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.
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.
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.
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.
The United States Capitol. (Photo: Architect of the Capitol)
Jan. 19, 2024 by David Silverberg
In a vote yesterday, Jan. 18, that ultimately kept the federal government funded and running until March 1 and March 8 respectively, two out of three of Southwest Florida’s congressional representatives voted to shut down the government, while Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.) dissented.
The bill, House Resolution (HR) 2872, a continuing resolution (CR) but misleadingly named the Permanent Electronic Duck Stamp Act of 2013 in the House, passed by an overwhelming vote of 314 to 108, with 207 Democrats and 107 Republicans voting for it. One hundred six Republicans and two Democrats opposed it.
The bill first passed the Senate on a vote of 77 to 18, with five senators not voting. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) voted for it. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) did not vote.
Reps. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) and Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.) voted against the bill.
The bill had been opposed by the extreme Make America Great Again (MAGA) Freedom Caucus of which Donalds is a member.
At 4:30 pm, just prior to the vote, Donalds issued an X statement: “We have a GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY right now to actually win the political argument of the day: Should government remain open & prioritizing Ukraine funding over border security? The ONLY WAY to change behavior in DC is with money. You don’t change it with letters & talking points.”
Neither Steube nor Diaz-Balart issued statements immediately before or after the vote.
The CR provides funding for four agencies covered by four appropriations bills that were set to lapse today. Eight more bills were set to expire on Feb. 2 but will now have appropriations until March 8. It was the product of a compromise between Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-4-La.).
The bill was immediately sent to President Joe Biden for signature.
Gov. Ron DeSantis tries to navigate the snows of Iowa. (Photo: AP)
Jan. 14, 2024 by David Silverberg
Tomorrow is the day of the long-awaited—or long-dreaded, depending on your perspective—Iowa caucuses.
As this is written the Hawkeye State is being battered by a brutal blizzard and plummeting temperatures. Because caucus-goers must make their preferences known in person (they don’t actually fill out a ballot but submit slips of paper) attendance—or lack thereof—will greatly affect the outcome.
The general expectation is that former President Donald Trump will win in a blowout. That’s the way the polling has been going. But given Mother Nature’s intervention there could be a surprise, or surprises. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) might beat Trump or do much better than expected. Former South Carolina Gov. Nimarata Nikki Randhawa Haley could get “smoked” as former New Jersey governor Chris Christie predicted—or she could smoke DeSantis or even Trump.
The state of Florida is going to be affected by the outcome, given that there are two Florida men running against each other. That impact will extend beyond the question of who will be the Republican presidential nominee; Floridians may feel the effect of this distant contest in their everyday lives.
So it makes sense to go beyond just the presidential horserace aspects of the contest and weigh the impact of possible outcomes on the Sunshine State.
The respective standings of the Republican presidential candidates in Iowa as of today, based on aggregations of polls by ABC/FiveThirtyEight.com. The chart shows Trump at 51.3%, Haley at 17.3%, DeSantis at 16.1% and Ramaswamy at 5.7%. (Chart: 538)
Florida Man 1: The White House or the jail house
Despite his high-profile residence in the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Donald Trump has had surprisingly little impact on his adopted state. He rarely weighs in on state politics or policies except to insult and denigrate its governor whom sees as an ungrateful traitor.
Trump is preoccupied with his presidential bid, staying out of jail and keeping his financial empire intact. If he wins Iowa he simply goes on to the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23 and then follows the trail to the nomination at the Party convention on July 15 in Milwaukee, Wis. Other than little bumps along the road for trials, appeals and potential disqualification for insurrection, it’s a pretty straightforward progression as long as he stays out of jail.
This should not have a direct impact on Florida or its legislative session now under way. If Trump becomes president he will establish himself as dictator and presumably favor Florida in his decisionmaking, although this is never to be taken for granted with Trump.
However, one area that should concern Floridians, especially in the Southwest, is his pledge to “drill, drill, drill” starting on day one. While oil platforms are unlikely in the waters immediately off of Mar-a-Lago (after all, he wouldn’t want to spoil the view), they could be permitted in the eastern Gulf off Southwest Florida, something that Floridians have fought for years. If Trump decided to allow them, there they would be—and in a dictatorship, Southwest Floridians would have no recourse or appeal. That’s life under a tyrant.
There is another Florida possibility that’s unconnected to either Iowa or the presidential campaign. It’s been raised by Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, and that is that Trump could lose Mar-a-Lago in a court judgment. If that happened, he might cease to be a Florida man and take up residence in a federal prison or abroad.
If he left Florida one way or the other, it seems unlikely that Floridians would feel any impact of his departure or absence in their daily lives—although traffic might improve around Mar-a-Lago.
Florida Man 2: The fate of DeSantistan
Far more significant for Floridians is the fate of the state’s governor. Here, the impact of the Iowa caucus outcome is likely to be felt at street level.
It needs to be remembered that at stake in Iowa is not just the future of DeSantis, his presidential ambitions and his political campaign. Rather, the Iowa results will be the first step in telling the world whether America wants to be Florida, or more specifically, DeSantis’ Florida—what has been called DeSantistan (with thanks to Diane Roberts of Florida Phoenix for the term).
It’s not just DeSantis being judged in Iowa; it’s everything that DeSantistan has come to mean: the book-banning, vaccine-denying, woke-stopping, gun-toting, immigrant-hating, teacher-bashing, college-crushing, abortion-ending, vote-restricting, media-taunting, Disney-destroying, Trumplike tropical culture that defines this peculiar peninsula right now.
If DeSantis wins in Iowa he’ll be able to claim validation for his cultural crusade. It will be a triumph all the sweeter for the long odds and unexpected outcome. He’ll be able to argue that the DeSantian model is attractive to the American public at large (even if it’s endorsed by just a handful of frostbitten Iowans) and he will take it to the next stop in New Hampshire. He will pursue his cultural agenda, touting it as a model for the entire country. He will strive to make America DeSantistan.
Within the confines of the Sunshine State, the state legislature, with its Republican supermajority, is likely to remain cowed and subservient in the face of a possible DeSantis presidency. After all, a President DeSantis would bring many potential benefits and rewards, both for the state and for the legislators personally—and also nasty, petty penalties for defiance or apostasy.
As they did last year, the legislators will likely “stay the course,” as DeSantis called on them to do in his State of the State address last Tuesday, Jan. 9. They will probably continue to enact his priorities while each one jockeys to prove him or herself more DeSantian than the others. It will mean a continued race to the right and into further depths of abortion prohibiting, educational inquisition, voter suppression, science denial and cultural crusading. Bills to these effects are already under consideration.
However, if DeSantis is defeated in Iowa that could all change—and the bigger the defeat, the bigger the change.
The definition of “defeat” is variable: a loss to Trump would not be surprising but a loss to Haley, especially a big loss, would be crushing and personally humiliating. Imagine, losing to a girl!
A decisive defeat could end his presidential campaign altogether. Numerous observers, including the wickedly wise Karl Rove, have pointed out that Iowa is a “do or die” moment for DeSantis. If he loses he will still likely limp to the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary, where there is an actual vote. But a loss in Iowa will send him to the Granite State wounded and crippled.
Back at home DeSantis would still be governor of Florida for the next two years but his standing in the state would be vastly diminished. He would no longer be the face of the future with the potential to provide great rewards or significant punishments.
Indeed, this year the Florida legislature is showing some signs that the extreme DeSantis-Make America Great Again (MAGA) fever is beginning to break.
For example, a bill to ban abortion in virtually all instances (House Bill 1519) is getting the cold shoulder from Senate President Sen. Kathleen Passidomo (R-28-Naples) and House Speaker Rep. Paul Renner (R-19-Flagler and St. Johns counties), the top lawmakers in both houses. Similarly, a bill to virtually end mail-in balloting and require more hand counts of ballots (Senate Bill 1752)—pet peeves of Trump and 2020 election deniers—received a similarly cold reception from Passidomo.
The cooling of ideological ardor, combined with the governor’s prolonged absence from the state while campaigning elsewhere, has apparently loosened DeSantis’ hold on the minds of state lawmakers. A decisive defeat in Iowa could actually awaken them from their cultic thrall and evolve a spine in some of them, despite party demands for complete submission.
After a beating in Iowa and the end of his campaign, DeSantis would likely return to Tallahassee, lick his wounds and govern for the next two years but without the presidential urgency and drive that has propelled him so far. As he stated in his State of the State speech, he would stay the course and continue with existing policies, likely without the bombast and drama that has marked him to date.
However, he would also be governing in the looming shadow of a possible Trump presidency and while Trump may be forgetful of land values and real estate appraisals he never forgets an enemy or a perceived turncoat. If Trump wins, DeSantis would likely be targeted for arrest and imprisonment on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of a Trump dictatorship. (Trump probably wouldn’t wait for the following day to order DeSantis’ arrest but would have him seized on some pretext after taking the inaugural oath at noon.)
In the event that President Joe Biden is re-elected there would be none of the truly dire consequences for DeSantis and the state. The governor would continue denouncing Biden from the safety of the Governor’s Mansion for two years and then play baseball, cogitate in a think-tank or practice law while awaiting his next presidential chance in 2028, secure in the expectation that there would be another chance because the election would be held as planned.
Grassroots Floridians will likely feel the impact of a DeSantis defeat in a more moderate legislature and less draconian laws, somewhat freer democracy (or at least less restrictive balloting), and less hatred, prejudice and rage against citizens who fall outside the governor’s political base.
By contrast, a DeSantis win in Iowa will likely see more efforts by Florida Republicans to force political unity on the Florida population to guarantee solid backing for his continued quest for the nomination and general election. The totalitarian impulse is strong in the Sunshine State. After all, last year there were calls to officially make Florida a single-party state. Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-11-Citrus, Hernando and Sumter counties) introduced a bill to outlaw the Democratic Party based on its 1860 support for slavery (conveniently overlooking Republican support for keeping slavery in the states where it already existed). Republican Party Chair Christian Ziegler announced that the Party’s “work is not done until there are no more Democrats in Florida.”
Today Florida is still a multiparty state, there are still Democrats voting in it and Christian Ziegler has been expelled from the Party chairmanship. Now the fate of Florida’s political culture rests in the frozen mittens of Iowa Republicans.
As for Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Floridians are unlikely to feel any shock waves if these candidates somehow emerge from Iowa’s icy grip. They have not had an impact on Florida to date and unless one of them succeeds to the presidency, it’s hard to see any state impacts from either of them.
Of caucuses and confusion
In 2020, six Democratic candidates entered the Iowa caucuses to jockey for the presidential nomination. In a surprise, Peter Buttegieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, received the largest proportion of votes and the most delegates after a confusing, delayed result that took several days to sort out. In the end it didn’t matter because Joe Biden became the nominee and the 46th President of the United States.
The results of the Republican Iowa caucuses this year could be similarly confused. We all may not know for days who won or in the end the results may be inconclusive. Ultimately, they may not matter at all.
There’s also one other possible outcome: if he somehow loses, Trump will no doubt declare that he actually won, the caucuses were rigged and the results are invalid. He’ll blame the weather, illegal migrants, and George Soros.
It could happen. After all, this scenario has occurred before. And his MAGA cultists will no doubt believe him.
Sidebar: A caucus mystery solved?
In American political parlance, “to caucus” means to “gather” or “confer” and “a caucus” means a gathering or conclave.
The origins of the term “caucus” are obscure. When this author was researching his book Congress for Dummies in 2002, he discovered there was no definitive etymology for the term. Some observers thought it was originally a Native American term. That seemed unlikely because the word sounded Latinate. Other sources believe it derived from colonial drinking clubs or from shipbuilding caulkers “caucusing” together.
On a visit to Scotland last summer, this author became aware of a Scottish drinking cup called a Quaich (pronounced “quake”). According to Scottish sources, the word is Gaelic and means a cup of friendship or comradeship. It was a Celtic variation of a low-class Latin word for cup, which happened to be “caucus.”
So the American political term “caucus” may derive from the time of Roman Britain and Latin’s influence on language throughout the isles. As people gathered to drink and share cups, they also shared thoughts and concerns. Perhaps Scottish settlers brought their quaiches and the even older term for cup to the New World. In the centuries since, the word has evolved to its current political meaning.
This is a theory, of course. Someday, perhaps some sharp linguistic graduate student will definitively nail down the sources and proofs. But it makes sense and it’s pleasant to think of a caucus as a group of friends gathering together to share a common cup of spirits, conversation and good cheer. It’s a warm image particularly appropriate to the frozen fields of Iowa.
At any rate that’s the explanation this author most enjoys, so he’s sticking with it. Slàinte Mhath!
A group of Collier County residents huddle in prayer prior to a Board of Commissioners meeting in the Commission chamber on March 28, 2023. (Photo: Author)
Jan. 3, 2024 by David Silverberg
What will be the shape of Collier County, Florida’s next century? This year’s election has the potential to significantly mold its future well beyond just the next year.
As the United States as a whole faces a stark election choice between democracy and dictatorship in 2024, so Collier County voters face important choices between candidates who represent radically different approaches to governing, educating and most importantly, counting ballots.
It is important to note that August 20—not the general election date of Nov. 5—is the operative election date for some of these races, which will be decided in the Republican Party primary. (This is also not to be confused with the Florida Presidential Preference Primary, which is scheduled for March 19.)
In keeping with the dominant political complexion of the county, all the candidates are Republicans by name and party affiliation, except for the School Board, whose elections are non-partisan.
In fact, however, some of the governing philosophies at issue are so radically different that some candidates could be said to be Republicans, while others belong to what is a separate de facto Make America Great Again (MAGA) party.
Another issue that is very important for the future of Collier County is the role of religion in public affairs. There is a vocal and active Christian nationalist political movement in the county seeking to impose its religious views. One commissioner, Chris Hall (R-District 2) openly stated that “there is no separation of church and state.” School Board member Jerry Rutherford (District 1) maintains the same and has tried to insert religion into school board meetings.
Will the wall of separation between church and state be demolished in Collier County? The election will go a long way toward making this determination.
Collier County Board of Commissioners
Of the five seats on the Collier County Board of Commissioners, three are up for election: Districts 1, 3 and 5.
Because all candidates are Republicans, this race will be decided in the Republican primary election on Aug. 20.
As of Nov. 5, 2023, two of these offices were uncontested. In District 1 Commissioner Rick LoCastro had no opponent. The same was true for William McDaniel in District 5.
But District 3 is an entirely different story.
The district is a broad swath of largely rural land that goes from the county line in the north, along Route 75 on the west and south and Wilson Blvd. on the east. It includes communities like Golden Gate, the Vineyards, and Island Walk.
Collier County Commission District 3. (Map: CCBC)
The sitting commissioner is Burt Saunders, 75, Republican, a lawyer by profession and an experienced official. Originally from Hampton, Va., he moved to Florida in 1978 to attend graduate school. He received his law degree from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., and his master of laws degree from the University of Miami. He first served as the Collier County attorney before being elected to the Commission in 1986. He was then elected to the state House of Representatives in 1994 and the state Senate in 1998 where he served until 2008 before returning to the Board of Commissioners in 2016. As of Nov. 5 he had raised $7,500 for his campaign.
District 3 Commissioner Burt Saunders. (Image: CCBC)
Saunders is facing three Republican challengers for his seat.
Floyd “Tag” Yarnell, 53, is a litigation lawyer who calls himself a “Constitutional Conservative” and states he “will make decisions based on his faith and reverence to America’s founding principles.” As of Nov. 5 he had raised $22,450 for his race, the most of any of the candidates. The contributions came from a variety of individuals, many of them fellow lawyers.
John Johnson, 80, originally from Chicago, is a Collier County resident who held a wide variety of jobs including heavy equipment operator, farmer, motel owner, construction company owner and painting contractor, before retiring in 2020. As of Nov. 5 he had raised $4,220 for his campaign.
Frank Roberts, 34, is a tax attorney and former US Air Force Judge Advocate, who received his law degree from Ave Maria School of Law. As he puts it in his campaign biography: “He resides in Golden Gate Estates just outside Naples with his beautiful wife of 11 years, Kaitlyn, and three daughters where they happily raise chickens free from HOAs [homeowners associations] and with minimal government interference.” As of Nov. 5 he had not raised any money for his campaign.
Saunders’ seat is under threat because he has consistently been a voice for moderation and reasonable governance in the face of radical MAGA efforts. In August he was the lone vote against the Collier County anti-federal “Bill of Rights Sanctuary” ordinance, which asserted a county right to nullify federal law. He objected to its vagueness and unenforceability.
During the Aug. 22, 2023 Commission discussion on passage of that ordinance, prominent MAGA farmer and grocer Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III, after denouncing the “tyrannical” federal government, took direct aim at Saunders: “I understand, Burt, that you might not want to vote yes on this but you know, we as the electorate also have the choice not to vote for you when it comes up again.”
Saunders ignored the threat and voted against it anyway.
Similarly, in April he opposed an extreme anti-public health ordinance and resolution, which also passed over his lone dissenting vote.
During the COVID pandemic, Saunders voted in the majority to impose mandatory public health protection measures to protect county residents, incurring the wrath of those who opposed vaccinations and dismissed COVID as a hoax.
In the 2022 election, Oakes targeted two commissioners who had voted for COVID protections, Andy Solis (District 2), who declined to run for another term, and Penny Taylor (District 4). The candidates he backed, Hall and Dan Kowal (R-District 4), won.
“A year and half ago we said we’d get rid of them and here we are,” Oakes boasted during a post-election celebration at his market, Seed to Table. “Look, Bill McDaniel up here! Conservatives, America First, own Collier County now, praise the Lord!”
Supervisor of Elections
This year Collier County will face a contested race for the position of Supervisor of Elections.
Like the County Commission, this race will likely be decided in the Republican primary on Aug. 20.
Until now, local elections have been judged clean and results were accepted by all parties in Collier County. The office has never had a scandal or a challenge to its vote counting.
Collier County was created as a separate governing entity in 1923. It was served by a Supervisor of Registration of Electors before the office was changed to Supervisor of Elections in 1965. After serving four years as registrar, Edna Cribb Santa became the first Supervisor in 1965 and held the post for 16 years until 1981. She was followed by Mary Morgan, who served 19 years until 2000.
The most recent supervisor was Jennifer Edwards, who held the office for 23 years and retired in April 2023.
Edwards nominated her deputy, Melissa Blazier, 45, as her replacement.
“Melissa’s 17+ years of experience in the Supervisor of Elections office, vast knowledge of Florida’s election laws and rules, and her comprehension of the complexities of conducting elections would allow for a seamless transition as we head into the 2024 Presidential Election Cycle,” Edwards wrote in her March 31 retirement letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). “Melissa is unquestionably the most qualified person for this position and is prepared and ready to continue Collier County’s tradition of conducting excellent elections.”
Blazier has also been active in a variety of civic and political organizations including membership in the League of Women Voters, Men’s Republican Club of Collier County, Naples Republican Club, Republican Club of South Collier County, Republican Women of Southwest Florida Federated, and the Women’s Republican Club.
Melissa Blazier. (Photo: Author)
DeSantis followed Edwards’ recommendation and appointed Blazier as supervisor.
This year, Blazier is facing two challengers.
David Schaffel, 63, provides no background on his profession or career on his campaign website, except to call himself a “successful businessman and IT entrepreneur.” He says in a campaign video that he is a “rock-solid conservative and America First patriot.” He questions whether the 2020 election was stolen and says that as supervisor, his focus “will be on securing and restoring trust in our elections.” As of Nov. 5, he had not reported any donations to his campaign or spent any money on it.
The more serious challenger is Timothy Guerrette, 56, a former chief of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, from which he retired in 2021 after 31 years of service. He has also worked as a real estate broker and since retirement has hosted an “Uncensored 239” podcast. He has experience in police operations and management. He’s running on a platform of “safe, secure, ethical” elections and says in a campaign video that he will bring “competence and integrity back into the voting process.”
As of Nov. 5, Guerrette had raised $78,262 for his campaign. Many of the donations came from active and former law enforcement officers, including $1,000 from the Friends of Carmine Marceno Political Action Committee. Marceno is the sheriff in neighboring Lee County.
By contrast, as of Nov. 5, Blazier had raised $56,468 for her campaign, mostly from individuals, including her predecessor, including $25,000 she loaned her own campaign.
The opposition to Blazier appears to be less about her as an individual and more about distrust of the whole election process by disappointed MAGAs. This in turn seems largely based on former President Donald Trump’s disproven charges of 2020 election fraud and his attempt to overthrow the election’s outcome.
Despite Collier County’s record of election stability and accuracy, Oakes has alleged that mechanical vote counting was suspect.
“I will be challenging the Superintendent of Elections to clean up and do away with computer calculations for voting,” Oakes told The Paradise Progressive in an interview on Dec. 14, 2022. “We should have hand counts. In Europe they don’t take three weeks,” to reach a conclusion, he noted, referring to other elections around the United States that took long times to tabulate. While he said he liked Edwards, he called her “a little bit naïve and if you put her hand on the Bible, she would swear there is nothing corrupt going on there. I don’t think that’s true.”
Hand counting ballots has become a MAGA rallying cry even though it flies in the face of state law. As Blazier put it in a June 28, 2023 interview with The Paradise Progressive, changing away from machine counts “would have to be changed in law. That’s not something we can decide to do. And certainly not, given the deadlines we have to certify an election, it’s not possible to hand count—and I’m talking about one race. When you think about the general election ballot, we have over 30 contests on that ballot, with over a hundred different ballot styles that we would potentially have to hand count. I know that no one likes to hear this, but machines are more accurate than human beings are.”
School Board
Like all school boards in Florida, Collier County’s is a non-partisan race. If any candidate receives 50 percent plus one in the primary election, that person is elected. Otherwise, its makeup will be decided in the general election on Nov. 5.
Two school districts are up for election this year: District 2, currently represented by Vice Chair Stephanie Lucarelli, and District 4, represented by Erick Carter.
Stephanie Lucarelli. (Image: CCPS)
Lucarelli, 49, has served on the Board since 2016. She previously worked as a teacher in New Jersey, where she received her teaching certificate from Rutgers University.
Erick Carter. (Image: CCPS)
Erick Carter, 53, also took a seat on the Board in 2016. Originally from South Carolina, Carter was an instructor with a national ballroom dancing company when he discovered Southwest Florida in 1992, met his wife Anita and settled in Naples, where today they run Salon Zenergy, a hair and cosmetology salon.
Lucarelli and Carter have provided a moderate, secular approach to education and school board decisions since taking office in 2020.
With Chair Kelly Lichter (District 3) providing the swing vote, both voted in the majority to approve the appointment of Superintendent Leslie Ricciardelli despite a less experienced MAGA contender for the position backed by Oakes. They also rejected mixing religion into School Board proceedings with an invocation prior to Board meetings.
As of this writing it is not certain that Lucarelli and Carter will run again since they have not declared their candidacies.
The only declared School Board candidate is a Collier County resident running in District 2 named Pamela Shanouda Cunningham, 49, whose campaign website and video declares her to be an “unapologetic conservative.” She claims that Collier County children’s futures are “being sold out to big government bureaucrats who want to indoctrinate, not educate; career politicians who want to teach them what to think, not how to think.” She wants to put “parents in classrooms, not the liberal elite” and “restore greatness to the American classroom.”
Cunningham provides no biographic material on her website although she titles herself “Dr.,” and provides no academic credentials. She has never run for public office. The Collier County Citizens Values Political Action Committee lists her as Republican.
She did not respond to an e-mail or phone call from The Paradise Progressive seeking further information.
Analysis: The war on competence
In 2024 Collier County voters face a choice whether to uphold a secular, constitutional, effective local government or to veer off in a radical, extreme, religious direction.
The MAGA candidates running represent a continuation of the Trumpist war against expertise, experience and competence.
When he was president and especially during the COVID pandemic, Trump waged war on experts and the value of experience. He lacked experts’ knowledge and education, so he denigrated and dismissed them as “deep state” or “liberal elite” and belittled their knowledge. Then, when he lost the election, he deliberately promoted a Big Lie to overturn the results and questioned the integrity and neutrality of election officials who counted the votes.
The echoes of that anti-expertise, anti-competence, election-denying attitude continue to resonate and can be seen in the choices before Collier County.
In Burt Saunders Collier County has a seasoned, prudent commissioner with extensive experience in law and government at the state and local levels that is unmatched by his challengers.
In Melissa Blazier the county has a veteran, knowledgeable Supervisor of Elections with extensive experience. In addition to having helped oversee elections for the past 17 years, she is certified as an Elections/Registration Administrator by the National Association of Election Officials’ Election Center and is a Master Florida Certified Elections Professional through the Florida Supervisors of Elections.
In Stephanie Luccarelli and Erick Carter the county has experienced school board members with an abiding interest in education and the welfare of students, teachers and parents.
The people seeking to replace these veteran officials are running based on old suspicions, distrust of expertise and conspiracy theories.
The Supervisor of Elections position is a case in point.
This is an extremely important position because it’s the foundation for all other governance and elections. The public has to have confidence in its outcomes and especially in its absolute neutrality and integrity.
It’s worth remembering that the Supervisor of Elections oversees not only general elections but party primaries as well. For example, if candidates from two different Republican Party factions vie for a seat, everyone has to be confident that the Supervisor will not favor one faction or another in any way and that the intra-party vote count will be fair, unbiased and accurate.
The complaints about the election process appear to come from the 2020 outcome that Trump supporters didn’t like. But the Supervisor job is much broader than that.
There seems to be little understanding of the true complexity and nature of the job by its critics or challengers. As Blazier pointed out, a Supervisor may be overseeing over 30 different ballots on everything from constitutional amendments to judicial elections to the Collier County Mosquito Control District (which has two seats open this year), the Soil and Water Conservation District (four seats) and various fire control and rescue districts, not to mention mayor and council seats in Everglades City, Marco Island and Naples.
More than anything else, the Supervisor job is an accounting job; it’s all about numbers, vote counts, meeting deadlines and adhering to all applicable laws and getting everything out the door promptly, whether that means mail-in ballots or election results. A law enforcement or business background may include aspects related to the Supervisor’s job but nothing compares to over 17 years of on-the-job training and experience like that held by Blazier.
By contrast, her challengers have nothing in their backgrounds indicating any familiarity—or even previous interest—in election management. They have never been involved in administering elections or even served as poll workers.
Additionally, Blazier comes from an unbroken tradition of election excellence and integrity that stretches back to the founding of Collier County. Overthrowing all that knowledge and expertise, especially by an ideologically-driven MAGA opponent, would call into question the integrity and accuracy of all future election results including those for intra-party contests.
Another case in point is the Collier County School Board where Rutherford and Moshier, the two MAGA school board members, have consistently failed or proven unable to do the hard, necessary work of budgeting—and they campaigned on cutting that budget. When confronted with a real spreadsheet, they froze. Rutherford, with Moshier’s support, introduced time-consuming and irrelevant distractions like the controversy over an invocation. They have shown next to no interest in the actual nuts and bolts of providing educational excellence for students.
When ideological loyalty trumps competence the results are eroded services, misguided management and ineffective operations, not to mention poor decisionmaking in budgeting, administration and conservation. In the current case, if Collier County voters reject competence for fanaticism this year they’ll start to feel the effects in 2025, when novice officials take office and start bungling operations and mishandling their responsibilities.
Of course, all these considerations will be moot if Donald Trump is elected and overthrows American democracy. All these offices and the procedures for selecting their officeholders are based on democratic, legal procedures, consent of the governed and the supremacy of law and the Constitution. In a dictatorship the dictator simply appoints his own loyalists based on the blindness of their fealty. Competence is no longer a consideration and public consent is dismissed.
So going into 2024, Collier County voters are faced with seasoned candidates with experience, knowledge and proven competence in their fields or unseasoned MAGA amateurs running on grievances, conspiracies and blind belief.
One course will result in a county that is run on behalf of its residents with effectiveness, efficiency and integrity. The other will lead to ignorance, intolerance and most of all, incompetence.
That would not be a great way to start Collier County’s second century.
America will have to navigate stormy waters overseas in the coming year. (Photo: Hai Thinh)
Jan 2, 2024 by David Silverberg
This year, American politics will not be happening in a vacuum; they will be profoundly affected by events and actors overseas.
Of course, American elections never really occur in isolation; they’re always impacted by the rest of the world. However, since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 there has rarely been a more volatile, dangerous and, indeed, explosive international situation. This is an election that will truly determine the fate of the world.
This year Americans will feel foreign influences at home like never before, whether they’re aware of them or not, even in a place as obscure and far from centers of power as Southwest Florida.
What are Americans likely to experience from abroad as the year proceeds to its political climax on Election Day, Nov. 5?
The arsenal of democracy
President Franklin Roosevelt gives his “Arsenal of Democracy” address.
On Dec. 29, 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt gave a radio speech to the American people. “This is not a fireside chat on war,” he said at the outset. “It is a talk on national security.”
He reviewed the threat to the world of Nazi and Fascist conquest. He argued that the United States must support Britain’s resistance to Adolf Hitler and that Americans could not be complacent behind two great oceans.
Toward the end of the talk he said, “We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.”
Today the exact same speech could be given with the same emphasis, just substituting “Russia” for “Germany,” “Putin” for “Hitler” and “terrorism” for “Fascism.”
There are other similarities to today and Roosevelt noted them in a paragraph in his speech, which deserves full quotation:
“Let us no longer blind ourselves to the undeniable fact that the evil forces which have crushed and undermined and corrupted so many others are already within our own gates. Your government knows much about them and every day is ferreting them out. Their secret emissaries are active in our own and in neighboring countries. They seek to stir up suspicion and dissension, to cause internal strife. They try to turn capital against labor, and vice versa. They try to reawaken long slumbering racial and religious enmities which should have no place in this country. They are active in every group that promotes intolerance. They exploit for their own ends our own natural abhorrence of war. These trouble-breeders have but one purpose. It is to divide our people, to divide them into hostile groups and to destroy our unity and shatter our will to defend ourselves.”
Now, as then, these “trouble-breeders” are active in America, only now they’re on social media and have own media networks and one broadcast network in particular. They will be extraordinarily active in this critical year.
America remains not only the arsenal of democracy but the fulcrum of world politics, the indispensable nation without which rule-based democracy cannot exist. As such it is the focus of every enemy of democracy and every would-be conqueror who would pull it from its pedestal. Every American’s television, computer, smart phone, printed page and any other form of communication is a target.
However, their efforts are likely to also likely to be “kinetic,” including terrorism, sabotage and physical violence.
The war fronts
The course of the year and the future is being shaped by war, which is the most uncertain of all human endeavors. America’s tomorrow is being forged on distant battlefields today.
The war in Ukraine will determine whether the United States remains a superpower, whether the Ukrainian people remain independent and democratic, and whether NATO and the West remain strong. Alternatively, if America, Ukraine and the West fail, a despotic Russia will rebuild an empire of fear and oppression, spread it to Europe and reduce the United States to a vassal.
As the year dawns, neither side can retreat. For Ukraine the struggle is an existential one: if Ukraine loses it ceases to exist. The same is true for Russian President Vladimir Putin: if Russia loses he ceases to exist. As a result there’s no end in sight right now and the war seems set to continue in its current state for at least another year.
Putin is 71 years old. If he dies or is killed during the course of the year the entire equation will change. There were strong rumors in October that he suffered a heart attack. However, he reappeared in public. As long as he is alive the course of Russian policy and warmaking will likely remain as it has since the invasion a year and ten months ago. His opponent, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, 45, has to stay alive too—but the Ukrainian war effort is less dependent on the will of a single man.
The war in Gaza will determine whether the United States remains a vital participant in the future of the Middle East, whether Israel and its neighbors will ever achieve peace, whether the people of Gaza will survive, whether Iran and its allies will dominate the region and whether the United States can sustain a two-front defense of the West and the democracies.
In its first phase Hamas won its war. Its Oct. 7 attack achieved strategic surprise, punctured the image of Israeli dominance and invulnerability and especially humiliated the vaunted Mossad intelligence agency. It ended moves toward Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab states. It forced Israel to deal with Hamas as a government in order to negotiate for captured hostages. It stirred up global antipathy to Israel and intensified worldwide anti-Semitism. It also delivered a personal blow to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose entire life was built on fighting terrorism.
For Russia and Iran, it opened a new front against the United States and distracted world attention away from Putin’s aggression. It put the United States on the defensive in justifying the overwhelming Israeli response. It forced choices in American military production capabilities, diverting them away from Ukraine. Despite the atrocities committed by its fighters (warning: this video is extremely graphic), Hamas successfully prompted an overwhelming and often indiscriminate Israeli response, costing it international support and leading to condemnation.
All Hamas has to do in the year ahead to win its war is simply survive since Netanyahu set the Israeli war goal as destroying it. Israel seems unlikely to achieve its goal before the year is out.
But Netanyahu is one of the most extraordinarily stubborn and determined human beings on his planet. He is absolutely focused on destroying Hamas to the exclusion of all other considerations. If all other factors remain the same he will continue Israel’s current course no matter how long it takes or what it costs in blood, treasure, or prestige.
That will mean more protests, more isolation of the United States and Israel and more casualties and hardship for civilian Gazans at the hands of both Hamas and Israel. It will mean more mobilization for the enemies of the US and Israel and intensified attacks and challenges on widely disparate and diverse battlefields on land, at sea and in the air. The Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea are just the start.
It may also mean that yet another front opens or a third major war suddenly breaks out somewhere during the year.
For everyday Americans it will mean something else as well: the increased likelihood of terrorism.
“Blinking red lights everywhere”
FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Dec. 5, 2023. (Image: CSPAN)
On Dec. 5, Christopher Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was asked if he saw the kind of “blinking red lights” that were going off before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“What I would say that is unique about the environment that we’re in right now in my career is that while there may have been times over the years where individual threats could have been higher here or there than where they may be right now, I’ve never seen a time where all the threats or so many of the threats are all elevated, all at exactly the same time,” answered Wray. “I see blinking red lights everywhere.”
Following the Hamas attack on Israel, said Wray, a “veritable rogue’s gallery of foreign terrorists” called for attacks on the United States and “the threat level has gone to a whole other level since Oct. 7.”
Sure enough, on Dec. 14, police in Denmark, Holland and Germany announced they had foiled a Hamas terror plot in their countries.
This is only the beginning. Given the tensions, stakes and desperation in so many theaters there will undoubtedly be terror and mass casualty events in the United States this year, some of them severe. What’s more, the intensity, stress and threats—and likely, number of events—will escalate as Election Day draws closer. There may be efforts to stop voting or scare people away from polling places.
The organized terror plots by groups from abroad such as Hamas or countries like Iran can often be foiled by good intelligence and detective work. But there is a significant domestic terror threat as well that simply cannot be anticipated. Some lone shooters, random crazies and violent extremists will get through.
There’s no solution to this at street level. Americans will just have to be alert, cautious and aware of their surroundings at all times, especially in large gatherings of any nature. Never has the old adage, “if you see something, say something” been more applicable.
But Americans will also need to show courage and calm and carry on. The saying “freedom isn’t free” is usually used in reference to military sacrifices. This year as Americans carry on their daily lives and fulfil their civic duties, they will have to keep in mind that their rights and freedom come with a cost in vigilance and potential danger but that it’s worth facing.
“Carefully, accurately, surgically”
Yevgeny Prigozhin in uniform from Rostov-on-Don in a June 24, 2023 video he released in the midst of his mutiny.
On Nov. 7, 2022 Yevgeny Prigozhin posted comments on the Russian equivalent of Facebook.
It was the day before the US midterm elections. “We have interfered [in US elections], we are interfering and we will continue to interfere,” he boasted. “Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once.”
Prigozhin, known as Putin’s chef and close counselor, was head of the Wagner Group mercenaries. He was widely believed in Western intelligence circles to be mastermind of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election that put Donald Trump in the White House. He oversaw troll farms that flooded American social media with divisive and disruptive messages and promoted Trump’s candidacy. His operatives organized pro-Trump rallies and posed as Trump operatives and spread disinformation. His hackers attempted to penetrate election offices.
Prigozhin had the temerity to threaten Putin when he led a mutiny last June. He got his reward in August when a plane he was riding in crashed in Russia, killing him and his closest associates.
As Russia has interfered in US elections ever since 2016, so it can be expected to attempt to interfere in the 2024 election—and probably already is doing so. Prigozhin will not be at the helm so the style will be different but he may have already been replaced by someone more capable.
With so much at stake, with active combat around the world, all of America’s enemies can be expected to try to determine the outcome of the US election. This will not only take the form of social media interference and disinformation, it will also likely involve direct efforts to skew vote counts and penetrate election offices.
It may also include old-fashioned direct corruption, blackmail and bribery, subverting elected and appointed officials and making covert contributions to specific election campaigns at all levels of government. It will likely include Russian support for Trump’s candidacy, given his admiration for Putin and his antipathy toward Ukraine.
There is no doubt that Russia will be covertly promoting anti-Ukraine sentiment among American voters. Opposition to Ukraine among Republican members of Congress is already playing into Putin’s hands.
“Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us,” Olga Skabeeva, a Russian TV personality on state TV said when Republican members of Congress blocked an aid package to Ukraine and Israel just before the December recess.
Dmitry Drobnitsky, a Russian American affairs analyst, added: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone.”
As Americans sort through their social media feeds and information from media of all sorts this year, they should be aware that they are targets of hostile powers pursuing their own agendas. As with the threat of terrorism, watchfulness and awareness will be essential. When it comes to information, especially outrageous, incendiary and extreme “news” items, healthy skepticism, vigilance and verification of sources will be critical to staying in touch with reality.
The border and immigration conundrums
Migrant flows to the US southern border are already at record levels. They will likely skyrocket as the year proceeds.
Why? Because people hoping to reach the United States are very well aware of the American political situation. This year may represent their last, best chance to migrate to the United States and enter in an orderly, legal way. They may be poor and desperate but they’re not stupid.
Also, America’s opponents will want to put as much pressure on the administration as possible, so there may be an element of foreign agitation in promoting northward migration.
Then there are the factors that are driving a northward migration around the world: poverty, war, oppression, fear, and the ravages of climate change. At the same time there are the attractions: hope, freedom, promise and the chance for a better life.
But the surge at the border will no doubt be a major headache and vulnerability for Biden this year. He is constrained in his response by existing law and established procedures, while Trump and the Republicans have no such constraints and don’t have to offer solutions that actually work. They already are and can be expected to exploit the situation to the full.
If Biden wins, US immigration and border policy will continue to function on systematic, legal principles and will likely improve with time and additional resources.
But by contrast, Trump continues denouncing immigrants in purely racial terms as he has done since he began campaigning for president in 2015. “They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done,” Trump said of them during a rally in New Hampshire on Dec. 16. His solutions embody hatred, prejudice and rage.
In the notorious Project 2025 plan for governing after his election, Trump supporters envision reshaping government to give Trump unconstrained power. Their ideas include building large concentration camps and conducting mass raids and roundups of undocumented migrants. During Trump’s presidency migrant families were separated and conditions for migrants declined precipitously. Treatment is likely to become even more draconian if he’s re-elected and assumes dictatorial powers. And he would no doubt revive plans to build a massive, ineffective and exorbitantly expensive wall along the US southern border.
All this creates an incentive for migrants to get to the United States in 2024 while they still have a reasonable chance of entering.
That there is stress at the border is undeniable. But the issue has been so politicized and distorted that it’s difficult to get an accurate, objective assessment of the situation.
Trump and Republican politicians know that alarm about migrants polls well and agitates the base. However, they’ve so overhyped the situation that their more extreme allegations are suspect. They’ve charged that the border under the Biden administration is “open,” meaning that there are no controls at all. In fact there is a structure and enforcement mechanism to deal with asylum seekers and attempted crossers both legal and illegal —but it’s under strain.
Govs. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) and Greg Abbott (R-Texas) in the past year used transports of migrants to places like Martha’s Vineyard and Washington, DC as political stunts to score publicity points while in fact making virtually no difference in coping with migrant flows.
Will these stunts continue in the new year? They may, but there is also the possibility that they’ll die down. With Trump the Republican nominee there’s no reason to seek the kind of publicity that the migrant flights and buses brought to the two men, who were competing for the nomination. Also, with Trump and Republicans wooing Hispanic voters, these kinds of expensive antics may be counterproductive.
Rational analysts of all persuasions have long agreed that what is needed is comprehensive immigration reform. Major bipartisan attempts were made in Congress in 2007 and 2014, both of which were stymied by recalcitrant anti-immigration politicians.
Republicans in the House passed a Secure the Border Act last year, one of their only legislative successes. The bill was a partisan codification of Trumpist border measures and went nowhere in the Senate.
There is virtually no prospect for any real progress being made on immigration or border security in 2024. Congressional Republicans are following an entirely Trumpist playbook, while Trump is advocating a Hitlerian approach to immigration. Whatever solutions Biden proposes or measures he takes will be attacked by Republicans, whose real interest is in maintaining the status quo so that they can keep using the issue to flay the administration.
Another potential reason for Trump to exploit the border situation has been floated by Joyce Vance, an attorney who served as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Alabama during the Obama administration. After examining Trump’s social media postings, Vance concluded: “Trump is preparing to claim the 2024 election was stolen from him when he loses” and will blame the loss on voting by undocumented migrants allegedly allowed into the country by the Biden administration and the Democratic Party.
While there’s no way to know in advance if this will happen, and new immigrants won’t be eligible to vote in this election, it would certainly be in keeping with Trump’s modus operandi of lying and discrediting realities he doesn’t like.
So the prospects for the year ahead are for Trump’s rhetoric on immigrants to keep getting uglier, Republican exploitation of the situation to increase and get more apocalyptic, numbers of migrants and their suffering at the border to keep growing, strains on border security mechanisms to keep expanding and the rewards of finding practical consensus solutions to stay elusive. It’s not a formula for success and until there’s comprehensive immigration reform it’s a situation that will not be solved any time soon.
Meanwhile, in Florida specifically, DeSantis’ anti-immigrant rhetoric from the campaign and the anti-immigrant measures that the legislature passed in the last session will continue to dry up the state’s workforce, cripple its businesses and hurt its economy, resulting in higher prices and lower productivity.
Any kind of rational progress on these issues will have to wait until 2025. If Democrats take both the House and Senate, there may be the start of bipartisan work toward a sensible solution as there was in 2007 and 2014.
And yet, there’s hope
In his 1940 “Arsenal of Democracy” talk, Roosevelt said that he had received many telegrams (anyone remember those?) suggesting what he should discuss on the radio.
He singled out one in particular: “The gist of that telegram was: ‘Please, Mr. President, don’t frighten us by telling us the facts.’” Roosevelt decided to ignore that plea. “Frankly and definitely there is danger ahead — danger against which we must prepare,” he said. “But we well know that we cannot escape danger, or the fear of danger, by crawling into bed and pulling the covers over our heads.”
It is startling to read the text of that speech now. The challenges of that time were so similar to those of today.
And the solutions that Roosevelt proposed then apply today as well.
“We have no excuse for defeatism,” he said. “We have every good reason for hope—hope for peace, yes, and hope for the defense of our civilization and for the building of a better civilization in the future. I have the profound conviction that the American people are now determined to put forth a mightier effort than they have ever yet made to increase our production of all the implements of defense, to meet the threat to our democratic faith.”
Eighty-four years ago, Americans heeded that call. They backed Britain, put forth the effort, and when war came to them, they won it.
They can do it again.
Despite all the dangers and threats enumerated above—and in particular the domestic danger of a Trump dictatorship—there is another way that events can all play out this year.
In this scenario Americans rally, they become active, they understand what’s at stake and they decide to commit to defending democracy at home and abroad. Their efforts pay off: Trump and Trumpism are crushed decisively in every state and so overwhelmingly that his inevitable lies about a stolen election and accusations of fraud are seen for the desperate delusions they are; the law is upheld; the guilty are punished; Ukraine is supported; Putin is defeated; terrorism stopped; and America returns to civility and constitutionalism.
This is a real, possible outcome.
But, of course, it’s an outcome that people have to want and work to achieve.
The year lies before us. Roosevelt said it so well in closing his speech: “As President of the United States, I call for that national effort. I call for it in the name of this nation which we love and honor and which we are privileged and proud to serve. I call upon our people with absolute confidence that our common cause will greatly succeed.”
The American people did it then and they can do it now.
There can be calm after a storm. (Photo: Author)
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Coming next, Part III – A democracy, if you can keep it: Collier County, Fla., and the war on competence
There are inflection points in human history, monumental years when everything changes.
This is such a year—and everyone can see it coming.
This is a year when the fundamentals of the future will be determined both at the ballot box and on the battlefield. Even little old Collier County, Florida, having marked a century of existence, will be fundamentally shaped for its next century.
It will be an interesting year but not a fun one. Indeed, it will be dangerous, stressful and frightening.
There’s no avoiding that reality. The stakes are immensely high, the main players are desperate and popular passions in America are at a pitch unseen probably since the 1860s. Abroad, the outcome of wars now underway will shape the international order and new wars may break out. At home, Americans will decide whether they will be governed under democracy or dictatorship—if their election even goes off as planned.
It’s an immense, almost overwhelming canvas. It will take three articles to cover it.
On Sept. 18, 1787 when he was leaving the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked whether America was to be a monarchy or a republic. He famously replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
A “republic” simply meant that America wouldn’t have a monarch. The word “monarch” consists of the Greek words “monos”—“one”—and “archy”—meaning “power” or “authority.” America would not be governed by a single individual wielding all power.
Since Franklin’s time the American republic has become progressively more democratic.
This year will determine whether America will stay a democracy—if Americans choose to keep it.
That’s what the articles that follow will examine and try to analyze for the coming year: what is likely to happen and how best to respond to it?
Let’s start at home.
Democracy or dictatorship
There’s simply no other way to say it: the outcome of the 2024 presidential election will determine whether America stays a democracy or becomes a dictatorship.
Former President Donald Trump has made no secret of his authoritarian intentions. If elected he aims to demolish every institution restraining him (like the Constitution) and exact vengeance on every person who opposes him, now or in the past. He has called them all “vermin.”
Even when Fox News host Sean Hannity tried to give him an opportunity to deny the charges of authoritarianism, Trump didn’t take it.
Sean Hannity asks Donald Trump if he would be a dictator if elected, at a town hall in Iowa on Dec. 5, 2023. (Image: Fox News)
At a Fox News televised town hall meeting in Iowa on Dec. 5, Hannity tried to shoot down the alarms about Trump’s intentions: “You are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?”
“Except for day one,” Trump answered. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
Hannity looked nonplussed, which made Trump laugh. “I love this guy,” Trump said to the crowd. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no. Other than day one.’ We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”
Without a doubt, if elected, Trump will make himself dictator—starting day one and every day afterward. The dictatorship will be driven not only by his own thirst for vengeance, retribution and desire for total control but also by the people he will unleash and encourage. He and his cultists at both the high and low ends of the political hierarchy are determined to impose their will on the American people and the world regardless of the consent of the governed.
Also fueling Trump’s determination is the fact that unless he goes to the White House he will otherwise go to jail due to all the criminal charges and accusations against him.
On Dec. 19 the Colorado Supreme Court issued a historic ruling that Trump was ineligible for the state’s Republican primary ballot because he had engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. As to be expected, the ruling is being appealed to the US Supreme Court. On Thursday, Dec. 28, Maine’s secretary of state also ruled that Trump is ineligible for the primary ballot there. That decision will also be appealed.
Throughout the year expect court rulings to drop like bombs, with Supreme Court rulings making the biggest explosions of all.
Meanwhile, Republicans around the country are trying to find ways to ensure that Trump gets the nomination when the party convention convenes on July 15 in Milwaukee, Wisc.
Regardless of how the Colorado, Maine and other rulings play out, Trump has maneuvered himself into a position of either winning everything or losing everything. There is no middle ground. If he wins he becomes dictator, he pardons everyone who committed a crime on his behalf, and he attains absolute, unrestricted power. If he loses, he forfeits his life, his fortune and his own freedom.
This situation makes Trump—and his cultists—very desperate and very dangerous.
On Jan. 6, 2021 Americans saw that Trump and his co-conspirators were willing to break every norm and law and destroy the Constitution to stay in power. The people around him were arguing for a military coup to seize voting machines, cancel the election results and name false electors. Trump himself incited an insurrection to overthrow the government and even murder the vice president to stay in power.
In 2024 there is a real possibility that Trump and his followers will use violence and foment civil war or civil disturbance to get their way. If he faces incarceration or they see a loss looming at the polls some people may even try to prevent the election from taking place at all.
Movie madness
The Lincoln Memorial takes a direct hit in the movie “Civil War.” (Image: A24)
It’s not often that a piece of entertainment factors into a political analysis but a movie titled Civil War is scheduled to be released on April 26. Its premise is simple: civil war breaks out and secessionist forces from the “Florida Alliance” and the western United States attack the government. The White House is invaded and the president dragged from behind the Resolute desk. A group of journalists travel across the country amidst the chaos and strife, witnessing the carnage
The movie stars Kirsten Dunst as protagonist and Nick Offerman as a thinly-disguised President Joe Biden. It was conceived, written and directed by Alex Garland, whose previous credits include the obscure, box office flop Men.
Intended to be controversial, the movie has already succeeded. Right-wing conspiracy theorists are viewing it as an attempt to discredit the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. With only the trailer to judge it, on the contrary it appears to be a MAGA fantasy of power and domination. Its tagline is: “Every empire falls.”
Whether pro or anti insurrection—or even anti-American—the most dangerous thing about this movie is that it will encourage those thinking of civil war and political violence to actually take up arms and make this fiction real. People living in deep red, heavily MAGA, gun-saturated places—like Southwest Florida—where there has already been talk of armed revolution, know that the line between fantasy and reality in this matter is already very thin.
Naples farmer and grocer Alfie Oakes takes aim in an Aug. 8, 2021 Facebook post stating, “I pray we have election integrity in 2022…. if we don’t we must prepare for the worst! Our second amendment right is specifically to revolt against a a tyrannical government! Prepare for the worst and pray for the best.” (Photo: Facebook)
The closest similar event in the past was the release of director DW Griffith’s epic movie Birth of a Nation in 1915. That movie inspired revival of the Ku Klux Klan and led to a wave of racism and violence that saw such events as the 1920 Ocoee race massacre in Florida, the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma and even the 1924 Fort Myers lynchings. Incredibly, Griffith denied that he had any racist intentions even as he directed the most viciously racist propaganda film in American history.
Similarly, the producers, director and stars of Civil War the movie will no doubt wash their hands and deny any responsibility for the consequences of what they unleash. In the volatile, combustible atmosphere of the 2024 election, releasing a movie like this is an act of incredible irresponsibility and foolishness.
If violence breaks out, if people are wounded or killed because of this movie, the creators and stars should be held liable. And the creators and stars should take note of something else as well: if this government is lost, if the Constitution is suspended or abrogated, in the resulting dictatorship they will never again have the unrestricted freedom to make the movies they want without interference.
At the ballot box
In the more conventional political process, the Iowa caucuses take place on Jan. 15 and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23. All polls as of this writing indicate that Trump will sweep those and all other Republican nominating contests—or at least the ones in which he’s a candidate.
In late November Republican strategist Karl Rove predicted that the Iowa caucuses would be “do or die” for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). As of this writing, that is likely to fall on the “die” side of the equation. And Trump is apparently determined that once down DeSantis will never get up again. If Trump wins and becomes dictator DeSantis might be the first political opponent he imprisons.
Indeed, the entire Republican nominating campaign will likely be over after New Hampshire.
Trump clearly has a lock on his cult in the Republican Party. But whether that fanatical loyalty can be extended to the entire American electorate will be one of the great questions of 2024.
For Democrats the task is simpler but at the same time difficult: stay united and bring independents, the uncommitted and disillusioned Republicans into their fold for a majority coalition. The Republicans will be throwing everything they can at Biden, like a baseless impeachment proceeding that is unlikely to go anywhere, and attacking him through his son, Hunter. They will be doing all they can to divide, distract and disrupt the Democratic coalition.
However, Biden is a very experienced and canny politician, as he has proven many times, especially when he won his party’s nomination and the general election in 2020.
Biden would also likely crush Trump in any one-to-one debate. Trump avoided all debates with his Republican rivals during the primary campaign. Given the partisan nature of that phase of the campaign he could get away with it. He will likely refuse debate with Biden in the year to come, saying it’s unnecessary. The big question during the general election phase will be whether he pays a penalty for that kind of cowardice. The Presidential Debate Commission and the broadcast networks could schedule debates and hold them with an empty chair if Trump refuses to attend, penalizing Trump and giving Biden complete domination of the national stage. But will the networks and the Commission have the nerve to do it?
Also working in the Democrats’ favor is the mobilization of pro-choice forces, chiefly but not exclusively women, alarmed and infuriated by the Supreme Court’s revocation of the national right to abortion. Combined with younger voters’ concern over climate change and Trump and the Republicans’ hatred toward immigrants, ethnic and minority voters and everyone else outside their tight and exclusive base, the Democrats would seem to have a winning formula.
The possibility of one—or even both—of the candidates dropping out or dropping dead must be considered. Biden is 81 years old. Trump is 77. Both are beyond the average life expectancy for American men (which is 73.5 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Both men’s doctors give them clean bills of health but of the two the grossly obese Trump seems in the worse physical shape and he increasingly appears to have cognitive issues.
If either man falls the entire political calculation will fundamentally change. Sensible planning would assume that there’s a Plan B in both camps to cope with the contingency, although Republican leadership struggles in the House of Representatives do not inspire confidence on that side of the aisle.
In terms of presidential succession, Vice President Kamala Harris would be next in line to be president. House Speaker Rep. Michael Johnson (R-4-La.) would follow her.
Congress and choice
As in all election years the entire House of Representatives and one third of the Senate are up for election.
In Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), 71, is running again despite a string of failures. He’s up against Democratic former-Rep. Debbie (her birth name) Mucarsel-Powell, 52. Scott is vulnerable but he has always spent his way into office and he can be expected to try the same again. Mucarsel-Powell has a chance but must raise the cash for a competitive race.
Since the election of 2016, both Democrats and Republicans have hoped for—and expected— “waves” that would sweep away their opponents and give them full dominance of Congress. When the votes were counted, no waves occurred.
Instead, current polling shows a closely divided electorate that is likely to be reflected in the next Congress, both House and Senate.
The results of aggregated generic congressional polling from ABC/FiveThirtyEight.com as of Dec. 23, 2023. (Chart: 538)
Nonetheless, results of the off-year 2023 elections and the mid-term 2022 elections were encouraging for Democrats. An expected “red wave” did not materialize in 2022. In 2023, Democrats showed surprisingly strong results in local contests in Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia.
All these elections also demonstrated the importance of the abortion issue at the ballot box. Anti-choicers may have gotten their way thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, but every time choice has been on the ballot voters have overwhelmingly approved it, including in conservative states like Kansas.
Will this intense pro-choice sentiment translate into Democratic congressional victories? That will be one of the key questions to be answered in 2024.
But since the legal abortions were thrown to the states by Dobbs, there are abortion legalization measures on the ballots or being considered across the country in 12 states.
In Florida, as of Dec. 19, pro-choicers stated they had collected 1.4 million signatures to put a pro-choice amendment on the ballot, more than the 891,523 signatures required that must be submitted by Feb. 1. The amendment would make abortion legal for 24 weeks of a pregnancy, in contrast to the current 15 week limit.
Ashley Moody, the Florida attorney general, has been fighting the initiative in court, trying to keep it off the ballot, arguing that it’s too vague.
In Florida questions that loom for 2024 are: will pro-choicers get their amendment on the ballot? Can the DeSantis administration suppress it through the courts? Will Florida officials invalidate the signatures? And if it is on the ballot, will it receive the 60 percent approval from voters to pass?
Around the country, as in Florida, anti-choice activists, legislators and state officials are looking to discredit or discard pro-choice efforts in courts or state houses in order to restrict or keep abortions banned.
Access to safe, legal abortions is an immensely important and personal issue that certainly won’t go away no matter the vote counts in November. It could tip the political scale if elections proceed as scheduled.
Hope and promise
For all the threats and dangers of the year ahead, for all the sickness and psychosis that Donald Trump will continue to unleash on the American public and the world, there are still great sources of strength for Americans who believe in the Constitution and democracy.
Most Americans don’t seem to realize yet that this is not a “normal” election; that everything is on the line and that choices are too important to be made casually. However, the realization is growing. As the magnitude of the stakes become apparent, as people start to understand exactly what losing democracy will entail and as presidential campaigning gets under way in earnest, people who are now indifferent or apathetic will hopefully be inspired to activism on behalf of law, justice and democracy.
There is also the fact that anti-Trumpers in fact outnumber Trumpers by quite a bit and all indications are that this continues to be the case.
Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by over 2 million votes. He definitively lost both the popular and electoral votes in 2020. It just may be that the prospect of a Trump dictatorship—or any other dictatorship—will prove so repugnant to the majority of the American people in 2024 that they reject it and hopefully do so completely, decisively and overwhelmingly.
Those who favor democracy have another powerful weapon in their arsenal—legitimacy.
It may not seem like much, but over time and undergirding their efforts is the fact that they have right on their side and that is a quiet but persuasive force.
The fact is that America is a democracy and democracy is its legal and legitimate form of government. Those supporting democracy are supporting the rule of law, the Constitution and the principles of equality and justice on which the country was founded.
No matter how seductive the prospect of revenge, retribution, hatred, prejudice or rage, no matter how overwhelming the cascade of authoritarian propaganda, no matter how much they project their own intentions onto their enemies and no matter how loud and threatening the cult of personality worshipers may be, the fact is that those supporting democracy are in the right and their opponents are in the wrong. That can be a compelling inspiration for strength and activism. Legitimacy by itself, though, is not enough. It must be acted upon.
As Florida pundit and political analyst Rick Wilson has put it: “The miracles in politics are the ones we make. They come from work, planning, preparation, organization, and focus.”
In 2024, all things being equal, Americans can surge their activism and determination to preserve democracy. It has to take every form of political involvement and courage.
But America does not exist in a vacuum and 2024 will be as momentous abroad as it is domestically. Each will impact the other. And that requires a completely separate examination.
Sometimes there can be calm after a storm. (Photo: Author)
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Coming next:Part II – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead abroad
Coming: Part III – A democracy, if you can keep it: Collier County, Florida, 2024 and the war on competence
What could be more Southwest Floridian than looking to the future through a crystal ball on the beach?
Dec. 28, 2023 by David Silverberg
We’re coming up on the end of the year, that time when media outlets from newspapers to television stations wind down, go to skeleton crews and put up pastiches of the last year’s photos and clips. It’s easy, undemanding, fills space and air time and gets everyone through the New Year without too much effort.
The temptation to do the same is strong at The Paradise Progressive (TPP). However, its philosophy has always been to look ahead and try to discern the shape of the year to come.
Former President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and sitting President Joe Biden: “This is the political story likely to dominate the year,” predicted TPP and it was correct—up to a point.
The rivalry between Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis was clearly the major political story as the year dawned. But unforeseen was the decline in DeSantis’ standing among potential primary Republican voters and Trump’s resilient popularity despite indictments and criminal charges.
Fate’s cruelest blow to DeSantis was that fact that without a single actual vote cast or a caucus called his campaign relentlessly declined in polls from the day he formally declared his candidacy in April. Once the favorite Republican non-Trump hope, he was steadily eclipsed by his rivals and abandoned by staffers, consultants and most importantly, donors. Trump’s relentless insults and belittlement had its desired effect. Outside of Florida, DeSantis proved inept, awkward and unpopular. What played in The Villages in 2022 did not carry over well to the Republican primary states.
This may be a harbinger for the nation as a whole. It’s an early sign that America does not want to be Florida, no matter what DeSantis says.
The formal campaign season will start with the Iowa caucus on Jan. 15 and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23 and it’s not looking good for Florida’s governor.
At the dawn of the year it wasn’t clear that Joe Biden would declare himself a candidate again. Once he did in April, all the speculation about a successor or a Democratic scramble died down.
So on the campaign front, TPP gives itself an A- for prediction. But this was a bit of a gimme. That there would be rivalries and a nomination contest was indisputable. However, the rapid decline of Ron DeSantis was unforeseen.
Congress and revenge
When it came to Congress, TPP did much better.
Had Republicans resoundingly taken the House of Representatives in the much-anticipated “red wave” of 2022, TPP predicted: “They very well might have impeached President Joe Biden for the high crime of being a Democrat. They would have tried to undo or cover up the felonies of the insurrection and would have done all they could to exonerate, excuse and elevate Trump.”
The prediction continued: “Republicans are still likely to try those things. Expect a cascade of House investigations in an effort to weaken and undermine the administration and Biden’s re-election. It will be a replay of Benghazi and Hillary Clinton’s e-mails on steroids.”
Well, TPP gives itself an A+ on that one. It took them a year but House Republicans are indeed proceeding with an impeachment attempt, despite the lack of a crime, evidence or prospects of success. Biden’s only real transgression? That he is a Democrat and Trump wants it done.
When it comes to trying to “cover up the felonies of the insurrection” the prediction literally came true (extra bonus points!).
On Nov. 17, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-4-La.) stated he would release over 40,000 hours of Jan. 6, 2021 video.
But then, on Dec. 5, he said at a press conference: “We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the [Department of Justice] and to have other concerns and problems.”
He wants to cover up the faces so that rioters won’t face prosecution?! That is literally a coverup!
TPP’s satisfaction with the accuracy of its prediction is only dampened by the fact that the Speaker of the House is attempting to shield crimes against the branch of government over which he presides. Moreover, he’s doing this with no apparent hint of irony or inconsistency or self-awareness.
Another prediction, that “…when it comes to substantive legislation, Democrats kept the Senate, meaning that no matter how extreme the proposals coming out of the House, none are likely to make it into law,” proved to be true. But that was another gimme.
TPP made much of “the Harmful Algal Bloom Essential Forecasting Act, which would ensure that federal activities monitoring and responding to harmful algal blooms like red tide will continue despite any shutdowns” and would be of real benefit to Southwest Florida.
However, as predicted, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) did nothing to advance this legislation in the same way he has never done anything to advance any legislation he sponsored. Donalds’ disinterest in this, other legislation and his district was so obvious that this accurate prediction doesn’t even rate a point.
DeSantis and the race to the right
While TPP saw no reason to expect DeSantis to let up on his culture war on abortion, science, education, vaccines, immigrants, gays and public health, in fact TPP was proven somewhat wrong. As his Trumpish, anti-woke presidential candidacy campaign failed outside Florida, DeSantis began moderating his stances, especially on abortion.
As of right now, that softening looks too little, too late. It is, however, surprising. TPP didn’t see it coming and lowers its grade on this to a C.
However, the jury is still out on the Collier County school district. “The Collier County school system, which was previously rated the gold standard for the state, is now likely to crater as dogma, discipline and docility take the place of education, enquiry and enlightenment as priorities for students,” it predicted.
Collier County schools maintained their A rating from the state in what seems to be momentum from the previous board headed by Jen Mitchell. Also, the appointment of Leslie Ricciardelli as superintendent, despite MAGA demands to the contrary, meant that the district’s previous high standards would be maintained, at least in the classroom.
However, thanks largely to Jerry Rutherford (1st District), the board became enmeshed in extraordinarily time-wasting ideological and religious controversies, especially over whether or not to have a religious invocation precede its meetings. (It ultimately decided not to do so.) This controversy was confined to the school board itself but other issues, especially religious issues, may not stay there in the coming year.
Storm damage
Following the brutal damage of 2022’s Hurricane Ian, TPP observed: “Voters and the local mainstream media have to keep watch and ask: who is helping Southwest Florida recover? Who is helping it get the resources it needs? Who is shirking?”
Local media certainly maintained coverage of the recovery, from restoration of the Sanibel lighthouse, to rebuilding the clock tower in Fort Myers Beach to the extravagantly covered completion and opening of the town’s new Margaritaville resort.
Less covered were government efforts.
Here, there was a very interesting development on the part of Donalds that merits special attention.
In 2021 Donalds didn’t bother to request appropriations for projects in his district (known as “earmarks”) despite the fact that the Democratic-dominated House of Representatives had created a process and procedure allowing each member to request 10 earmarks per district. TPP called Donalds out on this in a March 16, 2022 editorial: Rep. Byron Donalds has failed Southwest Florida and can’t be allowed to do it again.
Despite this, Donalds won his 2022 re-election campaign and apparently got the hint. In the fiscal years since, he has requested earmarks (which congressional Republicans, despite previous agonizing over whether or not to permit them, increased the number allowed each member to 15).
It must be said: TPP didn’t see that coming at all.
But what TPP and just about every other awake person on the planet can see coming is climate change, whose impact is already here.
“Will Florida and its politicians finally acknowledge this?” TPP asked. “Their sense of reality needs critical scrutiny in the year ahead.”
It is long past time that the reality of climate change is acknowledged as a fact, even in reality-resistant Southwest Florida. To their credit, at least local broadcast meteorologists finally started mentioning its effects in their reporting.
DeSantis also finally acknowledged it on the campaign trail in Iowa.
“DeSantis’ own stance has changed: During the first GOP presidential debate, he did not raise his hand when candidates were asked if human activities are warming the planet. But in the Dec. 9 interview with the Register, DeSantis said he does believe human activities are a factor in the changing climate,” observed reporter Katie Akin in the Des Moines Register.
As far as predictions for next year go, this is an easy one: climate change and its impact will continue in the coming year. Southwest Florida needs to prepare.
An end to 2023
Overall, as a prognostication, TPP’s look ahead didn’t come out too badly. It didn’t try to predict everything that happened but where it looked, its analysis proved reasonably prescient.
What wasn’t predicted were actions by individuals. For example, even Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-23-Calif.) probably couldn’t have predicted that he would have such a hard time getting elected Speaker of the House—and then that he would be ignominiously booted nine months later and resign from Congress altogether at the end of 2023.
Next year promises to be one of the most momentous, historic and potentially dangerous in world history. It requires an entirely different analysis.
As the New Testament noted, to look into the future is to see through a glass, darkly. Once face to face all things become clearer. But maybe, with enough concentration, we can discern at least the general shape of things to come—and prepare to meet them.
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Coming, starting Jan. 1:
Part I – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead in American politics
Part II – A democracy, if you can keep it: Anticipating the year ahead abroad
Part III – A democracy, if you can keep it: Collier County, Fla., 2024 and the war on competence
Kelly Lichter, Collier County School Board chair, during the discussion of an invocation. (Image: CCSB)
Dec. 17, 2023 by David Silverberg
On Tuesday, Dec. 12, the Collier County School Board rejected the concept of holding a religious invocation before its meetings by a vote of 3 to 2.
At issue was adoption of protocols that would govern an invocation policy. Chair Kelly Lichter (District 3), Stephanie Lucarelli (District 2) and Erick Carter (District 4) voted against adoption of the protocols. Jerry Rutherford (District 1) and Tim Moshier (District 5) voted for the protocols.
With the protocols rejected, the invocation idea was completely laid to rest, at least for the next year.
The lengthy debate over an invocation, proposed by Rutherford, had dominated three meetings of the Board. More than just a question of whether there would be a public prayer prior to Board meetings, it went to the heart of whether there should be a separation of church and state in school affairs—or, by implication, in any public affairs at all. As such it elicited much public comment and raised community passions.
Arguments and explanations
In its previous monthly meeting the Board voted to have staff draft an invocation policy. The staff drafted the policy but also a separate set of protocols, rules that would govern the policy itself. These included compiling a database of religious assemblies eligible to provide speakers and rules for selecting a speaker, the invocation itself and conduct at Board meetings. The protocols had to be adopted in order to have a policy and therefore an invocation.
The Board currently has a moment of silence for prayer or contemplation before its monthly meetings.
After public comments both for and against an invocation, each of the school board members explained their positions.
Rutherford argued that church and state had only been separated in the United States since a 1947 Supreme Court decision and that previously public prayer was not a problem. He also argued that public prayers allowed him to hear other people’s prayers. “I want to listen to other people’s prayers. I think prayers have a lot of power,” he said.
He continued: “There’s a lot of things we should look at when you’re thinking about prayers. I want to see them in our schools and in our nation because if we get attacked by other nations, you will have prayers, I guarantee you.”
Moshier pointed out that the school board building was named for Rev. Martin Luther King, a religious leader. “We should honor him with prayer,” he said. “We should honor that before school board meetings.”
Lucarelli said she had agonized and prayed over the issue and had wanted to keep an open mind about invocations. “I’ve been on board with [the discussion]. But I realize that I’m just trying to convince myself that this is going to be OK,” she said.
She felt that the invocation was intended to demonstrate in public that some people were more pious others, what is known as “virtue signaling.”
“At the end of the day I believe this is misguided. I really feel that it is virtue signaling. I really don’t want this board to engage in something that others may use for nefarious purposes,” she observed.
Carter was chiefly concerned with the logistics of invocations and ensuring that they weren’t used to attack people or other religions. He was also concerned that invocations be held well before the formal start of meetings so that students would not be present. Arranging that was difficult because students are frequently in the chamber well before meetings are called to order.
Lichter was clearly ready for the end of the day, a phrase she used several times in her remarks. She noted that discussion of invocations had dominated three Board meetings and been a massive distraction from the core mission of the Board to educate Collier County’s children. “…That’s really disappointing considering our board created five clear policies right out of the gate of what we want to do, what our focus is,” she said.
“At the end of the day, I feel if there’s a need or an agenda from a board member that wants to push this invocation I think perhaps meeting at the flagpole [outside the School Board building] well in advance of a school board meeting and inviting people to attend to pray if that’s something [they want to do]. But we have spent so much time and resources on this issue and I just can’t get behind it. I really think the more we continue to talk about it, the further I am in wanting to proceed forward with [a final vote].”
She continued: “But at the end of the day, for me, I don’t see how this impacts student education and that is our number one priority, is the academics for our kids.”
She then called the vote. Rutherford was confused by the procedure, as he was at many other points in the meeting.
In a subsequent public end of the year message Lichter wrote: “While I originally did support an invocation, it became clear to me that after much discussion, this did not fit in with our board priorities. Based on feedback I received since the vote, it seems for many that this was nothing more than virtue signaling and another opportunity to say, ‘I’m more Christian than you.’ It’s no surprise that the comments made about my decision are far from the ‘Christian’ values they hold so dear.”
Bridget and Christian Ziegler at Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration. (Photo: Florida Trident)
Dec. 12, 2023 by David Silverberg
Floridians—indeed, all Americans—owe a debt of gratitude to Christian and Bridget Ziegler of Sarasota, Florida.
They may not have intended it but the two—and with a friend, actually, three—have struck a blow for intellectual, academic and publishing freedom in a state that desperately needs it.
Revelation of their conduct could not have been timelier. Florida has increasingly lurched toward repression, ignorance and intolerance. In Collier County alone, over 300 books have been pulled from school library shelves in compliance with state mandates.
But the Zieglers have shown the utter folly and futility of banning books on a whole different level.
How is this?
To understand the entire situation, a recounting of the facts as revealed to date is in order.
What happened
Christian Ziegler, 40, born in Georgia, is chair of the Republican Party of Florida. He has served on the Sarasota County Commission. He was elected to the Party position in February of this year in what was widely seen as a victory for former President Donald Trump over Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). As is to be expected, Ziegler is a hard-core adherent of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda. In April he issued a statement on X that “…for the Republican Party of Florida, the work continues as our job is not done until there are no more Democrats in Florida.”
His wife, Bridget Ziegler, 41, born in Michigan, is a high-profile conservative cultural activist and one who has gone very far. A former student at Florida International University and formerly an insurance consultant, she is the mother of three children. She was first appointed, then elected to the Sarasota School Board in 2014 where she has remained and risen to chair. There she has been a vocal critic of the existing educational system and was often described as “a fighter.” Along with Collier County School Board member Erika Donalds, she was a founder of the Florida Coalition of School Board Members as a conservative alternative to the Florida School Boards Association. She went on in 2021 to become one of the founders of Moms for Liberty, a group known for its extreme educational positions. It rocketed to prominence in the MAGA media world and began a push to place its adherents on school boards throughout the country, becoming a major player in the Republican policy firmament. In April of this year Bridget was also named National Director of School Board Leaders Programs at the Leadership Institute, a non-profit organization designed to train conservative school board candidates and “do everything possible to stop the slide toward socialism.” She was also appointed by DeSantis to the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, the board overseeing the former Disneyworld district. And she promoted and championed Florida’s Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, widely described as the “don’t say gay” bill.
“Bridget Ziegler was the poster girl for Moms for Liberty,” wrote Rick Wilson, a Florida-based pundit and prominent Trump critic. “Pretty, poised, and poisonous, she was a blonde tornado of action and activity. She helped elect dozens of like-minded MFL types to school boards, none of whom cared about education. Instead, they were passionately committed to injecting their flavor of social conservatism into the curriculum and the libraries.”
The two are a top-rank Florida power couple.
On October 4, a friend of the third party in the relationship called the police. “She told me she was raped yesterday and she’s scared to leave her house,” she told them.
On Nov. 30 the Florida Trident, an excellent investigative platform of The Florida Center for Government Accountability, broke the news that Christian had been accused of rape by a woman with whom he and Bridget had been having a longstanding three-way bisexual affair.
Police investigated and discovered that Christian had visited the woman prior to a Sarasota political meeting. When Christian showed up at her apartment, the woman said she was reluctant to have sex with him since it was actually Bridget in whom she was interested. Nonetheless, Christian gained entry and engaged in a sex act that he claims was consensual. Moreover, he videoed the act on his cell phone as it happened.
After he left, the woman alleged rape and the friend brought it to police
As it stands right now there is a chorus from all sides of the Florida political spectrum demanding that Christian resign as Republican Party chair.
Bridget appears to have resigned from the Leadership Institute and is under pressure to resign from the Sarasota School Board. A rally demanding her resignation is planned before a School Board meeting at 4:30 tonight, Dec.12. The scandal has thrown Moms for Liberty into profound crisis.
As of this writing Christian remains defiant. A Republican Party meeting scheduled for this coming Sunday, Dec. 17, may hold a vote to expel him from the Party.
Commentary: Books, bans and the Zieglers
What conceivable connection is there between a Ziegler three-way and book banning?
The movement that the Zieglers championed has made banning books the most obvious and tangible act of their effort to impose their doctrine on Florida’s students.
Book bans go back to the time when books were written on parchment scrolls. Once movable type was invented in Europe around 1450 and pages were bound into folios and called “books,” the banning began almost immediately.
A book ban is an attempt to destroy an idea; the book itself is just a physical manifestation of the idea that opponents can lay their hands on. Famous instances of this abound. For example, in 1616 the Catholic Church banned all books stating that the earth revolved around the sun. Clearly, banning such books put the planets back in their proper Ptolemaic orbits. That showed ‘em!
The Nazis took book banning to a whole new level when in 1933 they held bonfires throughout Germany to burn what they called “un-German” books.
The current book banning craze in Florida began as an attempt to protect school-age children from a culture many parents reject, one that includes diversity, complex history, tolerance of differences and general “wokeness” open to a varied and changing world. It has since been expanded and exploited for political gain both at the state and national level.
On its face, Moms for Liberty, DeSantis and allies believe that by banning books parents can exert control and eliminate ideas and sexual practices to which they object.
But it won’t be from books that Florida’s students, even the youngest ones, will learn of bisexuality, or three-way marriages, or adultery, or unfaithfulness, or exploitation, or hypocrisy.
No, they will learn all that from the Zieglers and if they don’t already know it from media both mainstream and specialized, they have probably already discovered it on every iPhone and Google search and newssite on the Internet. All the book bans in the world and even the purging of school libraries to their bare shelves will not keep those facts and that reality from them. Indeed, they’re probably way beyond this current sex scandal and already on to fresher and kinkier news.
So the Zieglers have revealed the utter futility of book banning. Every reader owes them thanks.
Parental concerns are legitimate. All parents want to protect their children from harm and guide their education, growth and development. That’s just natural and proper.
But as every parent—and grandparent—also knows, the primary and most fundamental form of education is by example. If a parent wants to raise a child in a way a parent considers decent and moral, the parent has to set an example of decent and moral conduct.
The Zieglers have set one example that Florida students may follow. Former President Donald Trump presents one that is similar, with multiple infidelities, casual rape, incessant lying, constant rule-breaking, outright criminality and endless “hatred, prejudice and rage.”
But if Florida parents want a different example, they need look no further than one state north to Plains, Ga., and former Democratic President Jimmy Carter.
Carter may not have had the most successful presidency but he certainly had the most successful post-presidency. He set an outstanding example of humility, service, and philanthropy. He built houses for the poor with his own hands. He wrote books that contributed to the national dialogue. He taught Sunday school at his local church. He lived his values without rancor or intolerance. In his personal life he and Rosalynn remained faithful and married for 77 years until she passed away on Nov. 19 of this year. Although he admitted once that he “looked on a lot of women with lust” and had “committed adultery in my heart many times,” in his heart is where that lust stayed.
If worried Florida parents want an example of a moral, Christian, value-driven life to hold up to their children they should point them no further than Jimmy Carter.
And they should make one other point to those children: no matter what else Jimmy Carter has done in his nearly century of life on this Earth—he never banned a single book.
Rep. Byron Donalds, other members of the Freedom Caucus and Rep. George Santos (lower right), watch the expulsion vote on the House floor. (Image: NBC)
Dec. 1, 2023 by David Silverberg
The United States House of Representatives voted this morning to expel Rep. George Santos (R-3-NY) from the body for a wide variety of ethical lapses and alleged crimes.
The vote on House Resolution 878 was 311 to 114 with 206 Democrats and 105 Republicans voting to expel and 112 Republicans and 2 Democrats voting to keep Santos in office. Two members voted “present” and eight did not vote.
Southwest Florida Reps. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) and Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.) voted against expulsion.
However, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.) voted for expulsion.
As of this writing, none of the members explained their votes on social media platforms, although they actively made statements on a variety of other topics.
“Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.
“He blatantly stole from his campaign.
“He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit.
“He reported fictitious loans to his political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign – and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported ‘repayments’ of those fictitious loans.
“He used his connections to high value donors and other political campaigns to obtain additional funds for himself through fraudulent or otherwise questionable business dealings.
“And he sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience.”
The Paradise Progressive 