

Movie madness

*The Lincoln Memorial takes a direct hit in the movie “Civil War.” (Image: A24)*

It’s not often that a piece of entertainment factors into a political analysis but a movie titled Civil War is scheduled to be released on April 26. Its premise is simple: civil war breaks out and secessionist forces from the “Florida Alliance” and the western United States attack the government. The White House is invaded and the president dragged from behind the Resolute desk. A group of journalists travel across the country amidst the chaos and strife, witnessing the carnage

The movie stars Kirsten Dunst as protagonist and Nick Offerman as a thinly-disguised President Joe Biden. It was conceived, written and directed by Alex Garland, whose previous credits include the obscure, box office flop Men.

It commanded a huge budget: $75 million, making it the most expensive movie made to date. A horrific-looking trailer was released on Dec. 13.

Intended to be controversial, the movie has already succeeded. Right-wing conspiracy theorists are viewing it as an attempt to discredit the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. With only the trailer to judge it, on the contrary it appears to be a MAGA fantasy of power and domination. Its tagline is: “Every empire falls.”

Whether pro or anti insurrection—or even anti-American—the most dangerous thing about this movie is that it will encourage those thinking of civil war and political violence to actually take up arms and make this fiction real. People living in deep red, heavily MAGA, gun-saturated places—like Southwest Florida—where there has already been talk of armed revolution, know that the line between fantasy and reality in this matter is already very thin.

Naples farmer and grocer Alfie Oakes takes aim in an Aug. 8, 2021 Facebook post stating, “I pray we have election integrity in 2022…. if we don’t we must prepare for the worst! Our second amendment right is specifically to revolt against a a tyrannical government! Prepare for the worst and pray for the best.” (Photo: *Facebook*)

The closest similar event in the past was the release of director DW Griffith’s epic movie Birth of a Nation in 1915. That movie inspired revival of the Ku Klux Klan and led to a wave of racism and violence that saw such events as the 1920 Ocoee race massacre in Florida, the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma and even the 1924 Fort Myers lynchings. Incredibly, Griffith denied that he had any racist intentions even as he directed the most viciously racist propaganda film in American history.

Similarly, the producers, director and stars of Civil War the movie will no doubt wash their hands and deny any responsibility for the consequences of what they unleash. In the volatile, combustible atmosphere of the 2024 election, releasing a movie like this is an act of incredible irresponsibility and foolishness.

If violence breaks out, if people are wounded or killed because of this movie, the creators and stars should be held liable. And the creators and stars should take note of something else as well: if this government is lost, if the Constitution is suspended or abrogated, in the resulting dictatorship they will never again have the unrestricted freedom to make the movies they want without interference.

At the ballot box

In the more conventional political process, the Iowa caucuses take place on Jan. 15 and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23. All polls as of this writing indicate that Trump will sweep those and all other Republican nominating contests—or at least the ones in which he’s a candidate.

In late November Republican strategist Karl Rove predicted that the Iowa caucuses would be “do or die” for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). As of this writing, that is likely to fall on the “die” side of the equation. And Trump is apparently determined that once down DeSantis will never get up again. If Trump wins and becomes dictator DeSantis might be the first political opponent he imprisons.

Indeed, the entire Republican nominating campaign will likely be over after New Hampshire.

Trump clearly has a lock on his cult in the Republican Party. But whether that fanatical loyalty can be extended to the entire American electorate will be one of the great questions of 2024.

For Democrats the task is simpler but at the same time difficult: stay united and bring independents, the uncommitted and disillusioned Republicans into their fold for a majority coalition. The Republicans will be throwing everything they can at Biden, like a baseless impeachment proceeding that is unlikely to go anywhere, and attacking him through his son, Hunter. They will be doing all they can to divide, distract and disrupt the Democratic coalition.

However, Biden is a very experienced and canny politician, as he has proven many times, especially when he won his party’s nomination and the general election in 2020.

Biden would also likely crush Trump in any one-to-one debate. Trump avoided all debates with his Republican rivals during the primary campaign. Given the partisan nature of that phase of the campaign he could get away with it. He will likely refuse debate with Biden in the year to come, saying it’s unnecessary. The big question during the general election phase will be whether he pays a penalty for that kind of cowardice. The Presidential Debate Commission and the broadcast networks could schedule debates and hold them with an empty chair if Trump refuses to attend, penalizing Trump and giving Biden complete domination of the national stage. But will the networks and the Commission have the nerve to do it?

Also working in the Democrats’ favor is the mobilization of pro-choice forces, chiefly but not exclusively women, alarmed and infuriated by the Supreme Court’s revocation of the national right to abortion. Combined with younger voters’ concern over climate change and Trump and the Republicans’ hatred toward immigrants, ethnic and minority voters and everyone else outside their tight and exclusive base, the Democrats would seem to have a winning formula.

The possibility of one—or even both—of the candidates dropping out or dropping dead must be considered. Biden is 81 years old. Trump is 77. Both are beyond the average life expectancy for American men (which is 73.5 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Both men’s doctors give them clean bills of health but of the two the grossly obese Trump seems in the worse physical shape and he increasingly appears to have cognitive issues.

If either man falls the entire political calculation will fundamentally change. Sensible planning would assume that there’s a Plan B in both camps to cope with the contingency, although Republican leadership struggles in the House of Representatives do not inspire confidence on that side of the aisle.

In terms of presidential succession, Vice President Kamala Harris would be next in line to be president. House Speaker Rep. Michael Johnson (R-4-La.) would follow her.

Congress and choice

As in all election years the entire House of Representatives and one third of the Senate are up for election.

In Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), 71, is running again despite a string of failures. He’s up against Democratic former-Rep. Debbie (her birth name) Mucarsel-Powell, 52. Scott is vulnerable but he has always spent his way into office and he can be expected to try the same again. Mucarsel-Powell has a chance but must raise the cash for a competitive race.

Since the election of 2016, both Democrats and Republicans have hoped for—and expected— “waves” that would sweep away their opponents and give them full dominance of Congress. When the votes were counted, no waves occurred.

Instead, current polling shows a closely divided electorate that is likely to be reflected in the next Congress, both House and Senate.

*The results of aggregated generic congressional polling from ABC/FiveThirtyEight.com as of Dec. 23, 2023. (Chart:* *538*)

Nonetheless, results of the off-year 2023 elections and the mid-term 2022 elections were encouraging for Democrats. An expected “red wave” did not materialize in 2022. In 2023, Democrats showed surprisingly strong results in local contests in Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia.

All these elections also demonstrated the importance of the abortion issue at the ballot box. Anti-choicers may have gotten their way thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, but every time choice has been on the ballot voters have overwhelmingly approved it, including in conservative states like Kansas.

Will this intense pro-choice sentiment translate into Democratic congressional victories? That will be one of the key questions to be answered in 2024.

But since the legal abortions were thrown to the states by Dobbs, there are abortion legalization measures on the ballots or being considered across the country in 12 states.

In Florida, as of Dec. 19, pro-choicers stated they had collected 1.4 million signatures to put a pro-choice amendment on the ballot, more than the 891,523 signatures required that must be submitted by Feb. 1. The amendment would make abortion legal for 24 weeks of a pregnancy, in contrast to the current 15 week limit.

Ashley Moody, the Florida attorney general, has been fighting the initiative in court, trying to keep it off the ballot, arguing that it’s too vague.

In Florida questions that loom for 2024 are: will pro-choicers get their amendment on the ballot? Can the DeSantis administration suppress it through the courts? Will Florida officials invalidate the signatures? And if it is on the ballot, will it receive the 60 percent approval from voters to pass?

Around the country, as in Florida, anti-choice activists, legislators and state officials are looking to discredit or discard pro-choice efforts in courts or state houses in order to restrict or keep abortions banned.

Access to safe, legal abortions is an immensely important and personal issue that certainly won’t go away no matter the vote counts in November. It could tip the political scale if elections proceed as scheduled.

Hope and promise

For all the threats and dangers of the year ahead, for all the sickness and psychosis that Donald Trump will continue to unleash on the American public and the world, there are still great sources of strength for Americans who believe in the Constitution and democracy.

Most Americans don’t seem to realize yet that this is not a “normal” election; that everything is on the line and that choices are too important to be made casually. However, the realization is growing. As the magnitude of the stakes become apparent, as people start to understand exactly what losing democracy will entail and as presidential campaigning gets under way in earnest, people who are now indifferent or apathetic will hopefully be inspired to activism on behalf of law, justice and democracy.

There is also the fact that anti-Trumpers in fact outnumber Trumpers by quite a bit and all indications are that this continues to be the case.

Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by over 2 million votes. He definitively lost both the popular and electoral votes in 2020. It just may be that the prospect of a Trump dictatorship—or any other dictatorship—will prove so repugnant to the majority of the American people in 2024 that they reject it and hopefully do so completely, decisively and overwhelmingly.

Those who favor democracy have another powerful weapon in their arsenal—legitimacy.

It may not seem like much, but over time and undergirding their efforts is the fact that they have right on their side and that is a quiet but persuasive force.

The fact is that America is a democracy and democracy is its legal and legitimate form of government. Those supporting democracy are supporting the rule of law, the Constitution and the principles of equality and justice on which the country was founded.

No matter how seductive the prospect of revenge, retribution, hatred, prejudice or rage, no matter how overwhelming the cascade of authoritarian propaganda, no matter how much they project their own intentions onto their enemies and no matter how loud and threatening the cult of personality worshipers may be, the fact is that those supporting democracy are in the right and their opponents are in the wrong. That can be a compelling inspiration for strength and activism. Legitimacy by itself, though, is not enough. It must be acted upon.

As Florida pundit and political analyst Rick Wilson has put it: “The miracles in politics are the ones we make. They come from work, planning, preparation, organization, and focus.”

In 2024, all things being equal, Americans can surge their activism and determination to preserve democracy. It has to take every form of political involvement and courage.

But America does not exist in a vacuum and 2024 will be as momentous abroad as it is domestically. Each will impact the other. And that requires a completely separate examination.

*Sometimes there can be calm after a storm. (Photo: Author)*

__________________

Coming next: Part II – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead abroad

Coming: Part III – A democracy, if you can keep it: Collier County, Florida, 2024 and the war on competence

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

Prelude to the New Year: Grading the predictions of the year past

*What could be more Southwest Floridian than looking to the future through a crystal ball on the beach?*

Dec. 28, 2023 by David Silverberg

We’re coming up on the end of the year, that time when media outlets from newspapers to television stations wind down, go to skeleton crews and put up pastiches of the last year’s photos and clips. It’s easy, undemanding, fills space and air time and gets everyone through the New Year without too much effort.

The temptation to do the same is strong at The Paradise Progressive (TPP). However, its philosophy has always been to look ahead and try to discern the shape of the year to come.

But a look back doesn’t have to be unproductive. How well did The Paradise Progressive do in predicting 2023 when it posted “Politics in 2023: Looking ahead at Don vs. Ron, MAGA madness and the race to the right?”

Let’s examine the effort and grade the results.

Don vs. Ron vs. Joe

Former President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and sitting President Joe Biden: “This is the political story likely to dominate the year,” predicted TPP and it was correct—up to a point.

The rivalry between Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis was clearly the major political story as the year dawned. But unforeseen was the decline in DeSantis’ standing among potential primary Republican voters and Trump’s resilient popularity despite indictments and criminal charges.

Fate’s cruelest blow to DeSantis was that fact that without a single actual vote cast or a caucus called his campaign relentlessly declined in polls from the day he formally declared his candidacy in April. Once the favorite Republican non-Trump hope, he was steadily eclipsed by his rivals and abandoned by staffers, consultants and most importantly, donors. Trump’s relentless insults and belittlement had its desired effect. Outside of Florida, DeSantis proved inept, awkward and unpopular. What played in The Villages in 2022 did not carry over well to the Republican primary states.

This may be a harbinger for the nation as a whole. It’s an early sign that America does not want to be Florida, no matter what DeSantis says.

The formal campaign season will start with the Iowa caucus on Jan. 15 and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23 and it’s not looking good for Florida’s governor.

At the dawn of the year it wasn’t clear that Joe Biden would declare himself a candidate again. Once he did in April, all the speculation about a successor or a Democratic scramble died down.

So on the campaign front, TPP gives itself an A- for prediction. But this was a bit of a gimme. That there would be rivalries and a nomination contest was indisputable. However, the rapid decline of Ron DeSantis was unforeseen.

Congress and revenge

When it came to Congress, TPP did much better.

Had Republicans resoundingly taken the House of Representatives in the much-anticipated “red wave” of 2022, TPP predicted: “They very well might have impeached President Joe Biden for the high crime of being a Democrat. They would have tried to undo or cover up the felonies of the insurrection and would have done all they could to exonerate, excuse and elevate Trump.”

The prediction continued: “Republicans are still likely to try those things. Expect a cascade of House investigations in an effort to weaken and undermine the administration and Biden’s re-election. It will be a replay of Benghazi and Hillary Clinton’s e-mails on steroids.”

Well, TPP gives itself an A+ on that one. It took them a year but House Republicans are indeed proceeding with an impeachment attempt, despite the lack of a crime, evidence or prospects of success. Biden’s only real transgression? That he is a Democrat and Trump wants it done.

When it comes to trying to “cover up the felonies of the insurrection” the prediction literally came true (extra bonus points!).

On Nov. 17, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-4-La.) stated he would release over 40,000 hours of Jan. 6, 2021 video.

But then, on Dec. 5, he said at a press conference: “We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the [Department of Justice] and to have other concerns and problems.”

He wants to cover up the faces so that rioters won’t face prosecution?! That is literally a coverup!

TPP’s satisfaction with the accuracy of its prediction is only dampened by the fact that the Speaker of the House is attempting to shield crimes against the branch of government over which he presides. Moreover, he’s doing this with no apparent hint of irony or inconsistency or self-awareness.

Another prediction, that “…when it comes to substantive legislation, Democrats kept the Senate, meaning that no matter how extreme the proposals coming out of the House, none are likely to make it into law,” proved to be true. But that was another gimme.

TPP made much of “the Harmful Algal Bloom Essential Forecasting Act, which would ensure that federal activities monitoring and responding to harmful algal blooms like red tide will continue despite any shutdowns” and would be of real benefit to Southwest Florida.

However, as predicted, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) did nothing to advance this legislation in the same way he has never done anything to advance any legislation he sponsored. Donalds’ disinterest in this, other legislation and his district was so obvious that this accurate prediction doesn’t even rate a point.

DeSantis and the race to the right

While TPP saw no reason to expect DeSantis to let up on his culture war on abortion, science, education, vaccines, immigrants, gays and public health, in fact TPP was proven somewhat wrong. As his Trumpish, anti-woke presidential candidacy campaign failed outside Florida, DeSantis began moderating his stances, especially on abortion.

As of right now, that softening looks too little, too late. It is, however, surprising. TPP didn’t see it coming and lowers its grade on this to a C.

However, the jury is still out on the Collier County school district. “The Collier County school system, which was previously rated the gold standard for the state, is now likely to crater as dogma, discipline and docility take the place of education, enquiry and enlightenment as priorities for students,” it predicted.

Collier County schools maintained their A rating from the state in what seems to be momentum from the previous board headed by Jen Mitchell. Also, the appointment of Leslie Ricciardelli as superintendent, despite MAGA demands to the contrary, meant that the district’s previous high standards would be maintained, at least in the classroom.

However, thanks largely to Jerry Rutherford (1st District), the board became enmeshed in extraordinarily time-wasting ideological and religious controversies, especially over whether or not to have a religious invocation precede its meetings. (It ultimately decided not to do so.) This controversy was confined to the school board itself but other issues, especially religious issues, may not stay there in the coming year.

Storm damage

Following the brutal damage of 2022’s Hurricane Ian, TPP observed: “Voters and the local mainstream media have to keep watch and ask: who is helping Southwest Florida recover? Who is helping it get the resources it needs? Who is shirking?”

Local media certainly maintained coverage of the recovery, from restoration of the Sanibel lighthouse, to rebuilding the clock tower in Fort Myers Beach to the extravagantly covered completion and opening of the town’s new Margaritaville resort.

Less covered were government efforts.

Here, there was a very interesting development on the part of Donalds that merits special attention.

In 2021 Donalds didn’t bother to request appropriations for projects in his district (known as “earmarks”) despite the fact that the Democratic-dominated House of Representatives had created a process and procedure allowing each member to request 10 earmarks per district. TPP called Donalds out on this in a March 16, 2022 editorial: Rep. Byron Donalds has failed Southwest Florida and can’t be allowed to do it again.

Despite this, Donalds won his 2022 re-election campaign and apparently got the hint. In the fiscal years since, he has requested earmarks (which congressional Republicans, despite previous agonizing over whether or not to permit them, increased the number allowed each member to 15).

In fiscal year 2023 Donalds requested funding for 11 local projects. In fiscal year 2024, he requested funding for nine, most of them water-related.

It must be said: TPP didn’t see that coming at all.

But what TPP and just about every other awake person on the planet can see coming is climate change, whose impact is already here.

“Will Florida and its politicians finally acknowledge this?” TPP asked. “Their sense of reality needs critical scrutiny in the year ahead.”

It is long past time that the reality of climate change is acknowledged as a fact, even in reality-resistant Southwest Florida. To their credit, at least local broadcast meteorologists finally started mentioning its effects in their reporting.

DeSantis also finally acknowledged it on the campaign trail in Iowa.

“DeSantis’ own stance has changed: During the first GOP presidential debate, he did not raise his hand when candidates were asked if human activities are warming the planet. But in the Dec. 9 interview with the Register, DeSantis said he does believe human activities are a factor in the changing climate,” observed reporter Katie Akin in the Des Moines Register.

As far as predictions for next year go, this is an easy one: climate change and its impact will continue in the coming year. Southwest Florida needs to prepare.

An end to 2023

Overall, as a prognostication, TPP’s look ahead didn’t come out too badly. It didn’t try to predict everything that happened but where it looked, its analysis proved reasonably prescient.

What wasn’t predicted were actions by individuals. For example, even Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-23-Calif.) probably couldn’t have predicted that he would have such a hard time getting elected Speaker of the House—and then that he would be ignominiously booted nine months later and resign from Congress altogether at the end of 2023.

Next year promises to be one of the most momentous, historic and potentially dangerous in world history. It requires an entirely different analysis.

As the New Testament noted, to look into the future is to see through a glass, darkly. Once face to face all things become clearer. But maybe, with enough concentration, we can discern at least the general shape of things to come—and prepare to meet them.

_____________________

Coming, starting Jan. 1:

Part I – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead in American politics

Part II – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead abroad

Part III – A democracy, if you can keep it: Collier County, Fla., 2024 and the war on competence

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

‘How did we get here?’ Collier County’s past path to intolerance – and a different path ahead

*Then-candidate Donald Trump (center) takes the stage in what was then Germain Arena in Fort Myers, Fla., on Sept. 19, 2016. (Photo: Author)*

Nov. 22, 2023 by David Silverberg

“How did we get here? Ten years ago Collier County wasn’t like this.”

That was one of the questions posed to Rev. Paul Raushenbush and a panel of community leaders on Nov. 9 at an event titled “Christian Nationalism 101: What is it? And Why Does it Matter?”

In a testament to the degree of alarm over current trends, a crowd of over 275 people packed the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Naples to hear Raushenbush and other speakers try to address those questions.

Though one of just three questions asked by the audience, the question of how Collier County arrived at its current situation was the most pertinent and perceptive of the evening.

It was especially poignant given that 2023 marks Collier County’s centennial year.

How, in ten years, did Collier County, Florida, go from an open, welcoming, relaxed place chiefly known for beautiful beaches, warm winters and a charming downtown, to a Petri dish of political and cultural extremism and intolerance?

This is a county that in the past year has passed a resolution opposing public health measures and an ordinance nullifying federal law. One of its county commissioners has declared there is no separation of church and state. A school board member has called for inflicting corporal punishment on students and purging the county curriculum of ideologies he finds unacceptable. The county school board is expending an inordinate amount of time considering whether to hold a religious invocation before its meetings. School libraries are banning or restricting over 300 books (in compliance with state requirements). The county library has withdrawn from the American Library Association. The county’s state senator and representative are praising efforts to strip local governments of the ability to protect their towns from climate change. And in 2022 its state representative introduced a bill requiring continuous video monitoring of teachers to find those who transgressed ideological lines.

*Rev. Paul Raushenbush speaking at the Naples Unitarian Congregation (Image: Interfaith Alliance)*

Raushenbush is an ordained Baptist minister and president and chief executive of the Interfaith Alliance, a national non-profit advocacy group committed to American religious freedom. While he was concerned with the rise of the political ideology of Christian nationalism nationally, a panel of local community leaders testified to their own local experiences of intolerance before the packed audience.

Rabbi Adam Miller of Temple Shalom in Naples recounted being berated for his views and Jewishness following a Collier County School Board meeting and expressed alarm at the rise of local anti-Semitism.

Rev. Barrion Staples, pastor of Service And Love Together Ministries in neighboring Lee County, saw a return to a time when history was twisted to serve Christian nationalist ends. He recounted past racial discrimination and compared current attempts to rewrite history to the “Slave Bible” of the pre-Civil War era, which excised all references to freedom or exodus from slavery.

Cori Craciun, executive director of Naples Pride, described how the town’s annual Pride festival was initially welcomed in Naples’ public spaces but after the COVID pandemic was increasingly restricted by local officials.

Kathy Curatolo, a former member of the Collier County Public Schools Board of Education, recounted that, “What has emerged to the dismay of many is the emergence of a one-sided ideology that is being infused into public education,” in Collier County.

Given all this and the question asked at the gathering, the time has come to take a look back at the causes for Collier County’s radical turn, answer the question of how this came about and to discern the direction ahead.

Looking over the past 10 years, six factors stand out as leading causes for Collier County’s extreme devolution.

1. The Trump factor

Any history of Collier County’s radical rightward movement has to begin with Donald Trump. His influence has been intense and pervasive and felt down to the very grassroots of this community.

Before Trump’s 2016 candidacy, life in Southwest Florida was relatively “normal.” Politics, was a peripheral and distant concern for most people. But this single individual unleashed a wave of what he himself once characterized as “hatred, prejudice and rage.”

As a candidate in 2016, as president and after his presidency, Trump made overt expressions of hatred, prejudice and rage acceptable in public discourse. He encouraged those sentiments in his followers. His personal example of rule-breaking, disdain, insults and violent rhetoric infected the crowds that heard him. His division of the world into absolutely loyal, unthinking cultists and “radical” opponents destroyed any middle ground for civil discourse or compromise between differing parties. Though a physical coward himself, he encouraged violence in his followers.

That this impacted Southwest Florida was very clear from the time of his candidacy.

Trump made two visits to Southwest Florida during his 2016 campaign. The region had been largely overlooked during previous presidential campaigns given its low population and its established Republican majorities. In a break with past practice for presidential candidates, Trump held two rallies in the area, one on Sept. 19, 2016 in what was then Germain Arena and then on Oct. 23 at the Collier County Fairgrounds.

The Southwest Floridians who stood four hours in the heat and threatening weather to get into Germain Arena that September were everyday friends and neighbors, some already Trump believers, some curious, some offended by Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” remark. As they stood in line they were largely quiet, patient, peaceful, and very respectful of the sheriff’s deputies and security officers. A single black man in the crowd was amicably welcomed. A lone protester was left alone and largely ignored. It was a crowd of the kind of people who would come to a neighbor’s aid, who volunteered for food drives and did good works for their churches and communities.

*Southwest Floridians wait on line to enter Germain Arena to hear Donald Trump on Sept. 19, 2016. (Photo: Author)*

That day Trump brought a message that was by then familiar to national audiences: distrust of immigrants, whom he compared to snakes; attacks on his opponent, Hillary Clinton; resentment toward perceived liberal elites and hatred of the federal government. He was rapturously received by his audience.

When the crowd left after a roughly hour-long harangue, his attitude, behavior and approach had inflamed his listeners. He had given them permission to express hatred, prejudice and rage toward “others,” and stoked feelings of anger, resentment and grievance against the world, with an implication that violence in expressing those feelings was acceptable.

Those feelings and attitudes intensified over the four years of the Trump presidency and culminated in the violent insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.

The malign influence of Trump’s personal example could clearly be seen in Southwest Florida during the 2020 congressional race for the 19th Congressional District, the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island. Candidates in the Republican primary tried to essentially out-Trump Trump. They projected paranoia, rage, resentment, extremism and intolerance and broadcast these attitudes in their campaign ads and rhetoric, intensifying existing tendencies toward extremism. They waved guns and threatened opponents. All pledged undying, unthinking loyalty to Trump.

These kinds of attitudes and behaviors continue to this day and found particularly fertile soil in Collier County.

2. The federal factor

Southwest Florida and Collier County are about as far south from the seat of federal government as it is possible to get on the American mainland.

The federal government has very little presence in Southwest Florida. There are some national parks and preserves in the region, there’s the US Coast Guard protecting boaters but otherwise, there’s very little consciousness of the federal government’s existence. Social Security is a federal program that tens of thousands of Southwest Floridians rely upon but they seem to have little awareness of it as a federal presence.

This distance makes the federal government seem like a remote and alien presence. There is a strong belief among a minority of Collier Countians that the federal government is intrusive, tyrannical and invalid, an oppressive “commanding hand” as an ordinance put it, encroaching on citizen rights and privileges. They would like to get federal benefits (Social Security), aid (disaster assistance) and protection (law enforcement, Coast Guard) but without strings, obligations or responsibilities.

There was also fury among local Make America Great Again (MAGA) followers that Trump lost the 2020 federal election. Like him, they clung to his lie that the election had somehow been rigged or stolen and they regarded—and still regard—the presidency of Joe Biden as head of the national, federal government as illegitimate.

This sense of alienation and estrangement increased because of the third factor that led Collier County to its current situation.

3. The pandemic factor

From 2020 to 2022 the federal presence in Collier County suddenly became immediate and pressing as the United States—along with the rest of the world—attempted to cope with the outbreak of COVID-19. The extreme right minority of Southwest Floridians and in particular Collier Countians took umbrage at federal efforts to protect American citizens from a global scourge.

In this they were following the example of Donald Trump. When COVID struck, Trump did not react well. Initially, he dismissed it, said it would “disappear,” called it a “hoax” and minimized its dangers. When it couldn’t be wished away he advocated bogus treatments like hydroxychloroquine and injecting bleach. He discouraged mask-wearing and the recommended precautions from public health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci.

While a minority of Southwest Floridians aped Trump’s responses, they made up in noise what they lacked in numbers. There was ferocious opposition to mask-wearing and to vaccinations when vaccines became available. The kind of rule-breaking and defiance that Trump encouraged also encouraged resistance to public health measures.

Local politicians jumped on this bandwagon, encouraging further rejection of public health protections and defiance of local and federal law.

These factors ingrained a strain of alienation and disaffection in this population and led to a persistent perception that COVID was a sinister, globalist hoax.

Once the pandemic was largely over, their resentment took the form of trying to pass an ordinance that would prohibit future public health mandates of any kind, whether public or private.

A draft resolution for the county laid out the accusations: “federal and state health agencies have demonstrated a clear inability to be truthful, transparent and consistent in protecting the citizens of Collier County,” they “violated” county citizens’ rights “through discrimination based on vaccine status” and subjected county citizens “to death and injury with little recourse” and stopped doctors from speaking freely or treating patients as preferred (i.e., with hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin or other unproven and discredited remedies).

While the worst excesses of a proposed resolution were diluted and a similarly-intended ordinance merely re-stated state law against health mandates, the fact was that in 2023 Collier County passed an anti-public health ordinance and then an ordinance nullifying federal law in the county.

The experience of the COVID pandemic in Collier County further incentivized MAGA radicals to continue and accelerate their campaign against the federal government, against constitutional law and embrace the extreme fringes of political logic and practice.

4. MAGA mania

For the past 10 years—and long before that—Collier County’s population was predominantly Republican. Party registrations remained largely stable at 65 percent Republican and 35 percent Democratic.

The Republican coalition consisted primarily of residents whose roots went back to the beginning of settlement of the county around 1920 and relative newcomers, mostly from upper Midwestern states where Interstate Highway 75 originated at the Canadian border. Naples is the southernmost town before the highway turns east to Miami. It’s easy to drive down from Chicago or Detroit and just stop. While easterners settled Florida’s east coast, Midwesterners, many retirees, settled its west coast.

For the most part these people were mainstream Republicans from states like Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. They believed in limited government, restrained spending and a strong national defense. However, they never challenged or attacked the Constitution or the rule of law.

That changed with the onset of Trump in 2016 and his total domination of the Republican Party in the years that followed. In Collier County, as in the rest of the country, non-Trumpers were denigrated as Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) and kicked to the margins. Trumpers took over the county Party apparatus, pushing out or defeating longstanding Republican activists. The entire Party radicalized.

There was some resistance—sometimes lapsing into screaming matches and personal attacks during Party conclaves—but while non-Trumpers complained, they never organized or fought back as effectively as Trumpers. Ultimately, the county Republican Party really became the Trump Party. Personal loyalty to Trump became the yardstick of Republicanism rather than conservative ideas or positions.

This Trumpism has led the Party to keep pursuing extremes in its pronouncements and activities. Infused with Trump’s “hatred, prejudice and rage,” its most fanatical members have descended into anti-Semitism and promoted intolerance in all forms.

Before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, much of the MAGA energy was directed against abortion. After the Dobbs decision last year, that energy turned into a Christian nationalist religious crusade, with county MAGA officials on the Board of Commissioners and the School Board trying to impose religious dogma and stating overtly that there is no separation between church and state.

This kind of Christian nationalism leads to only one destination: the imposition of a state religion, which the Constitution’s founders explicitly sought to avoid. It will also lead to doctrinal conflict as different faiths try to impose their dogmas on public schools and the whole population. This is what happened for 200 years in Europe before the Enlightenment. In the New World, the American experiment began trying to leave that bloody legacy behind.

However, Collier County’s MAGAs appear determined to head down this Christian nationalist path, one that has the potential to pit Catholics against Protestants and different Protestant sects against each other. It has already manifested itself in the seemingly endless and inordinately time-consuming debate over whether to hold a religious invocation prior to the start of county School Board meetings.

At least the only thing being wasted in that controversy is time. History has shown that books and bodies come next.

5. The media factor

Collier County has an extremely weak media establishment when it comes to covering serious issues of governance, representation and elections and provides little to no counterweight to anti-democratic extremism.

The role of the press in a democracy is to provide a check on officialdom, examine official actions, point out wrongdoing or imbalances and provide the public with the information it needs to make rational, enlightened decisions. This was recognized by the Founders at the very beginning of American government. As the Virginia Declaration of Rights put it:“…the freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.” A free press was enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

In Collier County there is little to no fulfilment of that role by existing media outlets. Only one television station, NBC2, has a dedicated political reporter with that title. In fact, local news directors seem to go out of their way to avoid reporting on anything even remotely political. Otherwise, television coverage focuses on car collisions, canal crashes and potholes, mostly in neighboring Lee County where the stations are based.

But the media fails most spectacularly in Collier County’s own Naples Daily News (or the Naples Delayed News or the Typo Times, as this author prefers to characterize it).

The Naples Daily News is suffering from the same malaise infecting local newspapers across the country. Its revenue base is down as advertisers seek new and more effective media outlets. It has been sold several times and every sale diminished its capabilities and coverage. Its staff has repeatedly been reduced, its deadlines shortened and functions like graphic design and printing assigned to remote locations.

In the past, like most local newspapers, the Naples Daily News published original editorials every day, hosted op-eds from outside authors and featured letters to the editor. It pursued a scrupulously fair and non-partisan editorial policy. However, on June 1, 2022 the newspaper’s management announced that it was dropping the daily editorials, op-eds and letters in the print edition. Instead, it created a tombstone letters page buried in the back of the book that appeared on weekends and then, begrudgingly, on Wednesdays. Cancelation of daily editorials and letters deprived the community of a common forum outside of stovepiped social media platforms.

As a result of this and the general failure of the regional media, important political developments, especially at the margins, go uncovered, allowing extremists to operate in darkness. Also, voters remain uninformed about the actions of the officials governing them and those representing them to higher bodies like the state legislature and the US Congress.

An important source of information for voters is missing in Collier County. The county’s lurch toward unchallenged extremism is the result.

6. The activist factor

A history and analysis of Collier County’s political trends can’t overlook the role of key individuals in shaping its development.

*Alfie Oakes at Patriot Fest, March 19, 2022 (Photo: Author)*

In Collier County a prime driver is Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III, 55, a prominent farmer, grocer, entrepreneur and far-right activist.

Oakes is Collier County’s very own Trump, whom he strikingly resembles in a number of ways and whom he adores.

“I love our president and his family with every bit of my being! I love all that he has given for our country and all that he stands for!” Oakes posted on Facebook on Dec. 22, 2020 after speaking on the phone with Trump, who was fighting the results of the election. “May God bless our great President Donald Trump, his family, his team and all of the 75 million patriots that support him!”

Like Trump, Oakes is a businessman accustomed to risk-taking—and arguably more successful in his own realm than Trump. Also like Trump, he is known for his blunt outspokenness and broad-brush denigration of critics and opponents. He shares Trump’s affinity for extreme politics, insults and absolutism.

In the same way that Trump initially dismissed COVID as a hoax, so did Oakes who vehemently fought all forms of COVID precautions in his store, Seed to Table, and battled county officials who tried to protect public health through masking and distancing.

In an infamous June 2020 posting on Facebook, Oakes denounced the murdered George Floyd as a “disgraceful career criminal, thief, drug addict, drug dealer and ex-con who served 5 yrs in prison for armed robbery on a pregnant woman, and spent his last days passing around fake 20’s to store owners in Minnesota.” The post sparked outrage and protests throughout Southwest Florida.

During the run up to the Jan. 6 insurrection, Oakes sponsored two busloads of Trumpers to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally on the National Mall and flew up himself the day of the protest. Despite a video purporting to show him inciting rioters to attack the Capitol, Oakes vehemently denies that it was him and says he peacefully protested elsewhere. He blamed the riot on “the obvious six or eight paid actors (used in other events such as [Black Lives Matter] riots, hard to believe they would be that blatant and sloppy) … followed by a small group of aggressive Trump supporters caught up in the moment, these paid actors lead the charge.”

Just as Trump dominates the national Republican Party, so Oakes dominates the Collier County Republican Party where he was elected a state committeeman in 2020. Through his Citizens Awake Now Political Action Committee (CANPAC), he funded local MAGA candidates for county Board of Commissioners and the school board. They won and are now driving the county’s rightward direction. Although he has tempered his public pronouncements recently he still influences enough of a MAGA audience to determine the outcome of party primary elections, which are usually the deciding ones.

But also, like Trump, Oakes can be mercurial, inconstant, bullying and sometimes illogical. In September 2021 he was demanding a hand recount of the 2020 election in Florida, an election that all parties agreed Republicans had won. The effort got nowhere. He can also turn on former allies: when Kelly Lichter, chair of the Collier County School Board, whom Oakes had backed, had the temerity to vote for a school superintendent Oakes opposed, he called her a “traitor” and sued the school board.

In another similarity to Trump, Oakes has also endorsed clearly unqualified candidates for public office based just on their ideological purity and personal loyalty. “I don’t want to hear about what IQ someone has or what level of education someone has,” he said at PatriotFest, a gathering and rally that he sponsored in Naples on March 19, 2022. “I graduated from North Fort Myers High School—a bunch of rednecks. Common sense and some back is all we need right now.”

Given Oakes’ urging and the backing of CANPAC, these candidates won races for county Commission and School Board.

Oakes has been a significant figure driving Collier County in its current direction.

*Keith Flaugh speaking before the Collier County Board of Commissioners in 2021. (Image: CCBC)*

Another MAGA activist is Keith Flaugh, head of the Florida Citizens Alliance, a non-profit conservative organization founded in 2008 primarily to influence education. The organization argued that the liberal political trend of young voters was the result of indoctrination in their schools (which presumed that young voters couldn’t draw their own conclusions but had to have been somehow brainwashed).

Flaugh, 77, is originally from Montana where he received his Master of Business Administration degree from the state university, according to his LinkedIn page. After service in the US Army and a career in finance at IBM Corp., he retired to Marco Island.

According to his Facebook profile, (as posted) Flaugh “considers himself US Constitutionalist and is fed up with how our political system has been hijacked by both monopoly parties and the ubiquitous Federal Government. They have bankrupt us morally and financially to the brink of collapse. He is an organizer for Southwest Florida Citizens Alliance and the Florida Citizens Alliance, an Oath Keeper and an active supporter of SWFL 912, the Naples Tea Party, Save America Foundation, Fair Tax, Foundation for Economic Education, KrisAnne Hall’s Constitutional Ministry and Sheriff Mack’s County Sheriff Project.”

Flaugh is an active lobbyist for the causes he supports, frequently speaking at county Commission and School Board meetings. During the 2021 debate over Collier County’s anti-federal ordinance he demanded that commissioners pass the ordinance or resign. Flaugh and the Florida Citizens Alliance have also been active in opposing COVID vaccinations and in denying climate change, opposing measures to manage or prepare for its effects.

Oakes and Flaugh could not have shifted the county in the direction it has gone without the aid of numerous active supporters and followers.

However, their example illustrates the power of individuals and solo efforts in moving a community.

And that’s power that works both ways.

Commentary: Collier County, America and the next hundred years

No political turmoil or conflict is obvious to the visitors who come to Collier County and Naples during the winter season. The shopping malls light their Christmas trees and the season’s celebrations have begun. The stores are open, the beaches are warm and life is to be enjoyed.

However, for those who have chosen to live permanently in Collier County, who think about local affairs and especially for families with children in public school, the stakes are high.

Will Collier County’s next one hundred years be ones of hatred, prejudice and rage? Or will the next century be one of progress, promise and possibilities?

Collier County is not immune from the currents and storms afflicting the country as a whole. In large part these questions will be determined by the 2024 election.

The next year will without a doubt be one of the most significant in American history. The real, true bedrock issue that will be settled if the election comes off as planned is whether the United States will remain a democracy or become a dictatorship under Donald Trump.

There is no subterfuge about this. Trump’s plans are out in the open. If elected, he has stated that his regime will be one of revenge and retribution. He and his co-conspirators intend to destroy all checks and balances and impose an unlimited, unrestricted tyranny on the American people. All the abuses of one-man rule that the nation’s founders resisted and tried to prevent will come cascading forth.

If there’s a Trump tyranny in Washington there will be a similar tyranny in Collier County. Its enablers are already waiting in the wings.

What they don’t seem to realize is just what a dictatorship will mean; they show no appreciation or understanding of history’s lessons. A dictatorship imposes tyranny on everyone.

Last year American women learned what it means to lose a right when the Supreme Court took away their right to choose.

Under the dictatorship being contemplated by Trump, all Americans will lose all the rights they cherish: freedom of speech, thought, worship, assembly, petition, press, property—everything embodied in the Bill of Rights.

For example, under a dictatorship, if Donald Trump decided he wanted to seize and gift Seed to Table to Ivanka or Jared or Barron he’d simply be able to do it and no protest, process or court proceeding could stop him. In a dictatorship there’s no appeal, no reprieve, no redress. That’s what Russia’s oligarchs discovered when Russian President Vladimir Putin gave them similar ultimatums and then demanded half their wealth.

In a dictatorship, especially one based on a personality as sick and twisted as Trump’s, past loyalty is no guarantee of future favor. No matter how strenuous, how complete and how total a person’s subservience to the leader was in the past, any perceived slight or current whim of the dictator can mean punishment in the future.

A microcosmic example of the fragility of past loyalty came in Collier County this year when Oakes turned on Lichter for defying him on the appointment of Leslie Ricciardelli as school superintendent. Oakes had supported Lichter for election to the school board. But when she showed the slightest independence in basing her vote on what she regarded as the most qualified candidate rather than the one he demanded, he branded her a “traitor.” A traitor to what? What did she betray? Certainly not the students, teachers and parents of Collier County to whom she owed her real loyalty.

In a dictatorship any show of independent thought or commitment to a good greater than the dictator is cause for punishment.

That’s the way Trump governed as president—and it will be orders of magnitude worse if he’s re-elected.

Ironically, it’s the example of local MAGA activists that should inspire defenders of democracy to greater action.

Collier County’s MAGAs have shown that individual actions matter; that no act is too small or insignificant to make a difference. For those on the side of democracy, every envelope, or phone call made, or donation can help defend democracy in Collier County and the nation. Activism is the answer and that activism is needed like never before. The most impactful acts of all, of course, are voting, helping others to vote as well and protecting free, fair and accurately counted elections.

Like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings causing a hurricane, every action by every friend of freedom can generate a blue wave that can grow into a tsunami.

Right now Christian nationalism, MAGAism, Trumpism, racism, anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia and a host of other biases and bigotries and the willingness to act on them, potentially violently, are inspiring the kind of fear and concern expressed at the Interfaith Alliance gathering.

But while hatred, prejudice and rage can’t be banished, they can be contained and ultimately defeated. It takes everyone’s courage, commitment and consistency to do it but it’s worth the effort—in Collier County, in America and in the world.

And the willingness of people to take action is a reason to truly be thankful, in this season—and always.

*“Freedom from want.” (Painting: Norman Rockwell, 1943)*

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

Southwest Florida takeaways from Tuesday’s blue wave

Nov. 8, 2023 by David Silverberg

It wasn’t a tsunami but the wave of election victories for Democrats and abortion rights supporters that occurred last night, Tuesday, Nov. 7, certainly hit Florida’s shore with more force than the usual off-year ripple.

The two biggest implications: first, Trumpist, Make America Great Again (MAGA) extremism is not a winning approach in the rest of the country and may not fly in Florida in 2024. Secondly, abortion is a YUUUGGGGE issue and may just rock the Sunshine State next November as well.

Until now Republican primary candidates, presidential and otherwise, have been playing to the extreme Trumpist wing of the Party. But after last night, Republican candidates—in Florida and elsewhere—should be wondering if they’ll be able to shake the Etch-A-Sketch and make the full electorate forget the nastiness, brutishness and extremism they espoused to get their nominations.

A Democratic night

It was a great night for Democrats. In otherwise conservative Republican Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear (D) won re-election with 52 percent of the vote. In Virginia, Democrats took both the state House and Senate. In Ohio, abortion rights supporters won on Issue 1 with 57 percent of the vote.

In Mississippi a Republican governor did hang on. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) kept his seat with 52 percent of the vote.

Florida had no major elections but in a telling vote for Southwest Florida, two Democratically-endorsed candidates for Venice city council unseated incumbents.

Joan Farrell and Ron Smith were both elected to non-partisan seats.

In Punta Gorda, city council incumbent Mark Kuharski was defeated by Deborah Lux, who had the Republican Party endorsement.

Largely overshadowed by the gubernatorial and legislative races was the widespread repudiation of extreme Moms for Liberty (MFL) efforts to dominate local school boards. As reported by The Daily Beast website, MFL-endorsed candidates were defeated in school board races in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Iowa, Minnesota and North Carolina. Only in Alaska did a MFL-endorsed school board candidate succeed.

2024 implications

While these results need to be taken in their immediate context it’s almost impossible not to think through their implications for the 2024 presidential race and the wildly contentious Republican nominating process.

On a national level, it would seem that despite all the denigration and disparagement of President Joe Biden by Republican politicians, to the degree that he influenced local races at all, his performance and positions boosted rather than detracted from Democratic efforts.

A major Republican presidential primary debate will be taking place tonight in Miami and it will be interesting to see how the five candidates adjust their pitches in light of yesterday’s results.

Until now, the entire momentum among the Republican contenders has been to keep trending more extreme, more outlandish and more radical to appeal to ever-more rabid MAGAs. This may have hit a nadir when Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) promised in August to “start slitting throats on Day 1” of federal public servants if he became president. However, one never knows how much lower he and the others may go. There may be new depths to be plumbed.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump will, as is his habit, be skipping the debate to hold a rally and harangue in Hialeah.

(Actually, from a purely political perspective it’s not a foolish move: Hialeah is home to a large population of Venezuelan-Americans. It makes sense to speak there to continue his inroads into the Hispanic population and specifically pitch victims and refugees from Venezuelan oppression—although it’s at odds with his well-known hatred of asylum-seekers and immigrants, whom he equates with snakes. It will be interesting to see how—or if—Hialeahans reconcile the dissonance.)

More than defining the likely outcome of that election, last night’s results highlight the challenges to each party, its leaders and its adherents for the next 362 days until the 2024 election. Both sides have work to do.

Democrats have to maintain their momentum, build their base and get more of their partisans registered and to the polls. Biden has to guide the country through two wars, economic challenges, potential party fragmentation, coalition weakening and promote a sense of strong and capable personal leadership.

Republicans have to somehow sell the broad American public a likely Trump nomination regardless of his indictments and even convictions. They cannot abandon their clearly unpopular anti-abortion stance. The party’s fanatical MAGAism and policy positions are marginal and becoming even more extreme as time goes on. As evidenced by the chaos in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives, they have shown an inability to govern when in power. They will bear the burden of blame if they fail to keep the government open when current funding expires. They are isolationist in foreign policy except when it comes to Israel and would abandon Ukraine to Russian conquest. They host a significant faction that would demolish the wall of separation between church and state.

All that is a tough sell. As last night’s results show, so far the American public isn’t buying it.

At this point in time it’s almost impossible to calculate how it will all play out in Southwest Florida. As deeply conservative and Trumpist as the region is, as far as it is from the federal government and national considerations, traditional Republicans and non-party affiliated voters, whether of recent arrival or longtime residency, seem increasingly disillusioned with the MAGA program, as evidenced in the Venice election results.

The biggest, baddest issue hasn’t even come into play yet: whether the United States will remain a democracy. Without a doubt, a second Trump presidency will mean a dictatorship that dissolves all checks and balances, allows one very unstable individual virtually unlimited power and potentially imposes a theocratic totalitarianism on a constitutional, secular nation.

Although Biden has long stated that he’s in a fight to save the soul of America, to date the issues and stakes haven’t been framed in clear and stark terms of freedom versus oppression. When they are—and they will—it could tip the electoral balance.

One truism that last night’s elections showed clearly: the only poll that matters is the one counted on election night.

The clock is ticking.

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!