Manifesto for an American Rose Revolution

*A new flag for a new movement? (Art: AI for TPP/ChatGPT)*

Jan. 2, 2026

The United States of America today has gone from a beacon of democracy to a dictatorship. The time has come to end that dictatorship.

This can be done non-violently, democratically, legally and constitutionally but it needs to be a revolution nonetheless.

This year’s political activity, whether grassroots street protests or midterm election efforts, whether rhetorical or physical, should be seen, not as fragmented, individual efforts but as part of a broad and reaching cultural, political and legal movement—and revolution.

Perhaps the best metaphor for this revolution and a physical expression of it lies in a small patch of ground, about 125 feet long and 60 feet wide (38 meters by 18 meters) outside the Oval Office of the White House.

It was known as the White House Rose Garden.

In 1961, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, working with professional landscape architects and botanists, reshaped the space into a formal garden, bordered by flowers, primarily roses. It was a place of beauty, elegance and grace that reflected her own.

*Views of the White House Rose Garden in 2007. (Photos: National Park Service)*

In the first administration of President Donald Trump, a new limestone walk was installed, many of the previous trees were removed and flowers were consigned to the sides, all allegedly at the command of First Lady Melania Trump. Presidential historian Michael Beschloss called the alteration an “evisceration” and said that “decades of American history [was] made to disappear.”

In the second administration of President Donald Trump the Rose Garden was paved over entirely. It is now a Mar-a-Lago-style patio with a private “Rose Garden Club” to go along with it, restricted to Trump’s closest sycophants and enablers.

*The paving over of the White House Rose Garden in the second Trump administration. (Photo: Instagram)*

*President Donald Trump dines with co-conspirators on the White House patio. (Photo: White House)*

In the Rose Garden can be seen the struggle between Trump and the American people.

Trump believes that as President he owns the White House. He believes he can alter or destroy it as he pleases. He has demolished the East Wing, on his own authority, to replace it with an expensive, gargantuan ballroom bearing his name.

But the White House does not “belong” to the person who temporarily occupies it. It belongs to the American people whom each resident serves and holds in trust for the next occupant.

The same can be said of the country as a whole. Trump thinks he owns it.

The time has come for the American people to take back their house—and their homeland.

And it is time to restore the Rose Garden to its previous state of beauty, grace and elegance.

But it’s not just about restoring the Rose Garden itself; the time has come to restore democracy, dignity and decency to American public life.

The time has come for an American Rose Revolution.

A new color revolution

In the past, a wave of what were called “color revolutions” swept the world when people long deprived of freedom and democracy demanded it. The very first of these was in the country of Georgia, which had long been part of the Soviet Union. When Georgia regained its independence, its people mounted a Rose Revolution to say that they didn’t want the kind of dictatorship they had endured in the past, they wanted freedom for the future.

The Georgia Rose Revolution was followed by others as people strove for freedom and democracy: the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, the People’s Movement (Otpor! or “outpouring”) in Serbia and the Arab Spring in the Middle East.

When Trump descended the escalator in Trump Tower in July 2015 (a descending metaphor in itself!) no one believed that this one man would turn the greatest democracy in the world into a source of fear, oppression and threat reflecting his own hatreds, prejudices and rages. No one imagined that he would turn a people’s presidency into a despotic dictatorship.

But he has done that and the time has come to end it.

What is the American Rose Revolution?

The American Rose Revolution needs to be an effort that transcends political party or past allegiances. It should be the effort of every single American at all levels to right the wrongs that have been done and restore democracy—and not just its outward forms but its inner values: civility, respect and allegiance to the Constitution and its Bill of Rights and the rights to participate, enjoy and contribute to the common good of each and every American, regardless of his or her race, creed, or place of birth.

It needs to be a revolution to gain freedom from fear as Americans cease to cower in the face of insults, threats and bullying by Donald Trump and his regime.

One of democracy’s great strengths is that it provides hope—hope that things can change for the better, that there will always be new chances and new opportunities to improve one’s own life and the lives of others. Dictatorship, by contrast, thrives on hopelessness—crushing any hope that anything can change without the intervention or approval of the dictator. Americans have always rejected this and they must reject it again.

So an American Rose Revolution needs to be a cultural revolution of hope and joy against hopelessness and despair.

An American Rose Revolution should be a revolution in which every American can participate by simply being civil to neighbors, by fully, actively and legally participating in political activities and civic life in contrast to the threats, insults and lying of Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) cult; by calling out obvious wrongs and exposing wrongdoing.

This year the first opportunity to support the American Rose Revolution comes with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. If still in office on July 4th 2026, there can be no doubt that Trump will try to hijack and make this celebration about himself. There is no other possibility. He cannot abide a situation where he is not the center of attention and flattery and that will certainly apply to the observation of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

But for all other Americans, the 250th anniversary has to be a time to rediscover and remember the ideals and principles that led to the first American revolution; that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and these include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—and that no one man should be able to take them away.

It will also be a time to read some of the original complaints that impelled that Declaration when they wrote about King George III: “He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither;” he has “obstructed the Administration of Justice;” he “has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures;” he was “cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world.”

And it is worth remembering the conclusion that the Founders reached: “A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

Fortunately, the American Constitution provides a civil and peaceful means to enact change and the next chance for that will come in elections slated for November. By vigorously participating in election activities, supporting campaigns, working for democratic candidates, registering voters, working at the polls and then being sure to vote, all Americans can contribute to making the change that’s needed.

These are traditional, legal and legitimate activities that have long been the essence of democratic, elected government. But this year not only are they more important than ever, they are revolutionary. It won’t just be an election, it has to be turned into an American Rose Revolution.

And those who wish to show their support and approval can use the rose as a symbol of their defiance, courage and hope, wherever, whenever and however they choose to do so.

New amendments

But beyond the general commitment to restoring American dignity and decency, there are some specific proposals that would improve and protect the United States, built from the experience of Trump’s tyranny. These presume that the Constitution remains in force and the procedure for amendments intact.

Passage of a 28th Amendment

The President of the United States shall be subject to the laws and penalties of the United States in his or her official and personal capacities.

On July 1, 2024 the majority of the United States Supreme Court ruled that presidents have immunity from the law for their official actions in the case of Trump vs. United States.

In practice, this ruling gave Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate for the second time, immunity from American laws when he gained the presidency. He won the presidency and began governing—actually, ruling—without regard to law, precedent or the Constitution, secure that nothing he did would face legal restraint or recrimination. It effectively led to a dictatorship.

Not only that, Trump vs. United States violates the very principle emblazoned on the lintel of the Supreme Court building: “Equal Justice Under Law.” The ruling creates a single, unaccountable individual above and beyond the reach of the law that applies to all others, in effect, a king. It violates the very first truth of the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal.”

It is time to correct this. In the future, everyone, whether president or everyday citizen, must be subject to the same laws. Since the inherent meaning of the Declaration is unclear to the majority of the current Supreme Court, it must take a constitutional amendment to state this principle outright. All people are created equal in the eyes of the law and that is what the 28th Amendment will do. No kings.

Passage of a 29th Amendment

No Person shall be eligible to the Office of President who has not served in a prior elected office or held a military position of command. No Person previously found guilty of a crime by a jury of his or her peers, or found guilty of insurrection, or previously impeached and removed from office for high crimes and misdemeanors, shall be qualified to hold the office.

When ratified in 1788, the only qualifications for the position of President were that the individual be a natural-born citizen, at least 35 years old and a resident of the United States for at least 14 years.

Those requirements were sufficient to ensure that relatively qualified people filled the office. Given that there had not been a United States before ratification of the Constitution, a prior-office qualification could not be included.

But after 250 years it is time to add to the qualifications for president. It seems a rather low bar to require that a person qualified for President should have the experience of serving in at least one prior elected position—and the position can be anything, from school board to dog catcher. The main point is that the person should have at least one experience of winning the approval of voters and experience the responsibility of serving them before aspiring to the highest office in the land.

As with a prior elected position, the amendment includes holding a military command as a qualification. From such a command the person in question, who has already proven his or her service to the country, will have the experience of being in a position of responsibility and authority. The amendment does not designate a rank, it just requires the experience of command at some level as a qualification.

This amendment is intended to ensure that never again can an utterly inexperienced, grossly unqualified, completely unfit individual attain the power of the presidency. Never again should the American people face the prospect of a candidate running—or governing—from prison. And it says: criminals need not apply.

Other measures

There are many other issues that need to be addressed and what follows are only a few of them, in no particular order. This list does not go into details, it simply proposes principles that all reasonable people can work toward as part of an American Rose Revolution.

Immigration: “To bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance”

America is special because it’s not just a country, it’s also an idea. In the past, America’s ideals of life, liberty and the free pursuit of happiness were considered so compelling and attractive that any thinking human could grasp them, live by them and become an American by adhering to American laws and contributing to American society.

Trump and his regime not believe this. They believe in hatred, prejudice and rage. But more, they no longer believe that American ideals and values are sufficiently compelling to inherently attract the allegiance and support of immigrants once they’re American citizens. Nor do they want non-white immigrants to become Americans and live by American laws and principles. They reject these ideals and express their rejection with brutality, threats and violence.

This should not continue. Borders need to be secure, the law must be enforced and those currently in the country without documentation need to comply with American requirements—but they should also have an incentive for compliance and lawful behavior and be treated with due process and reasonable humanity. Those undocumented migrants who came to the United States as children through no volition of their own deserve to have an opportunity for citizenship if they seek it as long as they have clean criminal records.

This all can be done in a rational, humane and lawful way. Requests for asylum should be evaluated on reasonable, humanitarian grounds with the wellbeing and dignity of the requestor as key factors. Citizenship should be granted on the basis of knowledge of the country, its laws and an oath of allegiance.

This was a key point in President George Washington’s 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, RI.

Asked what the attitude of the new United States might be toward the Jewish community, Washington replied that in America, toleration extended to all.

As he wrote: “For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

Every American, every naturalized immigrant, as long as he or she performs as a good citizen, obeys the laws and gives the country “their effectual support” should be welcomed and protected by the United States.

It is time that the United States once again, “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

All this requires comprehensive immigration reform and the federal government—both legislative and executive branches—should work toward a solution that secures the country, provides a legal path to citizenship, allows for guest workers and treats migrants and asylum seekers with dignity and respect.

Ending ICE

Every sovereign nation must secure its borders, protect them, allow legitimate trade and travel while filtering out criminals and contraband, and have a mechanism to enforce its laws.

This is ostensibly the job of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directorate of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

However, ICE has been vastly misused and its mission twisted into pursuing mass ethnic and racial population changes. Its warrantless searches and seizures, its masked and unidentified agents, its lack of legal approval, its concentration camps, its absence of due process, its secret transportations and deportations and its deliberate efforts to instill fear are all in contravention of not only the letter of the Constitution but its spirit. It has gone from a form of law enforcement to a paramilitary tool of terror.

ICE cannot be allowed to continue in its current form and is so tainted by its conduct it cannot be sufficiently altered to regain public confidence. It should be abolished as a DHS directorate and taken out of DHS. The previously independent Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) should be revived to serve immigrants and the American public. Enforcement should be handed to the Border Patrol or Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with creation of an internal enforcement element in whatever agency is appropriate. INS and Border Patrol or the FBI can then coordinate with DHS for other homeland security functions.

All anti-immigrant concentration and deportation camps must be closed, starting with Florida’s infamous Alligator Alcatraz.

Real Americans don’t build concentration camps—real Americans liberate them.

Reaffirmation of birthright citizenship

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution states that anyone born under the jurisdiction of the United States is an American citizen: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Period. And that should be the end. However, birthright citizenship has been under assault by Donald Trump from the first days of his candidacy. He has tried to overthrow it every way he can and can be expected to continue the effort in the future.

That should not be allowed to happen. The United States Congress needs to resoundingly reaffirm its support for the 14th Amendment with its grant of birthright citizenship so that there can be no mistake about where the United States stands. Full stop.

Restraints on tariffs

There must be some form of oversight and restraint on the imposition of tariffs. While any President must have some leeway and flexibility to respond to changing conditions there clearly has to be some enhanced form of congressional oversight and restraint.

This could take the form of a congressional veto: If the president proposes a tariff then Congress has 30 or 60 days to stop it. This could take place in one chamber or both. But the kind of wild, unnecessary and very personal and whimsical tariffs that Donald Trump imposed cannot be allowed to disrupt American trade and impoverish Americans again.

Healthcare as a right

The American people have a right to expect that their government will aid the state of their health to the greatest extent possible, through all possible means.

The Affordable Care Act must be repaired from the damage done to it during the Trump presidency.

Reliance on science

Throughout its history the people of the United States have relied on the scientific method to determine the physical state of the world around them and to safeguard their health and wellbeing. As a basic principle of governing, the United States needs to return to reliance on rigorous, unbiased scientific research and investigation in making the decisions affecting its policies and the welfare of its people.

Protecting public health

The government of the United States has a duty to protect and improve the health of the people of the United States based on sound science and rigorous research independently pursued without political or ideological interference.

The United States had the most robust, reliable and principled public health system in the world before Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Elon Musk attacked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration and the entire health infrastructure and the people who served it.

The damage done to these critical institutions must be repaired and the research that was under way restored. Sound science and the health of the American people must be the principles that guide the protection of Americans’ health and wellbeing and government of the people has a responsibility to do that.

Supporting climate science

Before the Trump presidency the United States was the world’s leader in the objective study and evaluation of the world’s climate and the changes occurring to it through either human or natural processes.

Because the results were unfavorable to current practices and prejudices, this effort was denounced by opponents as a “climate alarm industry” and its conclusions rejected in favor of old energy uses and routines.

This is unsustainable and will cost lives. It is a course that will ultimately destroy the planet. The United States must restore its efforts to scientifically study and respond to climate changes and prepare for their effects. It must once again take a leadership role in protecting and nurturing all life on the planet and its continuation. The United States must rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, adhere to its principles and recommit to doing what it can to slow damaging climate change.

Helping in disasters and building resilience

Because the climate is changing Americans need to prepare for its impacts and their government needs to assist them in every way possible.

The chief agency for aiding Americans in the event of disaster is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). As imperfectly as it may have functioned in the past, over time it became the most effective possible mechanism to respond to natural and man-made disasters and then assist in resilient rebuilding after they passed. As its motto stated, it helped Americans before, during and after disasters.

FEMA became a target of Donald Trump’s unreasoning hatred for partisan political reasons during the 2024 election campaign. He wanted to abolish it. His Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was similarly critical, personalized disaster aid and added an approval requirement that virtually stopped the agency from functioning altogether.

FEMA needs to be restored because its mission is too important to the American people and will become even more vital as a changing climate imposes new contingencies.

FEMA should be broken out of DHS and made a full Cabinet department. The experiment of having it part of DHS has failed and the Trump regime has made clear that it is too prone to abuse in its current form. Its head should report directly to Congress and the President and it needs the latitude of independence to completely and neutrally fulfill its mission.

An independent, Cabinet-level FEMA, responsibly managed, will truly help the American people prepare, respond and recover from disasters and emergencies.

Cleaning up corruption

The Trump regime is notorious for its dubious deals, questionable pardons, personal enrichment and commercial schemes—and those are the practices that are blatantly obvious in public. There’s no telling what has gone on below the surface.

Corruption and crime in the presidency, among high officials and their accomplices must be exposed, investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law by an impartial, incorruptible and objective federal government and law enforcement establishment motivated by adherence to the law and commitment to seeing justice done on behalf of the American people. All ill-gotten gains at the expense of the American taxpayer must be clawed back.

Supporting and encouraging education

Ignorance is not strength. Ignorance leads to disaster. America should strive to return to being the world’s leader in thought, inquiry and free expression.

The Trumpist assault on education has to be stopped. Teachers should no longer be treated as enemies. Institutions of higher learning are not piggy banks for extortion and targets for threats. American higher education has to resume its place as a leader in the world, a center for inquiry and knowledge, pursuing truth wherever it leads, without political interference.

Public primary and secondary education is essential to a free, healthy and prosperous society. Public schools need to be supported, encouraged and improved to as great a degree as the federal government can provide. While private and non-public schools are welcome they should in no way damage or detract from the quality of public education.

Restoring a free media

As the Framers were well aware, a free media is critical to maintaining a free society. Presidential bullying, extortion and threats to an independent media must come to an end. Journalists and communicators in all media and on all platforms must be able to pursue, report, analyze and comment on the truth as best they are able to determine it. This is a fundamental to American right as part of the 1st Amendment but it needs to be re-learned and renewed.

America abroad

The Framers of the Constitution gave the power to declare war to Congress, which is where it belongs. When it is necessary for the nation to enter into armed conflict it should do so united and with the advice, consent and approval of representatives of the people and states, who after all, will be providing the blood and treasure required.

Pressing contingencies will always require a quick response. But wars of necessity nonetheless require congressional approval under the Constitution and that requirement must be respected when American lives are being put in harm’s way.

But America should always try to make its way in the world without conflict, violence or threats. War and conflict must always be a last resort. The strength and power of the United States should be vested in a Department of Defense that protects the American people and looks after American interests.

Nonetheless, for all its wealth and power, the United States is a nation among nations and it needs to treat all other nations, large and small, rich and poor, with the respect and dignity they deserve.

The United States needs to repair its relations with its closest neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and earn back the respect, friendship, trade and mutual prosperity it previously enjoyed with them. Their security contributes to the security of the United States.

The United States needs to recommit to its friends and allies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and again stand as a pillar for democracy, freedom and peace through strength against aggression, autocracy and tyranny. An attack on any of them is an attack on the United States and should be treated as such.

The United States should return to its previous place in the world by aiding the development, health and welfare of all people, assisting in responding to disasters, promoting democracy, and being a responsible role model and steward of the planet.

The front line of Ukraine is the front line of the United States and should be regarded as such. A peaceful and internationally recognized Ukraine was the victim of unprovoked, unjustified and unacceptable aggression by Russia. The United States needs to totally recommit to the defense, independence and sovereignty of a free, democratic and independent Ukraine, which should be enabled to achieve its victory conditions and pursue its own destiny as its people see fit. The United States should aid Ukraine in defeating Russian aggression and provide whatever material, intelligence and strategic assistance it can offer.

American democracy and opposition to tyranny inspired Ukraine’s Orange Revolution—now Ukraine’s Orange Revolution should inspire America’s Rose Revolution. As the Ukrainian people ejected a Putin puppet, the American people need to now reject another on their own soil.

Borders should never be changed through acts of aggression and invasion and that principle applies to the United States as it does to all nations. And the United States should always support fellow democracies when they are threatened with conquest, invasion or suppression.

Begin the beginning

This is hardly an exhaustive list—indeed, it barely scratches the surface of what needs to be done to make America good—and thereby great—again.

What is more, its suggestions—apart from the constitutional amendments—are not completely original and are in no way radical. They are firmly rooted in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the rule of law, democracy and American history.

Nonetheless, perhaps this manifesto can provide at least some ideas for a revolution that will expunge tyranny and restore democracy to the United States of America.

There is much to be done and little time to do it but the American people, when they are mobilized, determined and awake have always shown themselves unstoppable.

The American Rose Revolution should manifest itself in daily actions and commitment, political and personal. It will express itself in elections at all levels.

But it will truly know success when the American people again take possession of their White House and make clear that presidents serve them rather than rule them, when they emerge from the toilet to which Donald Trump has consigned them and regain their place as the owners and arbiters of their home, their White House and their destiny.

That moment will be known when the ugly and oppressive stones of the Trump patio are dug up and smashed and their pieces distributed as souvenirs and Jacqueline Kennedy’s White House Rose Garden is replanted and restored. When those flowers burst into glory again, the American people will know that they have regained their freedom and liberty. It is a goal to be sought and not an easy one to achieve.

But to bring forward that day, let a billion roses bloom.

The time for an American Rose Revolution has arrived.

Coming Jan. 5: The Year Ahead: Swamp or Sunshine? Florida’s choices

The year ahead: Keeping the light alive

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

A tale of two piers: FEMA, favors, Kristi and Ian

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center, speaks with Mayor Teresa Heitmann of Naples, Florida, and City Manager Gary Young on the city’s damaged historic pier on Aug. 29. (Photo:DHS/Tia Dufour)

Sept. 29, 2025 by David Silverberg

Who would have thought that sleepy, obscure Southwest Florida, including Collier County and the City of Naples, would move to the forefront of national attention under the second administration of President Donald Trump?

First, there was the establishment of the Alligator Alcatraz concentration camp in far eastern Collier County. Implemented by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Alligator Alcatraz has drawn national scrutiny, condemnation, lawsuits and opposition. As intended, it has been a model for a whole gulag archipelago of anti-migrant concentration camps rising throughout the nation. Its fate is uncertain.

But now there’s a new focus: the City of Naples pier, which was destroyed in 2022’s Hurricane Ian.

New developments in the restoration of the Naples pier also serve to highlight the story of the Fort Myers Beach pier—and how each one is being treated illuminates larger trends in America today and the way government now operates.

Kristi Noem and the Naples pier

*The current state of the Naples pier, seen over the shoulder of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during her visit to Naples on Aug. 29. (Photo: Kristi Noem/Instagram)*

For those unfamiliar with it, the City of Naples is an incorporated municipality of roughly 20,000 people. It sits on the Gulf of Mexico at the southwestern tip of Florida and is primarily a tourist and leisure destination. Always a winter haven for the wealthy, its attractiveness to the millionaire—and billionaire—class has grown in recent years.

Among its attractions, Naples has an iconic pier that extends into the Gulf. Originally used for the offloading of supplies when Naples was founded and developed starting in the 1880s, it subsequently became a tourist attraction, a place above the beach to stroll and fish.

*The Naples pier in 2020. (Photo: Author)*

The pier has been destroyed by hurricanes several times, most recently by Hurricane Ian in 2022.

After Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Naples on Aug. 29, she immediately ordered $12 million in federal funds for its rebuilding, granted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that she heads.

It emerges that the grant was the result of city lobbying and the intervention of a major Naples-based Noem donor.

The entire story of the lobbying and Noem’s intervention is presented in an article titled “Kristi Noem Fast-Tracked Millions in Disaster Aid to Florida Tourist Attraction After Campaign Donor Intervened.”

The article was published last Friday, Sept. 26, by the non-profit investigative journalism newsroom, ProPublica, which, as it states, “investigates abuses of power.” ProPublica is known for its meticulous journalism. The article is based on emails and records obtained through public records requests, as well as interviews by its three authors: Pulitzer Prize winner Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski.

The article details how Naples Mayor Theresa Heitmann, frustrated by delays in getting the pier addressed, contacted Naples cardiologist Dr. Sinan Gursoy, who had been a $25,000 donor to Noem when she was governor of South Dakota.

At Gursoy’s urging, “Noem flew to Naples on a government plane to tour the pier herself. She then stayed for the weekend and got dinner with the donor, local cardiologist Sinan Gursoy, at the French restaurant Bleu Provence,” according to the article. Noem stayed the weekend at the Naples Bay Resort & Marina.

She toured the wrecked pier with Heitmann and City Manager Gary Young.

Afterwards she posted on Instagram: “The iconic Naples Pier was destroyed in 2022, and the city is still waiting on answers from FEMA. They couldn’t even get permission to remove the old pier. I saw this failure first-hand today with Mayor Heitmann and Gary Young, and now the project is back on track.

“Americans deserve better than years of red tape and failed disaster responses. Under @POTUS Trump, this incompetency ends.”

It is important to note that the article does not allege any illegalities or criminal activity by any party.

However, it states: “Noem’s actions in Naples suggest the injection of political favoritism into an agency tasked with saving lives and rebuilding communities wiped out by disaster. It also heightens concerns about the discretion Noem has given herself by personally handling all six-figure expenses at the agency, consolidating her power over who wins and loses in the pursuit of federal relief dollars, experts said.”

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told ProPublica that the pier decision “has nothing to do with politics,” since Noem has visited the sites of other disasters. “Your criticizing the Secretary’s visit to the Pier is bizarre as she works to fix this issue for more than 1 million visitors that used to visit the pier,” she said.

*A visualization of the restored Naples pier. (Rendering: City of Naples)*

The Fort Myers Beach pier

Noem’s treatment of Naples can be contrasted with the experience of Fort Myers Beach, just 20 miles northward, whose tourist pier was also wrecked in Hurricane Ian.

Fort Myers Beach, like Naples, is a tourist-oriented, incorporated town on the Gulf of Mexico, although appealing to much smaller and less wealthy population than Naples, both in permanent residents and visitors. Its population is about 5,300 people.

This is the town where Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane and it did horrendous damage, virtually scraping buildings from their foundations all along the sea front and well inland.

The damage included its tourist pier. (Most towns along this stretch of coastline have piers because in their early days they were supplied entirely by boat.)

Like Naples, Fort Myers Beach officials are also trying to rebuild their pier.

Also, like Naples, Fort Myers Beach officials applied for FEMA funding. They were granted funding but only for the pier’s original structure. However, the city wants to expand and lengthen the pier, adding 415 feet so that it extends 1,000 feet into the water. They also want to widen it by four feet so it spans 12 feet.

This is expected to cost the city $17.1 million and the new parts won’t be covered by FEMA. To make up the shortfall, on Sept. 16, the Lee County Commissioners voted to seek $7 million from the Gulf Consortium, which manages compensation for the British Petroleum (BP) Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010. That money is provided under the RESTORE (Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities, and Revived Economies) Act of 2012, administered under Florida’s State Expenditure Plan.

“The project is proceeding as planned and designed,” Lee County spokesperson Betsy Clayton told the Fort Myers Beach Observer and Bulletin. “The plan all along was to use FEMA and Tourist Development Tax [funds].”

However, if BP funds are approved, “this would reduce the need for Tourist Development Taxes,” Clayton told the newspaper.

Meanwhile, Fort Myers Beach and Lee County officials can only sit and wait to hear.

*The restored Fort Myers Beach pier as conceived.* *(Rendering: Fort Myers Beach)*

Commentary: Winners and losers

While Fort Myers Beach officials can lobby for their hoped-for BP funds to move the application process along, it seems doubtful that they can arrange a lunch with Kristi Noem and get the full funding over a weekend, as the far richer City of Naples did.

The incident also highlights why allegations of favoritism and political interference are—or should be—a sensitive issue and why inequitable distribution of government funding can be so disruptive.

What is more, both piers are very small disasters for FEMA and Noem amidst a very large array of natural events. As of Saturday, Sept. 27, FEMA was handling 58 major disasters and seven emergency declarations all around the United States and territories.

Complaints about slow responses and bureaucracy have always plagued FEMA.

However, this is nothing new. After every disaster people demand that aid arrive instantly, which, other than help from immediate neighbors, it never does. Government at all levels takes time to work, even when a response is urgent. As for its bureaucratic and procedural slowness, FEMA is bound by laws and regulations and has always had to ensure that money is properly accounted for, monitored and distributed.

But there are new reasons for FEMA delays and bottlenecks, chiefly the result of Trump and Noem’s own actions. FEMA has been battered by layoffs and staff dismissals, cuts to funding and Trump’s repeated attacks on it to the point of calling for its disestablishment.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, FEMA was reformed and streamlined, with two Floridians taking a leading role: R. David Paulison, a former Miami fire chief, and Craig Fugate, who had been Florida’s chief emergency manager. Under their administration and that of other DHS secretaries, FEMA was reworked to provide more timely responses and be completely evenhanded and apolitical in its actions and funding. It also made a major effort to prevent future disasters through preparedness, mitigation and increased resilience.

In the first Trump administration there were fears that Trump was politicizing responses, withholding aid to Democratic states like California and reducing preventive measures that responded to climate change challenges. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint for a future administration, proposed that much more of the fiscal burden for disaster recovery fall on the states. (See “Project 2025 remake of FEMA would hit communities hard after disasters.”)

On the campaign trail Trump repeatedly attacked the agency and its responses, especially in the wake of Hurricane Helene and flooding in North Carolina. Among these he leveled baseless accusations of political favoritism by President Joe Biden.

Once in office Trump has maintained the drumbeat of criticism and repeatedly threatened to eliminate FEMA as an agency. The agency’s layoffs and dismissals have hampered its functioning and ability to respond to disasters.

Noem from the beginning has been an aggressive operative for the Trump agenda, implementing cuts to the FEMA workforce, verbally attacking the agency, as in her Instagram post, and echoing Trump’s lies.

As the ProPublica article pointed out, she has also insisted on personally approving all FEMA expenditures over $100,000, making her personally responsible for them—and since $100,000 is a very small expenditure in government operations, it means she has to be personally involved in every small and petty purchase.

This requirement vastly slows down the process of approving any sort of aid or expenditures—unless a community can short-circuit the entire system by going straight to the Secretary as Naples did. Other communities awaiting assistance and with far greater damage have been left hanging, also hoping for the kind of aid that was previously processed through established, rationally conceived procedures.

It needs to be emphasized, as previously, that there are no allegations of illegality or criminality here and certainly not on the part of Naples City officials. They were confronted with frustrating delays and a lack of response from FEMA. They chose to take action, as should be expected of city officials.

According to the ProPublica article, Mayor Heitmann tried a variety of different avenues to address the issue. The City already employed some expensive Washington consultants to guide the process but this was unproductive. She wrote directly to FEMA, attempted to enlist Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a Naples resident, and finally decided to go directly to Noem through Gursoy, who had introduced Heitmann to Noem at a private party when Noem was governor.

When she contacted Gursoy, he agreed to “get on it.”

It has to be said: It was a good idea that produced results.

Interestingly, nowhere did Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) appear to play a role in any of this even though his district encompasses both towns with their piers and he would logically be the first official to contact in pursuing the city’s interests in Washington.

However, Donalds has been notoriously lax in producing results for his district in Washington, DC and he is currently running for governor, so his attention to the district, already tepid, is now nearly non-existent.

If there is fault to be had it lies with Noem. In pre-Trump days, a secretary of Homeland Security when faced with this kind of request would have declined it. Perhaps he or she would have responded: “Thank you for this kind invitation. Due to the many requests and needs from deserving communities across the country, I have to respectfully decline. However, I will forward your request to the proper offices in FEMA.”

But that kind of rectitude and propriety is a thing of the past.

The bigger issues

Beyond problems created for FEMA aid and distribution caused by Trump, Noem and the Department of Government Efficiency when it was operating, Noem’s personal intervention in the Naples pier project illustrates much broader issues of governance, personalization and inequality among communities.

The United States has been unique in creating “a nation of laws, not men,” as President John Adams put it. Constitutionally, its institutions are intended to function according to law and objective facts, not the personal preferences of any one person.

That is not the case with Donald Trump who is openly and blatantly making governance about himself, whether that applies to prosecuting his perceived enemies, or levying tariffs, or silencing those who satirize him.

As Trump has driven toward a more authoritarian, dictatorial form of government that centers entirely on his personal decisions and predilections, his personalization of government operations is leaching down into lower levels of decisionmaking.

This is glaringly evident in the case of the Naples pier. Noem may say that she’s heroically cutting red tape and taking action—and she may actually think it—but it also sends a signal to all other distressed communities around the country that the way to get disaster aid is not to follow the law and procedure but to somehow reach her personally, with paid travel and a nice dinner (at the least). It announces that emergency management decisionmaking now officially depends on her whims and personal preferences. It also announces that the American people and their communities cannot depend on a government that previously responded to their distress as one of its primary duties.

There has always been an element of personality and lobbying in government operations, whether in the legislative or executive branches. It’s what created the vast lobbying industry that exists today at all levels of government. But lobbying and advocacy was always peripheral to the government’s essential decisionmaking. Now, with Trump’s personalization and weaponization of government, it’s central to it.

In 1655 King Louis XIV of France is reputed to have said, “L’État, c’est moi!”—“I am the state.” It has gone down in history as the ultimate expression of personal power. The American revolution was an explicit rebellion against that philosophy. The state was the Constitution, an expression of “We the people”—all Americans.

As Trump drives toward becoming the embodiment of the American state, situations like Noem’s favoring Naples, or for that matter Tom Homan, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) taking cash for favors and then escaping any kind of law enforcement, are becoming more common.

The Naples pier is just one small example of the increasing personalization of government in America today. It’s also the embodiment of increasing stratification between affluent, well-connected communities and more obscure, modest and poorer communities in getting attention paid to their needs by a government originally formed to be of them, by them and for them.

So, while the focus in this instance may be on two closely-placed towns and their structures of planks and concrete jutting out into the waters of Florida, the gulf between them is actually broader, vaster, more profound—and, unfortunately, growing.

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

With NOAA and FEMA under siege for hurricane season, SWFL congressmen offer little help

*Southwest Floridians look to the skies as hurricane season 2025 dawns. (Art: AI/MS Co-Pilot)*

June 3, 2025 by David Silverberg

June 4 clarification: An earlier version of this story indicated that former Florida emergency manager Bryan Koon was commenting on Florida’s hurricane preparations. He was not.

As its geographic position on the Gulf of Mexico dictates, Southwest Florida is always potentially in the bullseye for hurricanes and tropical storms.

That makes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) the two most important federal agencies affecting the region. NOAA and its weather prediction offices, including the National Hurricane Center, tells people what’s coming and where it’s likely to happen. FEMA helps with the recovery and clean up.

But this year both agencies have been dealt heavy blows by President Donald Trump and advisor Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

It’s questionable whether these agencies will be able to effectively serve Southwest Florida and the rest of the nation this year or any year in the future. In particular it’s uncertain whether FEMA will even remain in existence. Both have had their funding and personnel severely slashed by DOGE.

Given the importance of these agencies to Southwest Florida, voters might obviously ask what their members of Congress have been doing to protect and ensure that the agencies have the resources to help them when the time comes.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), for his part, said during a press conference at the US Coast Guard Air Station in Clearwater on Wednesday, May 28 that he would personally do “everything I can to make sure” that FEMA is fully funded.

“What’s frustrating is that part of it is funded in advance and part of it is funded afterwards. And sometimes it’s political getting it done afterwards,” he pointed out, referring to the recovery phase. Nonetheless, “I believe it will get funded. I’m going to work hard to make sure that it is.”

Florida’s other senator, Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), merely posted a hurricane checklist on X but has not otherwise weighed in on NOAA, FEMA or the 2025 storm season.

But what about the House members representing the Southwest Florida region? What have they been doing?

Steube and the 17th Congressional District

*A graphic posted by Rep. Greg Steube calling for a name change for the Washington Metro. (Illustration: Office of Rep. Greg Steube)*

On May 29, the eve of hurricane season, Rep. Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.) focused his efforts on spectacularly introducing House Resolution (HR) 3660 to re-name the Washington, DC subway system—commonly known as the Metro or Metrorail—to “the Trump Train.”

Steube’s district has no connection whatsoever to the Washington, DC Metrorail—although he himself may take it when in Washington. His district covers Sarasota and Charlotte counties and a sliver of Lee County. Its main cities are Sarasota, Venice and Punta Gorda. In the past, all have been ravaged by hurricanes.

But HR 3660 has nothing to do with hurricanes, response, resilience, the people in Steube’s district or Southwest Florida. It appears to be pure political theater, designed to please Trump.

As part of his bill, he also wants the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which runs the Metro, to change its name to the Washington Metropolitan Authority for Greater Access (WMAGA).

To force WMATA to do this, he proposes withholding all federal funds until the name change is made.

“All Aboard the TRUMP TRAIN!” he posted on X. “WMATA takes $150M a year in federal funds and delivers nothing but delays, dysfunction, and decay. My bill blocks funding until WMATA is renamed WMAGA and the Metrorail becomes the TRUMP TRAIN.”

(In his initial post WMAGA stood for “Make Autorail Great Again.” However, “autorail” refers to an obsolete means of remotely controlling steam engines and also seemed confused with the Amtrak “Autotrain,” which runs between Virginia and Florida. While a reference to ancient steam-powered trains would seem to be in character with MAGA nostalgia for the past, its archaism presumably led him to change the title.)

“But this isn’t just about branding,” he argued in his X posting. “It’s about accountability. WMATA’s reputation has been wrecked after years of mismanagement, breakdowns, and public distrust. Americans have demanded that Congress cut waste and improve efficiency. This bill answers that call.”

That was not the only bill Steube introduced on May 29. He also introduced HR 3659, a bill to “direct Federal departments and agencies to verify eligibility for Federal benefits for individuals 105 years of age or older, and for other purposes.” This is based on allegations—almost entirely refuted—that Social Security and other federal programs pay benefits to ineligible or deceased recipients.

This too had no relationship to hurricane season, preparedness, NOAA or FEMA.

Steube did sponsor one piece of legislation relevant to his district and the hurricane season, the Tax Relief for Victims of Crimes, Scams, and Disasters Act (HR 3469), which he introduced on May 15. As the name states, this allows people who have been victims of scams, robberies, storms and fires in the past year a deduction on the value of their lost items, i.e., they won’t have to pay any tax on them if the bill is signed into law. This same bill was filed in the Senate by Sens. Moody, Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.). Steube’s bill was cosponsored by three Democrats and four Republicans, among them Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.).

But otherwise, Steube certainly did nothing to support NOAA, FEMA or prepare for hurricane season. Indeed, on the day hurricane season began, he posted on X: “We in Congress need to pass the DOGE cuts and codify Trump’s [executive orders] immediately. The American people are tired of empty promises. We need to be cutting trillions, not billions, so we can finally put America back on track towards a balanced budget.”

Donalds and the 19th Congressional District

*Reps. Byron Donalds and Jared Moskowitz together during a 2023 field trip. (Photo: Office of Rep. Jared Moskowitz)*

On March 24, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-23-Fla.), whose district covers the Miami area, introduced the FEMA Independence Act (HR 2308).

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), who represents the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island, joined him as Republican cosponsor of the bill, making it bipartisan.

Moskowitz, who was Florida’s director of emergency management from 2019 to 2021, argued that FEMA, which was an independent agency before the creation of DHS in 2003, should be independent again and elevated to Cabinet status.

“By removing FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security and restoring its status as an independent, Cabinet-level agency, my bipartisan bill will help cut red tape, improve government efficiency, and save lives,” Moskowitz argued in a statement.

Donalds agreed: “FEMA has become overly-bureaucratic, overly-politicized, overly-inefficient, and substantial change is needed to best serve the American people,” he stated. “When disaster strikes, quick and effective action must be the standard––not the exception. It is imperative that FEMA is removed from the bureaucratic labyrinth of DHS and instead is designated to report directly to the President of the United States. I am proud to join Congressman Moskowitz in this innovative initiative to ensure the most efficient disaster relief response for the American people.”

So far their bill has been referred to three House committees, where it awaits consideration.

Diaz-Balart and the 26th Congressional District

*Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart surveys the damage from Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas in 2019. (Photo: Office of Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart*)

Although it is inland from both coasts, the 26th Congressional District stretches from Collier County east of Route 75 to the western suburbs of Miami. Chief towns include Immokalee, Doral and Hialeah.

Towns in the district have been hit by hurricanes in the past, most notably Hurricane Andrew in 1992. More recently they felt the effects of Hurricane Irma in 2017.

With the arrival of hurricane season, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart issued guides for hurricane preparation on his website and social media, which are largely standard for members of Congress: they consist of links to relevant sites, lists of items for hurricane kits, exhortations to make plans and protect homes and how to respond when a storm strikes.

However, Diaz-Balart has been notably silent on NOAA and FEMA and has issued no statements or introduced any legislation this year related to hurricane preparedness or resilience.

Analysis: On our own

Both NOAA and FEMA have suffered heavy blows to their capabilities. There have been large-scale staff reductions, research grant cancellations, travel and training restrictions.

Experienced NOAA experts have lost their jobs, field offices are understaffed and much data gathering has been curtailed, for example reducing the number of weather balloon launched to collect atmospheric data. This has reduced the information going into weather models like the kinds that predict hurricane cones.

Still, the National Hurricane Center in Miami says it has been spared personnel cuts and the heads of the NOAA, the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center all assured a reporter from the Associated Press that the agencies are ready for the season.

FEMA, though, has taken the brunt of the beating. It has lost around 2,000 personnel to DOGE cuts. Its continued existence is being called into question by Trump, who leveled false accusations and lies against it during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump’s contempt for the agency is reflected in the new director, David Richardson, a Marine Corps veteran with no emergency management experience, who upon taking office immediately bullied and threatened the staff, warning, “I will run right over you” if they got in his way—but who then also revealed that he was unaware there is a hurricane season.

From its founding during the administration of President Jimmy Carter in 1979, FEMA has had severe ups and downs. Its administrator under President Ronald Reagan was a pistol-packing former US Army colonel named Louis “Jeff” Guiffrida, who ran FEMA much the way Richardson appears intent on running it today. Guiffrida focused mainly on civil defense and what is known as “continuity of government” in the event of a disaster—and the disaster he chiefly had in mind was a nuclear war with the Soviet Union rather than hurricanes, tornadoes or wildfires affecting everyday citizens.

Guiffrida was forced out of the agency in 1985 after a congressional investigation alleged he had misused and mismanaged government funds. After he left FEMA he became a security consultant to perennial presidential candidate and extreme conspiracy theorist, Lyndon LaRouche, which gives some indication of his political leanings.

After a long and painful debate, FEMA became part of DHS in 2003, a move vehemently opposed by John Lee Witt, who had capably served as President Bill Clinton’s FEMA director from 1993 to 2001. However, the argument that FEMA could call on all the resources of the newly created DHS, including such agencies as the US Coast Guard, overrode the skepticism.

FEMA had further ups and downs, failing most spectacularly under director Michael Brown who was blamed for his inability to handle the ravages of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

FEMA’s rebuilding after Katrina was largely due to the work of some notable Floridians who learned lessons from their disaster-prone state. R. David Paulison was the Miami fire chief who took over immediately after Katrina and restored competence and confidence to the agency. He was followed in 2009 by W. Craig Fugate, Florida’s emergency manager and widely regarded as the best professional in the business.

Since then FEMA largely functioned well and responsively—until now. Even if it is split off as a separate Cabinet-level agency as Moskowitz and Donalds propose, that would not necessarily boost its effectiveness given Trump’s disdain and contempt for it and his reflected attitudes in the rest of the regime. What is worse is that Trump appears inclined to use disaster aid as a political weapon and loyalty reward rather than equitably providing assistance to afflicted Americans after a disaster. Any director he appoints will no doubt go along with that program.

The omens for the 2025 hurricane season appear inauspicious given the loss of NOAA predictive capabilities and the extreme disruption and uncertainty afflicting FEMA.

Bryan Koon, a former director of Florida’s emergency management division and a long-time corporate emergency management director, is wary: “Given the reduction in staffing, being unable to do trainings, participate in conferences, there’s potential that the federal government’s ability is diminished,” he observed.

Kevin Guthrie, Florida’s current director of the Division of Emergency Management tried to reassure Floridians that the state can handle any contingencies during a May 30 press conference in Fort Lauderdale. He and Gov. Ron DeSantis are pushing the federal government to make more of its aid available in block grants that states can use at their discretion.

“We are already having these conversations about if the federal government allows us to run an individual assistance program, we’re ready to get that done,” he said. “We believe we can do it just as fast, if not faster than the federal government.”

This hurricane season will put Guthrie’s thesis to the test and demonstrate whether Florida can handle its disasters alone as its officials say it can.

Given Southwest Florida’s vulnerability, it would be comforting if its representatives in Congress joined the effort to protect and fund NOAA and FEMA and looked out for their constituents, who are sitting in the hurricane crosshairs. Instead, judging by their votes for the “Big Beautiful Bill,” they’re committed to slashing budgets and completing the destruction that Elon Musk began, as Steube has stated outright.

Floridians, especially in the Southwest, know the drill when it comes to hurricanes. Have your food, water and batteries ready. Make a plan. Photograph your home’s contents. Experts say that you should be able to survive and hopefully thrive for at least three days, but ideally for seven.

It’s wise advice, especially this year. There’s no telling if anyone will be coming to the rescue when the clouds clear. The folks in charge want you to be on your own—and you are.

Be ready in every way. It’s going to be a very long, dangerous and uncertain hurricane season.

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

SWFL congressmen absent from effort to restore FEMA funds

*The United States Capitol. (Photo: Architect of the Capitol)*

April 15, 2025 by David Silverberg

While over 80 senators and congressmen from both parties are urging the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to unfreeze funds already approved by Congress to help communities prepare for natural disasters, Southwest Florida’s congressmen are absent from the effort.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), who is running for governor, Rep. Greg Stuebe (R-17-Fla.), and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.), all of whom represent hurricane-vulnerable districts in Southwest Florida, did not sign the letter, sent on the eve of the 2025 hurricane season.

“We are writing to urge the Administration to reinstate the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Grant (BRIC) program within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),” states the letter. “BRIC funds are spurring communities across the country to strengthen their resilience to extreme weather, and forgoing these critical investments will only make it harder and more expensive for communities to recover from the next storm.”

The letter was dated May 12 and was addressed to Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and David Richardson, the acting administrator of FEMA.

The letter explains: “The BRIC program was established by Congress in the 2018 Disaster Recovery Reform Act and signed into law by President Trump with bipartisan support. In the years since, this program has catalyzed community investments in resilient infrastructure, saving federal funds by investing in community preparedness before a disaster strikes.”

Even if reforms need to be made to the program, the signers wrote, the funds should still be reinstated.

Also absent from the letter were Florida’s two senators, Rick Scott and Ashley Moody.

FEMA canceled approximately $882 million in BRIC funding approved in fiscal years 2020 to 2023, calling it “wasteful and ineffective.”

The letter points out that BRIC funding has helped communities harden their infrastructure and prepare and protect themselves from natural disasters like floods and wildfires.

Florida is facing what is expected to be a very active hurricane season this year.

The full text of the letter and signatures can be read by clicking here.

To see all The Paradise Progressive’s past coverage of Rep. Byron Donalds, click here.

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

Facing the storm: The impact of Trump-Musk decisions on Southwest Florida

*Southwest Florida Trump supporters celebrate his inauguration on Jan. 20. (Image: WINK News)*

March 7, 2025 by David Silverberg

On Jan. 6, 2021, a rampaging mob incited by President Donald Trump defiled and vandalized the Capitol of the United States in what even Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) called at the time, “a warped display of so-called patriotism.”

Beginning on Jan. 20, 2025, the regime led by President Donald Trump began attacking and destroying the government of the United States in a no-less destructive series of executive orders and mass firings.

In his second inaugural address Trump declared that “From this moment on, America’s decline is over” but as with so many of his deceptions and delusions exactly the opposite is true. Under Trump, America isn’t declining, it’s plunging into isolation, ignorance and impotence.

Politically, Southwest Florida is heavily Trumpist. It was long a conservative bastion, whether segregationist Democratic or post-Richard Nixon “southern strategy” Republican. With Trump’s candidacy in 2016 it largely became a pro-Trump, Make America Great Again (MAGA) bastion. His victory and inauguration was celebrated and hailed locally, especially in Collier County.

As part of its political orientation, Southwest Florida has long been hostile to the federal government, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2022. Collier County passed a federal nullification ordinance in 2023. The federal government was regarded as a hostile entity by local activists like Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III and Keith Flaugh and their supporters.

With Trump now dominant, unchecked and unbalanced by Congress or any other institution, with billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) rampaging through federal agencies, and with the much-hated federal government being dismantled, what can Southwest Floridians expect from the Trump policy agenda? What will be the impact on them and their region? How will people feel Trumpism in their personal lives?

Social Security uncertainty

A homeless encampment in Fort Myers under the Matanzas Pass bridge *in 2023* *in the wake of Hurricane Ian. Homelessness is likely to rise in Southwest Florida if Social Security and other safety net programs are cut or terminated. (Photo: WGCU/Mike Walcher)*

Social Security is clearly at risk.

In the past Trump has promised not to touch Social Security—but the same cannot be said for the Social Security Administration (SSA), which administers the program. There, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has reportedly targeted at least 7,000 jobs for elimination. These are the people who make sure the checks go out on time, who help recipients with difficulties and clear procedural problems.

Musk has called Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time” and accused it of being rife with fraud.

In his March 4 State of the Union address, Trump also alleged waste, stating that “Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old”—which prompted shouts of “No!” and “It’s false! False!” from members of Congress. In his very next sentence, Trump altered the numbers: “It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119. I don’t know any of them. I know some people that are rather elderly but not quite that elderly.”

That too was incorrect. According to the Social Security Administration, only 89,106 recipients older than 100 years were listed on Social Security rolls as of December 2024. Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner, said in February that the raw numbers did not reflect actual benefits being paid.

“The reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record. These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits,” Dudek clarified.

When it comes to Southwest Florida, according to 2023 figures from the Social Security Office of Retirement and Disability Policy, there were 3,780 Social Security recipients in Collier County, 11,937 in Lee County and 2,779 in Charlotte County. Overall, there were 539,276 Social Security beneficiaries in Florida, the second largest number in the country, after California.

(Editor’s note: The 2023 figures may be the last credible figures available, given cuts to the Social Security workforce and removal of publicly available data across the federal government.)

Social Security doesn’t just provide a steady, reliable income for those who paid into it all their working lives, it helps fuel the local economy.

Any cuts to the benefits will be devastating for fixed-income recipients who depend on the program and will likely have a significant impact on the businesses and services they use, not to mention equally devastating blows to Medicare, Medicaid and other safety net social programs that are being considered for DOGEing.

Beyond that, the regime’s official hostility toward vaccinations and public health measures both at the federal and state levels means that Southwest Floridians will be vulnerable to epidemics and diseases previously rendered non-threatening. Already, one case of measles has been reported in a Florida high school. In Texas the number is 158, with one death.

Thanks to these policies and actions, Southwest Floridians will be both poorer and sicker.

Prices, tariffs and international isolation

President Joe Biden, along with the independent efforts of the Federal Reserve, managed to lower the inflation rate from 7.5 percent as of January 2022 to 2.9 percent by the end of his term in December 2024, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

*The inflation rate under President Joe Biden from January 2022 to December 2024. (Chart: US Bureau of Labor statistics [click link for full interactive chart and data])*

Trump’s economic isolationist policies will undoubtedly drive up prices of all goods and services across the board—this is Kindergarten Economics 101. Completely unnecessary and unprovoked trade wars with America’s biggest trading partners, Canada, Mexico and China, will effectively impose a tax on everything that Americans buy, especially big-ticket items like cars and appliances.

Southwest Florida stands to be hit hard by Trump’s inflation: prices for foodstuffs like tomatoes and common items like imported beer from Mexico will rise, not to mention big ticket items like cars and car parts and anything made of steel and aluminum.

Southwest Florida will also be particularly hard hit by Trump’s economic and verbal attacks on Canada, which was a source of 15 percent of Collier County’s tourism. In 2024, 119,000 Canadian visitors came to Collier County, according to the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Canadians also accounted for 5 percent of Lee County’s tourism in April and June of last year. Statewide, Visit Florida, the state’s tourism bureau, estimated that over 3.2 million Canadians visited Florida in 2024, making up 27 percent of all international travelers

“Canadians are hurt. Canadians are angry. We are going to choose to not go on vacation in Florida,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a press conference on Tuesday, March 4, when US tariffs kicked in. “We are going to choose to try and buy Canadian products … and yeah we’re probably going to keep booing the American anthem.”

Unusually, Trudeau addressed Trump directly: “I want to speak directly to one specific American, Donald,” Trudeau said. “It’s not in my habit to agree with the Wall Street Journal, but Donald, they point out that even though you’re a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do.”

When it comes to America’s southern trading partner, Mexico provides considerable produce for Florida consumers including tomatoes, avocados and strawberries. As importantly, it and other Latin American countries have been a major source of cheap labor, whether documented or undocumented, for Florida’s construction, hospitality and agricultural industries, especially in the Southwest region.

But Trump has been at war with Mexican migrants since his very first candidate press conference in 2015 when he called them “criminals” and “rapists.”

Now Trump’s hatred, prejudice and rage against migrants is official US policy and that goes double for Florida where the governor and legislature are competing with each other to enact ever more restrictive and punitive measures.

The effort is ostensibly aimed against undocumented migrants, who have gone from being regarded as people seeking a better life and a source of cheap labor to a criminal invasion that threatens the country. But the hostility to immigrants whatever their status, particularly those from Latin and South America, is unmistakable.

An interesting example of this is a television advertisement from Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem that just began running in Florida markets, promising to hunt down undocumented migrants, urging the rest to self-deport, extravagantly praising Trump and ending with the lines “America welcomes those who respect our laws” while closing with an image of a 34-count convicted felon.

The ultimate end of these efforts appears to be to make Florida the most anti-immigrant state in the nation.

Immigration raids are ongoing in Southwest Florida as they are throughout the country, including possible targets in schools, churches and hospitals. Their net effect for Southwest Florida residents, in addition to the potential for their neighbors and employees to suddenly be deported, will be another force driving up prices, depressing the local economy and eroding the quality of life and availability of all goods and services.

DOGE destruction: FEMA and NOAA

*Debris lines a street in Naples, Fla., following Hurricane Ian in 2022. (Photo: Author)*

Both the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were targeted by Project 2025, the conservative governing blueprint. These are two agencies are of particular importance to Southwest Florida given its vulnerability to weather, climate change, hurricanes and harmful algal blooms.

DOGE has already fired 500 people from the National Weather Service, an office of NOAA, and another round of 800 layoffs is expected. This means there will be that much less capability for forecasting and warnings of dangerous storms. Even the famous Hurricane Hunters, the heroic pilots and crews who fly into storms to gather crucial data, are not immune. It’s unclear whether there will be any Hurricane Hunter aircraft flying in the future.

This will leave Southwest Floridians with less time to prepare in the event of severe weather and will probably make forecasts less precise, affecting evacuation decisions and endangering the public. It reverses 155 years of steady scientific meteorological progress ever since the US government first started monitoring the weather in 1870.

After a storm comes through, FEMA is likely to have less capacity to help victims and survivors, depending how its budgeting and management emerge from the current shakeup.

One dramatic way that people in Southwest Florida will see this on the ground is in debris removal after a major storm. Instead of several months of inconvenience, debris will now be more likely to linger for years, proving a health and navigation hazard.

After Hurricane Ian in 2022, the Lee County government put the estimated cost of Hurricane Ian in the county at $297.3 million. Over half of this was for debris removal, whose cost came to $156.3 million. Much of that was covered by FEMA funding.

In the future, given likely cuts to disaster assistance, money won’t be there and the debris will linger as counties and municipalities struggle to cope with storms’ aftermaths.

It needs to be noted that Donalds, whose district covers coastal Southwest Florida from Cape Coral to Marco Island, has consistently voted against appropriations bills that would replenish FEMA funding. Moreover, he is now running for governor on a Trump-endorsed platform, so in the event of disasters between now and the 2026 election he cannot be expected to assist affected communities and seek aid from an eviscerated FEMA and a hostile regime.

In all, Southwest Florida will be on its own, before, during and after any storms.

Gulf of Mexico: Exploitation and degradation

*Offshore oil platforms and vessels. (Photo: USCG)*

Trump’s announcement on Jan. 7 that he was renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” proved a major distraction—as intended. But it masked a much more serious threat to the body of water and the communities on its shoreline, in particular those of Southwest Florida.

When, as a candidate, Trump was pressed about the possibility of being dictator, he responded that he would be a dictator on day one so he could implement a policy of “drill, baby, drill.”

That day has passed and indeed, the protections Southwest Floridians enjoyed against coastal oil exploration and exploitation on their shores are gone.

On his first day in office Trump declared a national energy emergency and revoked a large number of previous executive orders and memoranda issued by President Joe Biden. Among these were executive actions protecting areas from offshore drilling, including off the coast of Florida. The Trump actions were challenged in court and as of this writing await final disposition.

However, the possibility is much higher now that when Southwest Floridians go to the beach in the future they could be met by a vista of derricks, drilling platforms, ship traffic and wade into water polluted with spills, chemicals and oil debris.

Education and the descent into ignorance

*The Collier County School Board building. (Photo: CCPS)*

On Monday, March 3, the US Senate voted to confirm Linda McMahon, a former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment, as Secretary of Education. On Thursday, March 6, The Washington Post reported that Trump was going to issue an executive order calling on McMahon to “take all necessary steps” to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”

The Department of Education, created by President Jimmy Carter, has long been a conservative, Republican target.

The closure of the department, whose primary mission is to distribute federal education grants, will negatively impact local school districts. Nationwide, public spending on kindergarten through 12th grade education totals $857.2 billion of which the federal government provides 13.6 percent.

This reaches down to every school and school district. In Southwest Florida, for example, in its tentative 2024-25 budget released last July 31, the Collier County School District estimated it would receive $7,243,150 in direct federal funding and nearly $80 million in federal funding passed on through the state. This money goes for everything from school lunches, to salaries, to supplies, to services, to furniture and more. Lee County is expecting $87,879,653 in federal funds during the 2024 to 2025 fiscal school year both directly and through the state.

The uncertainty and unpredictability of federal education funding under Trump-McMahon will make it nearly impossible for local school districts to reliably and credibly budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal school year. They cannot even budget based on previous fiscal years or hold spending steady, since the past can no longer be a guide to future funding.

What is more, if the funds are cut off altogether, as seems likely, every school district in the country will be impacted. The big losers here are the students, who will lose everything from teaching materials to facilities, and the country itself, which will become less educated, less capable and less informed.

Once again, no comfort or assistance should be expected from Southwest Florida’s congressional representative, Byron Donalds, who, along with his wife has been a longtime critic of public education and proponent of non-public alternatives. As a Trump-endorsed candidate for governor, it is unlikely that he will go against Trump’s decrees and argue the case for funding state and local public schools in Congress when the ax falls.

Commentary: Barbarians through the gates

In the year 455 of the Common Era, a barbarian tribe known as the Vandals sacked the city of Rome. They occupied it for two weeks and during that time their wanton, random, mindless destructiveness gave rise to the word “vandalism.”

Currently, it is as though the tag team of Trump and Musk is trying to replay the sack of Rome in Washington, DC, complete with ruin and barbarity. Trump is driven by hatred and a desire for revenge and Musk is pursuing an elusive and undefined “efficiency” that thoughtlessly changes daily based on his whims. They are making big decisions on the basis of stereotypes, assumptions and emotions that make them feel strong or outraged rather than dispassionate examination of a complicated reality. And they are acting without regard to law, due process or constitutional restraints.

Together they are carelessly upending the 249 years of painstaking thought and effort that built the United States and the federal system that governs it. This essay hasn’t even scratched the surface of the damage they are doing economically, internationally or scientifically, affecting health, safety, research, military strength, homeland security, law enforcement and every other area of life and civilization involving the United States government. The ultimate victims are the American people and the United States itself.

Those Southwest Floridians who still support Trump and his regime for emotional or sentimental reasons should know that they will not be immune or protected or untouched by the tempest out of the Oval Office. It’s coming to Southwest Florida as surely as any hurricane barreling in from the Gulf of Mexico. They’re going to get wet too.

There is a rising opposition to this in Southwest Florida, as people begin to demonstrate and protest. Perhaps the same spirit that led Ukraine to fight Russia’s aggression—and motivated American patriots to oppose a distant king’s tyranny nearly 250 years ago—can help contain some of the damage from the human-caused storm that’s already breaking on Southwest Florida’s sunny shores.

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

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

Part 3—Defying darkness: Southwest Florida politics and the year ahead

*A storm breaks over the Everglades. (Photo: US Park Service)*

Jan. 3, 2025 by David Silverberg

While national-level elections are not scheduled for 2025, there will be some significant elections—especially in Florida.

Two members of Congress need to be replaced: Matt Gaetz resigned his position in Congress in December, so a special election will be held in the 1st Congressional District in the Panhandle to replace him.

In the 6th Congressional District in northern Florida, an election will be held to replace Rep. Michael Waltz (R-6-Fla.), who was nominated to be National Security Advisor and is scheduled to leave the House of Representatives on Jan. 20. A special election will be held to replace him.

While Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will be leaving the Senate to become Secretary of State if confirmed, a replacement will be appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to fill out the remaining four years of his term, which ends on Jan. 3, 2029.

It is not too early to speculate about DeSantis’ own succession. His term ends in 2026 and he cannot run again so the big question will be who will succeed him.

As the year dawns, two of the leading contenders being mentioned are Gaetz and Southwest Florida Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.). (More about this in a future posting.)

A bombshell House Ethics Committee report released on Dec. 23 stated that Gaetz regularly paid for sex, underage and otherwise, and possessed and used illegal drugs.

In the past this would have disqualified any candidate. However, in the Trump era these standards may not hold. It is also possible that Trump will pardon Gaetz for any misdeeds given the former congressman’s past loud loyalty to the President-Elect.

But any discussion of the gubernatorial race is just early speculation and by 2026 a whole new cast of contenders is likely to emerge, many with statewide name recognition.

Otherwise, across the country, the major contests will be gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey.

As of now, there are no local elections scheduled for Southwest Florida.

Southwest Florida investigations

Just because there are no elections scheduled hardly means that there won’t be significant political developments.

As the year dawns the two biggest local political stories in Southwest Florida concern criminal investigations and court cases.

In Collier County, on Nov. 7, multiple federal agencies searched the properties of Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III, the extremely conservative, outspoken and politically active farmer and grocer.

No information has been publicly revealed following the search and Oakes himself told the Naples Daily News only that “We’re looking into it, but everything’s good.”

However, the federal agencies involved in the search, as reported in local media, provide clues to the nature of the investigation. The presence of Internal Revenue Service agents indicates a tax-related inquiry.

Secret Service agents were on site. While the public largely knows the Secret Service for its protective mission, it is often forgotten that it conducts financial investigations too. The Secret Service was founded during the Civil War to fight counterfeiting and was under the authority of the Treasury Department for most of its history. (It is now part of the Department of Homeland Security.) The presence of Secret Service agents is an indicator of a financial-related investigation but also a possible homeland security or counter-terrorism query.

Also present were Department of Defense (DoD) agents and in particular the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), which investigates all forms of crime against the Department including fraud, contracting violations, terrorism, and cybercrime. The presence of DCIS agents indicate that the search may be related to Oakes’ federal contracting. While in the past he had lucrative contracts with the Defense Logistics Agency, which oversees supplies and contracting for the military, Oakes told The Paradise Progressive in 2022 that he had sold off those units. He also has a contract with the Justice Department to provide food to the federal Coleman Correctional Facility in Coleman, Florida.

Additionally, the well-documented presence of a DCIS firearms instructor indicates that federal agents may have been wary of Oakes’ reported 3,000 guns. (Interestingly, Florida Highway Patrol officers were present but Collier County deputies weren’t mentioned in the news accounts.)

As with all investigations, Oakes is presumed innocent until proven guilty. This may or may not involve the convening of a grand jury to hand down indictments if probable cause for prosecution is found.

In the meanwhile, the public will have to await any announcements from the agencies involved in the investigation if prosecution is pursued—or dropped.

An easy prediction for 2025 is that it will be a major story in Southwest Florida when a public announcement is made in this case.

However, another potential outcome is that given Oakes’ longstanding, outspoken and deep loyalty to Donald Trump, he could be pre-emptively pardoned by the president for any wrongdoing, or, if charged, tried and found guilty, pardoned after the court proceeding.

In Lee County to the north, resolution of accusations against Lee County sheriff Carmine Marceno for possible money laundering and misappropriation of funds will be another major political story for 2025.

On Dec. 3 a grand jury convened in Tampa to consider potential charges against the sheriff. The accusations stemmed from allegations made by an electoral opponent, Mike Hollow, in his race against Marceno. Hollow quoted Ken Romano, a contract employee, that he received a “no-work” contract and kicked back money to Marceno’s father. Hollow provided a video of Romano making the allegations.

Marceno has called the allegations baseless.

DeSantis is reportedly already considering people he can tap to replace Marceno.

As of this writing, no word has been heard from the grand jury but if indictments are handed down it will be a major political story for Southwest Florida this year.

The state, the legislature and the Trump regime

On the one hand, with Florida resident Donald Trump scheduled to take office Jan. 20, the likelihood is that Florida will be favored in federal decisionmaking in the year ahead. After all, during the height of the COVID pandemic, the state of Florida was given special access to the US stockpile of COVID supplies and vaccines.

Also, the executive branch will be stocked with Floridians. Some must be confirmed by the Senate but others are presidential appointments. In addition to Rubio at State, former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi has been nominated as US Attorney General subject to Senate approval.

In the executive branch, Florida political operative Susan “Susie” Wiles has been named White House Chief of Staff and Palm Beach resident Taylor Budowich has been named Deputy Chief of Staff. As mentioned previously, Waltz has been tapped as National Security Advisor. Janette Nesheiwat, Waltz’s wife, was nominated for Surgeon General; Mehmet Oz, the television doctor and a resident of Palm Beach, has been named Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; Todd Blanche of Palm Beach has been nominated for Deputy Attorney General.

Other Floridians appointed are David Weldon as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jared Isaacman as Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Jay Bhattacharya as Director of the National Institutes of Health; Paul Atkins of Tampa as Chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission; Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., and a Floridian, as ambassador to Greece; Daniel Newlin, an attorney, as ambassador to Colombia; and Peter Lamelas, a Trump donor and doctor who helped found MD Now Urgent Care that serves Florida, as ambassador to Argentina. And Naples resident Callista Gingrich has been named ambassador to Switzerland.

The key qualification for all these nominations, of course, is loyalty to Donald Trump.

The big question in the year ahead will be whether—and in what way—all these Floridians favor the state over the rest of the country when it comes to resources, benefits and federal aid, especially if there are disasters or crises like epidemics.

One person who is clearly out of favor and likely to stay out of favor is DeSantis. The governor’s unforgiveable sin was to actually run against Trump for the presidential nomination in 2023. Trump forgives or overlooks a lot of transgressions (after all, his own vice president once called him “an American Hitler”) but primarying the king was beyond redemption. There were reports that DeSantis was briefly being considered for Secretary of Defense but those went nowhere.

The prospect for 2025 is for DeSantis to keep governing the state, with an eye to his post-gubernatorial opportunities. But a position in the Trump regime seems unlikely to be one of them.

Once again DeSantis will be ruling over a subservient, super-majority legislature that will likely do his bidding on all things with the exception of paving over state parks. Not only will Republicans dominate the legislature for the next two years but their majority has grown with the defections of two state House members elected as Democrats. State Rep. Susan Valdes (R-64-Tampa) and Hillary Cassel (R-101-Hollywood) have both declared themselves Republicans, with Valdes being rewarded with a second-place slot on the House Budget Committee. While both lawmakers gave different justifications for their defections, the fact is that they likely could see no way to get anything done other than as Republicans.

That legislature will likely follow a Trumpist-DeSantis anti-“woke” program, although probably with less extremism and zealotry than in the 2023 session. Then, DeSantis looked like he might become president based on an anti-woke culture war and legislators wanted to get on his right side with ever more outlandish and sometimes bizarre proposals.

Presumably that won’t be the case this time unless they aspire to favors from the Trump regime in Washington, DC. There’s less incentive to follow the DeSantis “line,” whatever that may be in the coming year but that doesn’t mean they won’t follow a basically Make America Great Again (MAGA) ideology.

Florida shows all the symptoms of a one-party state. Democrats have been crushed twice in two consecutive elections. Despite the Herculean efforts of Democratic Party Chair Nicole “Nikki” Fried and her success in getting Democrats to contest all open seats in 2024, Democrats lost nearly every race they pursued. They are an even smaller minority in the state legislature than before. The state Party shows little signs of recovery—or even life.

Also defeated were two major constitutional amendments, Amendment 3 to legalize recreational marijuana and Amendment 4 to protect the right to abortion. Neither received the 60 percent vote they required to become part of the state constitution.

The consequence of Florida’s abortion ban has already manifested itself in Collier County, with installation of a “baby box,” a medieval contraption that allows mothers to anonymously abandon unwanted infants. In the current version approved by the Board of Commissioners in October, babies can be turned over at Medical Services Station 76 near the intersection of Vanderbilt Beach Road and Logan Boulevard in Naples. At least, unlike Texas, mothers aren’t tossing infants into dumpsters—yet.

Not only did the defeat of Amendment 4 mean that Florida women cannot have abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, it deflated the perception of pro-choice women as a powerful voting bloc with momentum that needed to be respected, or at least considered in decisionmaking. Anti-choice groups and activists are now likely to push for a total ban on abortions and may well get it.

Politically, Amendment 4’s defeat broke an important element of the Democratic coalition in Florida. Democrats were counting on women, minorities, the young, Hispanics, unions and working class voters to take them to victory. Instead they were defeated by MAGAs, billionaires, hostile propaganda and an undeniably impressive Republican registration drive.

It’s hard to see a new majority Democratic coalition coming together in Florida or elsewhere that would propel the Party to future victories, especially given the voter suppression and MAGAism that will likely reign, especially if Trump refuses to step down in 2028 or if the 2026 elections are rigged, as they are now likely to be.

America is now likely to become Florida, as DeSantis proposed in his presidential campaign. The politics and culture Americans will find emanating from the Sunshine State will be sclerotic, hypocritical, repressive, regressive and corrupt. All that will be lacking will be the humidity and hurricanes.

At the grassroots

So how will all this manifest itself in the daily lives of Southwest Floridians?

Every indication is that inflation will soar. Whether from tariffs and trade wars or a drastic reduction of the migrant workforce that makes the local economy work, every policy proposal from Trump to date leads to higher prices and fewer goods.

The general perception is that Trump won the election based on the economy and unhappiness with inflation under President Joe Biden. But Biden, along with the Federal Reserve, steadily brought prices down after the highs of Trump’s first term and the COVID pandemic.

But now, as the saying goes: “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Of course, Trump will take no responsibility for any of this. He will no doubt blame the weakened Democrats and “far left Marxist radicals” for any problems he causes. If the past is prologue, Fox News and the MAGA faithful will buy it.

The climate change constant

Another impact will come from the skies. Mother Nature doesn’t abide by human politics.

Southwest Florida is uniquely vulnerable to the effects of climate change, as last year’s experience of hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton showed. Its towns, cities and counties are especially dependent on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for disaster preparation and recovery and the predictions of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for accurate forecasting and warnings. Along the coasts homeowners rely on the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to insure their homes and property.

How has the state government of Florida reacted to the climate change challenge?

In May 2024 the state banned the term “climate change” from statutes. When DeSantis sought a special session of the legislature to tackle the resulting insurance crisis, he was rebuffed by the House.

Nationally, Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and once tried to change the course of a hurricane with a Sharpie. He took the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords in 2017. President Joe Biden put it back in 2021 and is likely to take it out again.

What is more, Project 2025, which will likely be implemented in whole or in large part, calls for the dismantlement of NOAA for being part of the “climate change alarm industry” and elimination of NFIP. FEMA will likely become far more stingy in its support of states and localities after disasters.

So, when the hurricanes hit—as they surely will—Southwest Floridians will likely see slower and less effective debris removal, higher taxes and fees as communities try to recover without federal help, and fewer and likely less reliable warnings of approaching storms and dangers.

Stratification

All this appears certain to have a heavy financial impact. Indeed, in Southwest Florida society will likely divide much more starkly into an upper class that can afford to live or own property along a dangerous coast because it can self-insure (without the benefit of NFIP) and pay for rebuilding after disasters without federal aid.

The losers, of course, both nationally and in Southwest Florida, will be members of the middle class and retirees, who have been supported by government policies, especially tax policies, since the New Deal of the 1930s.

But now, the Trump regime is likely to skew taxes to favor billionaires and the extremely wealthy while shifting the burden to a middle class that is likely to decline given Republican and Trumpist assaults on it.

This will probably be especially felt in Southwest Florida. Far from the relatively warm, inexpensive, retiree haven it has been in the past, it will now likely stratify as the costs of living, insurance, property, and climate change damage make it unaffordable for anyone other than the ultra-rich.

This will become even more pronounced if social safety net programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare are altered, restricted or eliminated altogether. A significant number of less wealthy Southwest Floridians rely on these programs.

In a town hall meeting in November, Elon Musk, who appears to be Trump’s foremost advisor, stated that: “We have to reduce spending to live within our means. And, you know, that necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”

“Hardship” can be very hard on the non-rich and just how “temporary” it will be is anyone’s guess. As the economist John Maynard Keynes once said: “In the long run, we are all dead.”

Who will serve the ultra-rich who remain? Many low-wage workers will be gone, caught and removed in anti-immigrant roundups and detentions. Perhaps some who remain will continue living in affordable localities distant from the wealthy enclaves they serve. So the region will continue to see ever more distant commutes and congested roads as the people who can least afford it travel longer and further to jobs serving ever smaller and more concentrated enclaves of wealth.

This population will also be less healthy than in the past as public health protections are dismantled and vaccinations dismissed. Public health will be in the hands of anti-vaxxers, both nationally (Robert Kennedy Jr., as Secretary of Health and Human Services) and statewide (Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo).

It’s worth remembering that Florida lost 89,075 people to the COVID pandemic, of which 551 were in Collier County and 1,009 in Lee County. Yet in what is likely a precursor of national Trumpality, the Collier County Board of Commissioners passed an anti-public health ordinance and resolution in 2023.

The possibility exists that all the medical measures that have improved life over the past two centuries—everything from vaccines to public sanitation—will be turned back or abandoned in the coming year and in the ensuing years of the Trump regime. The whole elaborately constructed public edifice that includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protect against epidemics and outbreaks, the Food and Drug Administration to ensure food and medicinal purity and safety, and the National Institutes of Health for research and cures, will likely be reduced or eliminated, leaving Americans and the world vulnerable to diseases that are either entirely new or were nearly eradicated.

Another example of the war on public health, if a relatively minor one, is the effort to eliminate fluoridation to prevent tooth decay. Once a nationally accepted public health measure, in the last year it was removed in Collier County and then the City of Naples. Ladapo issued a statewide warning against fluoridation in November. Kennedy has stated it should end nationally and Trump has said he’s “okay” with that.

Hunkering down

No matter what happens nationally, Southwest Floridians will feel the reverberations at home, at the supermarket and in their tax bills.

For now, Southwest Florida still has its beaches and tourist attractions. Its vestigial democratic institutions continue to function. The law still applies to everyone other than the president, providing a form of order. And given the arctic blasts of the north, the tornadoes, sea level rise and flooding, for most of the year it still has the best climate in the country when there are no hurricanes.

Many political storms are headed toward Southwest Florida this year. But just as Southwest Floridians have learned to stock up and hunker down when the skies darken and the wind starts blowing, they can do the same politically. Those who value their Constitution, the inalienable rights endowed by their Creator, and the country they made great through lifetimes of labor and service, need to continue their efforts to ensure that freedom and democracy survive until the storm passes and they can nurture the light to fullness again.

_________________

Part 1—Defying darkness: Anticipating the year ahead in domestic politics

Part 2—Defying darkness: Anticipating the year ahead abroad and the new triumvirate

Liberty lives in light

Help defend democracy in Southwest Florida—donate here!

Project 2025 denies climate change, strangles weather science, would cripple storm predictions

In this satellite view, two storms churn in the Atlantic Ocean at the same time that Milton spins in the Gulf of Mexico (lower left). This photo was taken about one hour before Milton was officially declared a hurricane. (Photo: NASA)

Oct. 8, 2024 by David Silverberg

Southwest Floridians know the drill when a hurricane is on the way: buy bottled water, stock up on batteries and canned foods, put up the storm shutters, fill the car and if necessary, get out of town.

But whether hunkering down at home or hitting the road, all eyes turn to news of the storm, whether on television, the Internet, mobile devices, weather apps or social media.

Much of the information on those media is the same—because it all comes from the federal government, which has the resources, the organization and the technology to provide it like no one else. And then there are the periodic updates from the National Hurricane Center, the National Weather Service, and the Hurricane Hunters who fly into the storms, that are treated like gospel from on high.

But if Project 2025 is implemented, all that information, which is now provided free to the public, would come at a price. The federal government agencies that collect and interpret the data would be broken up. And even the famous Hurricane Hunters would be shunted into a government agency that buys desks and manages the government’s real estate.

The fact that Project 2025 targets the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for elimination has caused public alarm and prompted criticism.

But what is it that Project 2025 actually seeks to do? What does Project 2025 specifically say when it comes to meteorology and government research? And what would be the results for everyday Americans if Project 2025 was actually implemented?

For all Americans, especially those living on the vulnerable, hurricane-prone Gulf “Paradise Coast” of Florida, the future of government meteorology is no academic concern.

Increasingly, it’s a matter of life and death.

Project 2025’s denial of climate change

Project 2025 is the sweeping, 887-page volume of very specific policy recommendations for presidential and legislative changes to be made under a conservative president, in this case, upon the election of Donald Trump. Increasingly infamous, it is a continuation of the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership program that has been issued every four years since 1980.

Project 2025’s weather and climate recommendations are contained in its chapter on the Department of Commerce, the agency where the weather services reside. The chapter appears under the byline of Thomas Gilman, who served as the Commerce Department’s chief financial officer and assistant secretary for administration during the Donald Trump administration. Prior to taking that position, which required Senate confirmation, Gilman worked for over 40 years in the automotive industry. There, he was employed by the Chrysler Corporation. He rose to be chief financial officer for its lending and financial arm, Chrysler Financial. In 2011 he oversaw Chrysler Financial’s sale to TD Bank Group.

*Thomas Gilman in 2019. (Photo: Dept. of Commerce)*

Most of the public’s attention—and alarm—has focused on Project 2025’s intention to do away with NOAA.

Project 2025 does indeed intend to eliminate NOAA and states so quite explicitly at the outset of the chapter (page 674): “The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.”

But that is not where Project 2025 will have its most damaging impact.

Rather, it is the fact that Project 2025 views itself at war with what it calls “the climate change alarm industry” and sees NOAA as “a colossal operation” that is “harmful to future US prosperity.”

Throughout the document, Project 2025 proposals are clearly aimed at eliminating independent, science and data-based conclusions that investigate, measure or confirm climate change. Instead it seeks to ensure that government conclusions come into line with administration policy rather than scientific evidence.

Project 2025 holds that NOAA, as a main driver of the “climate change alarm industry,” has a “mission emphasis on prediction and management [that] seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable. That is not to say NOAA is useless, but its current organization corrupts its useful functions.”

But more than just eliminating NOAA, Project 2025 believes that science should bend to policy.

A key recommendation is that a new administration should: “Ensure Appointees Agree with Administration Aims. Scientific agencies like NOAA are vulnerable to obstructionism of an Administration’s aims if political appointees are not wholly in sync with Administration policy. Particular attention must be paid to appointments in this area.”

In another section it argues that NOAA’s office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research “is… the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism. The preponderance of its climate-change research should be disbanded.”

When it comes to the work of the National Hurricane Center and the National Environmental Satellite Service, Project 2025 admits that the offices “provide important public safety and business functions as well as academic functions,” but it argues that “Data collected by the department should be presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate.”

Project 2025’s organizational mandates

In addition to changing the entire focus, tenor and scientific independence of government climatological and meteorological efforts, Project 2025 recommends extensive organizational changes.

To understand these recommendations and their impact, it is helpful to be familiar with the current system.

NOAA consists of six main offices:

The National Weather Service (NWS);
The National Ocean Service (NOS);
Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR);
The National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS);
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS); and
The Office of Marine and Aviation Operations and NOAA Corps.

Ironically, it was Republican President Richard Nixon who in 1970 consolidated the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Weather Bureau and the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries into NOAA, which was made an office of the Commerce Department (although he wanted to make it a full-fledged Cabinet department). This occurred in the wake of 1969’s horrendous Hurricane Camille, which devastated the Louisiana Gulf coast and then—like Hurricane Helene—went north; ultimately dumping its accumulated moisture far from any coast in Nelson County, Va.

Since its creation, NOAA has evolved until it assumed its current form with different offices to deal with different aspects of weather, climate and technology.

Project 2025 sees this evolution in a negative light, especially from a budgetary standpoint.

“NOAA garners $6.5 billion of the department’s $12 billion annual operational budget and accounts for more than half of the department’s personnel in non-decadal Census years (2021 figures),” it notes. The offices, as noted previously, “form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future US prosperity. This industry’s mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable. That is not to say NOAA is useless, but its current organization corrupts its useful functions. It should be broken up and downsized.”

It continues: “NOAA today boasts that it is a provider of environmental information services, a provider of environmental stewardship services, and a leader in applied scientific research. Each of these functions could be provided commercially, likely at lower cost and higher quality.”

Project 2025 wants to make NWS (National Weather Service) a revenue-generating operation. It argues that since studies have found that consumer-oriented forecasts and warnings are better provided by local broadcasts and private companies like AccuWeather, NWS “should fully commercialize its forecasting operations”—i.e., charge for its products. This, it states, would bring in revenue, make it compete in a commercial weather marketplace and the profits could be invested in more research and data tailored to customers’ needs.

NWS would become a “performance-based organization,” which in management parlance means it would have measurable goals, set metrics and performance standards—i.e., it would take on the characteristics of a for-profit company rather than a scientific laboratory.

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) would be reduced since Project 2025 views much of its work as duplicative of the National Hurricane Center. All of its laboratories, undersea research and other research efforts “should be reviewed with an aim of consolidation and reduction of bloat.”

NOS (National Ocean Service) would have its functions transferred to the US Coast Guard and the US Geologic Survey. While Project 2025 doesn’t say so explicitly, this would presumably result in its disestablishment.

The Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, which provides the ships, planes, drones and other hardware used by NOAA agencies, including the famous Hurricane Hunters, “should be broken up and its assets reassigned to the General Services Administration or to other agencies.”

Analysis: Organizational changes

Project 2025 decimates the current structure of weather science and reporting by the US federal government—as it’s intended to do.

The end of the Hurricane Hunters?

*The men and women of the NOAA Hurricane Hunters with a P-3 Orion, one of their primary aircraft. (Photo: NOAA)*

Ever since a pilot flew his training aircraft directly into the eye of a hurricane on a bet in 1943, hurricane-hunting pilots and air personnel have been taking up the challenge of measuring storms.

Today they’re known as the Hurricane Hunters and they’re the stuff of legend: the best pilots in the world flying in the most dangerous and challenging weather, bringing back precious, life-saving data.

Project 2025 does not explicitly state that it would abolish the Hurricane Hunters. However, it would break up the NOAA air fleet and reassign its assets to other agencies, most notably the General Services Administration, which oversees the contracting, purchasing and management of the civilian federal government—i.e., science and meteorology is not its main mission.

This would be tantamount to ending the Hurricane Hunters. The whole structure of the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations is designed around the NOAA mission and operates according to its needs. To disperse this elaborate, intricate—and effective—organization, its people and its assets, which include aircraft, vessels, drones, other technologies and their support network, would for all intents and purposes destroy or at the very least disrupt a vast swath of American scientific capabilities when it comes to weather and climate.

And when it comes to hurricanes and dangerous storms, it would create a gaping hole in the public’s awareness and preparedness that could prove deadly just at the moment the nation needs it most.

Crippling research and ignoring the oceans

Project 2025 takes particular aim at oceanic research. OAR and NOS would be broken up and OAR likely eliminated altogether. This targeting appears to be caused by more than just the expense of maintaining these institutions—it is likely the result of oceanic research being a major source of data proving the existence of climate change

This would not only eliminate a vital source of research about the state of the oceans in general, it would also likely eliminate data of critical use to the US Navy, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine and mariners of all types. It would harm national security and impact attempts to enforce maritime borders and provide coastal protection to say nothing of private boating safety.

For-profit weather

It is in Project 2025’s intention to turn the National Weather Service into a for-profit entity that everyday Americans who turn to their television stations and apps for weather information would be impacted.

Accurate, useful government-provided weather data accessible to all Americans is essentially something people have purchased with the tax dollars they pay to the federal government. Suddenly demanding payment for this data would be a form of robbery, taking from them vital information that they already purchased with their taxes.

Free access to government-gathered weather data has also made possible a robust industry of repackaging, interpreting and disseminating that data. It’s behind every weather broadcast and specialized media like the Weather Channel as well as countless apps, blogs and individual weather efforts.

All of this would now be jeopardized as the US government sold its products to the highest bidder.

That sale, or auction, would likely put government weather data in the hands of a few extremely wealthy corporations or individuals—like Elon Musk—who could then repackage it, resell it or withhold it at will. It would destroy the credibility of government-collected weather data and potentially give rise to warped or distorted reporting in the service of private political or commercial aims rather than objective reality.

It would also put a cost on weather data whose price could then be manipulated by the individuals or corporations that owned it. Further, it would create a fragmented and unequal view of the state of the weather and climate, reducing the credibility and reliability of information on which every human being on the planet depends.

Whatever husk of NWS that would remain after its dismantlement by Project 2025 would have to have profit goals, not scientific aims or objectives, as its priority. That would result in a warping and distortion of NWS’ critical, primary mission pursuing realistic, objective science, which it might no longer be able to meet.

Analysis: Climate change denial and the Florida model

Bryan Koon, Florida’s Emergency Management Director, tries to respond to state senators’ questions without mentioning the term “climate change” in a 2015 exchange. Then-Gov. Rick Scott had informally forbidden use of the term in state government. The entire discussion can be seen in a 2-minute, 12-second video on YouTube. (Image: Fox13)

At the core of Project 2025’s goals in re-engineering American meteorology is the intention to deny the reality of climate change.

In this, Americans can see a preview of a Project 2025’s end result in the state of Florida.

Over and over again, as concern over climate change rose nationally and its consequences impacted the state with increasing severity, Florida officials responded with increasingly vehement denialism.

In 2015 then-Gov. Rick Scott (R) informally banned use of the term in state government.

His successor, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), initially reversed much of Scott’s anti-environmentalism. However, when DeSantis began a run for the presidency in 2023 on an “anti-woke,” anti-Green New Deal platform, he fully embraced climate denialism.

Ultimately, the state legislature, seeking to curry favor with DeSantis and add to their own denialist credentials, officially banned use of the term in official state documents. In March 2024 the legislature passed House Bill 1645, which struck the term “climate change” from Florida law and official documents.

“Radical green zealots want to impose their climate agenda on people through restrictions, regulations, and taxes,” DeSantis stated at the time he signed the bill.

All of this official denialism did absolutely nothing to stop the onslaught of climate-change induced weather, disasters and challenges. (As this is written, Hurricane Milton is advancing on the Florida peninsula as a Category 5 hurricane, immediately following the ravages of Hurricane Helene.) In fact, official state climate denialism has impeded local efforts to prepare and reverse the effects of climate change in communities’ own front yards, as can be seen in flooding, storms, eroding beaches and wild, unpredictable weather over a fragile and vulnerable landmass.

As DeSantis wanted to “make America Florida” as he put it in his campaign slogan, so Project 2025 would make climate denialism a pillar of American policy. Project 2025 views efforts to respond, reduce or resist climate change as “the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable.”

When added together, it is clear that Project 2025 seeks to alter or censor government climatological and meteorological science and research in order to deny climate change. NOAA agencies would not be following the data and drawing conclusions from it; they would be following administration directives and tailoring their findings to accommodate political policy.

This should not be surprising given former President Donald Trump’s past dismissal of climate change as a “hoax,” his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords or his effort to alter the cone of a hurricane with a Sharpie. Nor should it be surprising given that Gilman, the chapter’s author, spent 40 years working in the fossil fuel automotive industry.

Project 2025 would leave the United States naked, vulnerable and at the mercy of climate change, without the research, resources or will to meet its challenges.

And that would result in countless devastated communities and potentially millions of dead Americans.

Science in service to the nation—or not

Since colonial days Americans have been concerned with weather. As a nation of farmers, they were at its mercy and they needed some way to predict its patterns.

Two of America’s founders were, in a way, weathermen. Benjamin Franklin provided long-range forecasts that farmers used for planting in his Poor Richard’s Almanack, a very popular bestselling annual book. Thomas Jefferson, a planter, regularly took weather measurements and recorded them. On July 4, 1776 he noted that the temperature in Philadelphia reached a high of 76 degrees Fahrenheit.

In 1870, seeking to create a national weather measuring system and communicate it by telegraph, Congress created a weather office in the US Army’s Signal Division “for the Benefit of Commerce.” In 1890, following a presidential request, Congress transferred weather reporting responsibilities to a civilian US Weather Bureau in the Department of Agriculture.

Ever since then the United States government has invested in and steadily expanded meteorological and climatological research and technology. The fruits of that steady, sometimes painful, 154-year investment and effort have resulted in the most scientifically advanced, accurate, and capable weather and climate establishment in the world.

The federal government has also organized and refined its weather and climate offices to reflect changing conditions and improve their capabilities.

And throughout this period, just as the weather and climate affected everyone in the territory of the United States, so the US government freely shared its findings and results with all its citizens and the world.

Today people ordinarily think of weather forecasting in personal terms: Will it rain tomorrow? Should I bring an umbrella? Or, more importantly: Where will the storm hit?

But beyond just tomorrow’s predictions, increasingly accurate and sophisticated weather reporting and forecasting has been an incalculably powerful force multiplier for the American military, which can plan operations around it. It has enabled American agriculture to become the most productive in the world. It has made transportation more efficient and it is absolutely essential for air travel and the movement of goods by all modalities. It has, as the first weather office intended, benefited commerce.

The products of American meteorological prowess are everywhere and pervasive. As a rising tide lifts all boats, weather awareness and knowledge benefits all recipients.

Government meteorological efforts have protected Americans from the ravages of the most extreme weather. They have helped to make cities more resilient and enabled planning, whether in agriculture, construction or trade. Indeed, entire commodities markets depend on weather information provided by government research and monitoring.

Right now America is in a crisis as the climate alters due to human influence.

One response is to adapt, take measures that build resilience and preparedness, try to slow global warming, and raise awareness so that every individual can make some small effort to protect and preserve human life on the planet.

The other response is to deny that climate change is happening, to outlaw mention of “climate change,” to twist science to meet preconceived notions, or to ignore it altogether. It’s a response as likely to be successful as the Inquisition’s attempt to stamp out the Copernican solar system by banning the books that explained it.

This is the approach of Project 2025, which puts it into detailed, specific bureaucratic recommendations. If implemented by a second Donald Trump administration, it would cripple science, make Americans vulnerable, destroy cities and accelerate the very processes it seeks to deny. It would also dismantle the greatest research and applied science endeavor in history, one that has been of incalculable benefit to the United States, its citizens and the rest of the world.

Just as they have a choice between two candidates and between democracy and dictatorship in this year’s elections, when they cast their votes, Americans have a choice between ignorance, denial and disaster or knowledge, realism and progress.

On that choice on every ballot hangs the fate of the federal government’s weather and climate enterprise—and arguably, the future of human life on this planet.

This is one of a series of examinations of the implications of Project 2025 for Southwest Florida and the nation. Other articles in the series are:

Project 2025 would end federal flood insurance, devastate Southwest Florida and coastal communities

Project 2025 remake of FEMA would hit communities hard after disasters

Project 2025 takes aim at education—and Collier County, Fla.

Liberty lives in light

As Hurricane Helene lashes Florida coast, Rep. Byron Donalds votes to close government, starve FEMA and Flood Insurance program

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart supported funding; Rep. Greg Steube, Sen. Rick Scott were absent

*Rep. Byron Donalds (Photo: Office of Rep. Byron Donalds)*

Sept. 26, 2024 by David Silverberg

As Hurricane Helene began her run through the Gulf of Mexico, striking Southwest Florida and headed toward what is expected to be a devastating landfall in the Big Bend region, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) voted against the major bill keeping the federal government functioning and providing funds for flood and disaster assistance.

The Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025 (House Resolution 9747) passed the House of Representatives yesterday, Sept. 25, by a vote of 341 to 82.

Immediately afterward, the Senate also approved the bill by a vote of 78 to 18.

The bill, having been passed by both the House and Senate, now goes to President Biden for signature.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) was absent for the Senate vote. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) voted for it.

The bill funds government operations through Dec. 20 and prevents a government shutdown on Oct. 1, the beginning of the 2025 federal fiscal year.

Of Southwest Florida’s two other congressional representatives, Rep. Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.) was absent. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.) voted for the bill.

While all 82 nay votes were from Republicans, 132 Republicans supported the bill as did 209 Democrats. No Democrats voted against it.

As part of its appropriations, the bill authorizes funding for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to spend money from its Disaster Relief Fund as quickly as necessary to aid Americans in distress.

Both the NFIP and FEMA will be playing major roles in assisting Floridians and coastal communities in coming days as Hurricane Helene, which is expected to be a Category 4 storm when it makes landfall, pounds Florida’s coast.

President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for 41 of Florida’s 67 counties on Tuesday, Sept. 24, making them eligible for federal aid and picking up the tab for 75 percent of response and recovery expenses.

Donalds, who has kept up a steady and vigorous drumbeat of attacks on Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris (D) on the X Internet platform and in media interviews favoring Donald Trump, had not posted any explanation or commentary on his vote as of this writing. Prior to Biden’s emergency declaration, he joined the rest of the Florida congressional delegation in calling for such a declaration.

Liberty lives in light

Project 2025 remake of FEMA would hit communities hard after disasters

Southwest Florida would face fiscal blow after nature’s damage

*A victim of Hurricane Ian in Venice, Fla., hugs a federal officer in gratitude for his help as part of the national response after the storm in 2022. (Photo: CBP/ Glenn Fawcett)*

Aug. 1, 2024 by David Silverberg

Updated Aug. 2.

While the head of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has departed, the ideas his Project proposes for completely remaking the federal government remain and could be implemented if Donald Trump is elected president a second time.

These changes would directly affect Southwest Florida in the event of a disaster like a hurricane—and one may be on the way as this is written. Today, Aug. 1, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) declared a state of emergency in 54 of Florida’s 67 counties in anticipation of a storm coming from the Caribbean Sea.

Among Project 2025’s proposals are changes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which would impose new and heavily burdensome costs on local governments and reduce federal support.

Changes at Project 2025

Project 2025 is a sweeping, 887-page tome of recommendations for presidential and legislative changes to be made under a conservative president, in this case, upon the election of Donald Trump. It is authored by the conservative, Washington, DC-based Heritage Foundation think-tank. The proposals were accompanied by a drive that included recruitment of personnel, training for those people and a 180-day Playbook for immediate implementation should there be a change of administrations.

As people become familiar with its contents, it is increasingly a target for Democrats and critics alarmed by its radical proposals.

Although Trump campaign operatives repeatedly called on the Heritage Foundation to stop promoting Project 2025 as part of the campaign, the Heritage Foundation did not do so, leading to a rift between the camps.

On Tuesday, July 30, Paul Dans, head of Project 2025 stepped down from his position under pressure from Trump and his campaign.

“Friends and patriots: to every thing there is a season. We completed what we set out to do, which was to create a unified conservative vision, bringing together over 110 leading organizations united behind the cause of deconstructing the administrative state,” Dans wrote in an email to Heritage and Project 2025 staff.

“This tool was built for any administration dedicated to conservative ideals to utilize. The work of the project was due to wrap with the nominating conventions of the political parties. Our work is presently winding down, and I planned later in August to leave Heritage. Electoral season is upon us, and I want to direct all my efforts to winning bigly,” Dans wrote.

Despite Dans’ departure, the work of Project 2025 is expected to continue, as confirmed by Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation.

“Project 2025 will continue our efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels—federal, state, and local,” Roberts stated in an X posting.

While Trump has denied and dismissed Project 2025, much of it was written by former officials in his administration and it is endorsed by Sen. James David “JD” Vance (R-Ohio), his vice presidential running mate. Vance wrote the foreword to an upcoming book written by Roberts based on Project 2025.

Moreover, if Trump is elected, his army of loyalists, enablers and aspirants will no doubt use Project 2025 as their policy roadmap regardless of what he says—and therein lies its potential impact on Southwest Florida.

Targeting FEMA

If changes proposed by Project 2025 are made to FEMA, Southwest Florida cities and towns would incur a far heavier financial burden for disaster preparedness, response and recovery than at present.

The proposals would especially impact this region vulnerable to hurricanes, algal blooms, wildfires and other natural disasters. This is especially relevant in the midst of what is expected to be a very active hurricane season.

Under Project 2025’s proposals, Southwest Florida communities—and all American communities—would have to bear a far larger proportion of the expense of a disaster or meet deductibles, as in the private insurance market.

Lee County communities just went through the trauma and uncertainty of retaining a discount for flood insurance, which if lost would have been extremely costly to local homeowners. The Project 2025 proposals would be similarly costly to local governments, which would have to pass on the costs to residents in new taxes to provide the funding for recovery.

A quick primer on the current system

To fully understand the impact and nature of Project 2025’s proposals, it helps to be familiar with the existing FEMA system of disaster response and support for individuals and communities.

The current FEMA system is fundamentally based on the belief that the American government has a duty to assist its citizens and communities when disasters occur that are beyond their immediate ability to handle. While it regards this as an integral role for the federal government, it relies on states and localities to first respond to the degree they can before relying on federal help.

The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act is the law that defines and determines what officially constitutes a disaster. It also sets out the authorities and responsibilities of different federal agencies in responding to disasters.

The law was first passed by Congress as the Disaster Relief Act of 1974 and then substantially amended by then-Sen. Robert Stafford of Vermont in 1988. It has been amended further as definitions were refined and different forms of disaster added.

(Of relevance to Southwest Florida has been the effort, started under then-Rep. Francis Rooney in June 2019, to include harmful algal blooms as officially designated disasters. Rooney’s successor, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), although reintroducing the bill as the Combat Harmful Algal Blooms Act (HR 1008), has not pursued it with any effort during his time in office.)

When a disaster strikes, state and local officials determine if they need federal assistance. If they do, they put in a request for aid and the President (actually, FEMA and the Office of the President) approves the request and makes a disaster or emergency declaration. A major disaster declaration allows a wide variety of assistance, while an emergency declaration provides federal supplements for local efforts, for example to stave off a worse disaster or protect property and public health.

There are three types of federal assistance:

Individual Assistance helps individual survivors with immediate needs like shelter and repairs.

Public Assistance is a government-to-government program. It provides federal grants to state, local, tribal and territorial governments. It helps with a wide variety of activities like restoring public infrastructure and providing life-saving emergency protection.

Hazard Mitigation helps with the rebuilding of communities to be stronger, more resilient and prepared for future hazards.

Of great importance to Southwest Florida is federal assistance for debris removal, which has been a major expense for all communities hit by hurricanes.

After the immediate response, FEMA aids communities with their rebuilding and recovery. This is guided by the National Disaster Recovery Framework.

The Lee County experience

The impact and importance of federal support can be seen in Lee County in the aftermath of 2022’s Hurricane Ian.

The Lee County government put the estimated cost of Hurricane Ian in the county at $297.3 million. Over half of this was for debris removal, whose cost came to $156.3 million.

According to Lee County, FEMA approved $477.7 million in Individual Assistance. That included $299 million for repair and replacement assistance and $6 million in rental assistance for 23,704 households. Moreover, 775 households were approved for direct housing assistance.

When it came to Public Assistance, Lee County received $293.9 million in funding. This aided in repairing the Fort Myers Beach Water Reclamation Facility, lift stations for sewage flow, repairing the Lee County Sports Complex and Jet Blue Park, and the Bonita and Lover’s Key beaches.

Looking toward the future from 2023 when Lee County’s report was written, it was estimated that improving and rebuilding Lee County communities would cost $293.9 million, which would be covered under the FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.

These were substantial funds provided to Lee County by FEMA. They have made the rebuilding of communities like Fort Myers Beach possible at a much faster pace than would be otherwise possible.

Project 2025 would change that.

What Project 2025 would—or wouldn’t—do

The changes to FEMA are contained in the section of Project 2025 that covers homeland security, since FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

This section appears under the byline of Ken Cuccinelli.

Project 2025 observes that while FEMA is the lead agency for preparing and responding to disasters, “it is overtasked, overcompensates for the lack of state and local preparedness and response, and is regularly in deep debt.”

Project 2025 blames the Stafford Act for a shift in disaster response from the states and localities to the federal government and complains that FEMA is too “state-friendly.”

In particular, it takes aim at a “per capita indicator.” The indicator gives FEMA the authority to set a threshold below which states and localities are ineligible for public assistance, i.e., the level under which a community won’t get FEMA assistance if its damages are too small.

FEMA, argues Project 2025, sets the indicator so that most communities will get FEMA assistance.

What is more, it states, the indicator has “failed to maintain the pace of inflation and made it easy to meet disaster declaration thresholds. This combination has left FEMA unprepared in both readiness and funding for the truly catastrophic disasters in which its services are most needed.”

Project 2025’s solution is to make it tougher to get federal aid.

“FEMA should raise the threshold because the per capita indicator has not kept pace with inflation, and this over time has effectively lowered the threshold for public assistance and caused FEMA’s resources to be stretched perilously thin,” it states.

If the indicator can’t be raised there’s another option: “Alternatively, applying a deductible could accomplish a similar outcome while also incentivizing states to take a more proactive role in their own preparedness and response capabilities.”

“In addition, Congress should change the cost-share arrangement so that the federal government covers 25 percent of the costs for small disasters with the cost share reaching a maximum of 75 percent for truly catastrophic disasters.”

In other words, states and localities should bear the greatest financial burden for disaster preparation, response, recovery and resilience and that’s where Project 2025 would put it.

For Southwest Florida, this would be…well, in a word…a disaster.

The impact

Under Project 2025 communities already reeling under the devastation of a disaster would be hit with far higher costs and financial burdens for response and recovery than at present. They could look to FEMA for assistance but that assistance would be much lower and more grudging than at present.

FEMA would go from “state-friendly” to “state-stingy.”

Imagine Lee County in the wake of Hurricane Ian under Project 2025 guidelines.

Lee County would have had to bear the cost for most of the $297.3 million in damages from the hurricane. It would have been a staggering burden; in fact, it could have driven the county into bankruptcy—or at the very least the recovery would be even slower and more painful than at present. People would suffer longer. As it is, Lee County’s recovery has been agonizingly slow for some people. Under Project 2025, it wouldn’t recover for decades.

The other Project 2025 alternative, having communities pay deductibles, would be equally burdensome. At a time when their communities were flattened by hurricanes or tornadoes and digging out, towns and cities would be ineligible for aid at the very moment they need it most unless they met arbitrary deductible thresholds.

Lastly, imagine a system in which “small” disasters get only 25 percent in federal support. Was Hurricane Ian a “small” disaster or a “truly catastrophic disaster?” Anyone on the ground knew it was truly catastrophic—but in the full spectrum of disasters handled by FEMA it might not be considered such and so would not have gotten the support for a full recovery. Every new disaster would leave devastated populations wondering: was this “a truly catastrophic disaster” that will get federal help?

The evolution of caring

In 1927 President Calvin Coolidge included this in his annual message to Congress:

“The Government is not the insurer of its citizens against the hazard of the elements. We shall always have flood and drought, heat and cold, earthquake and wind, lightning and tidal wave, which are all too constant in their afflictions. The Government does not undertake to reimburse its citizens for loss and damage incurred under such circumstances. It is chargeable, however, with the rebuilding of public works and the humanitarian duty of relieving its citizens from distress.”

Coolidge was writing in the midst of a truly horrendous Mississippi River flood that devastated the states along its banks and displaced millions of people.

Throughout that disaster, which lasted over months, he refused to visit the site of the floods, wouldn’t request additional appropriations from Congress, wouldn’t make any appeals for voluntary donations and for all intents and purposes ignored the whole event.

It’s a response unthinkable today. But he was reflecting the attitudes of the time. People were on their own, he was saying, and so were their towns, counties and states.

That attitude changed with the Great Depression and the New Deal.

The Great Depression was a natural disaster only in that evoked natural feelings of panic and fear. But it was a disaster that overwhelmed people and even their best individual efforts had virtually no effect.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt altered the national attitude. For the first time the federal government felt an obligation to aid its citizens in their times of need, when they couldn’t cope with a disaster with the tools at hand. (For a full history, see the author’s book, Masters of Disaster: The Political and Leadership Lessons of America’s Greatest Disasters, available on Amazon Kindle.)

More specifically, each natural disaster has led to greater federal involvement to help people crushed by overwhelming events.

In 1950, Congress passed the Federal Disaster Relief Act authorizing federal assistance if a governor requested help and the president approved by declaring a major disaster.

In 1968 the National Flood Insurance Act was signed into law to aid people afflicted with flooding (and which is another program that Project 2025 proposes ending. For more details see “Project 2025 would end federal flood insurance, devastate Southwest Florida and coastal communities.”)

In 1974, after tornadoes struck across 10 states resulting in six federal disaster declarations, Congress passed the Disaster Relief Act.

Then, in 1980, after Mount St. Helens erupted and blanketed parts of the West in volcanic ash, for the first time the federal government assumed 75 percent of the cost of the recovery.

The capstone was the 1988 passage of the Stafford Act, which has been updated since.

Commentary: Project 2025 makes Americans vulnerable again

Project 2025 is critical of FEMA from a banker’s perspective. It correctly points out that FEMA’s emergency fund sometimes gets low. In the Project’s view, that is because FEMA is overly generous to states and localities.

But when this last happened, in August 2023, it was because FEMA was handling multiple disasters including Hurricane Idalia—which especially hit Florida—and wildfires in Maui, Hawaii. As a result its funding had to be replenished by an emergency appropriation of tax dollars.

(It should also be noted that Southwest Florida’s congressman, Rep. Byron Donalds, has consistently voted against appropriations bills that would replenish FEMA funding.)

What the Project 2025 analysis neglects is that FEMA is not a bank. It does not operate a profit and loss balance sheet. It doesn’t charge interest.

FEMA’s mission is to “help people before, during and after disasters.” That means assisting them when they’re in need and usually at the worst times of their lives. It’s not a loan or a handout.

Federal disaster assistance is one of the greatest benefits of being an American citizen.

What’s more, it is what a citizen’s taxes buy. As has been said in these pages before, taxes are a two-way street. A citizen pays into the general pot but gets appropriate benefits as needed.

In this case people’s taxes buy them help when they need it as a result of a natural disaster.

There’s nothing wrong with that, nor is there anything wrong with replenishing FEMA’s emergency funds when there are so many disasters that those funds run low.

Lastly, as for FEMA failing to promote state and local preparedness and response, as Project 2025 charges, the Project’s authors might ask the city officials of Cape Coral, Bonita Springs, Fort Myers Beach and Lee County whether FEMA insists on local preparedness, readiness and resilient rebuilding.

Project 2025 wants to leave American citizens, states, territories, tribes, counties, cities and towns financially naked and vulnerable to natural disasters. It wants to go back to Calvin Coolidge’s cold indifference to Americans’ suffering and return to a time when there was no federal help of any kind.

Moreover, it wants to do this at a time when climate change is making disasters of all sorts more frequent, more intense, and more devastating—and there is no longer any reversing this, it is the new normal. The state of Florida may think it can eliminate climate change by banning mention of it in textbooks and official documents but that’s not the way reality works, as its current state of emergency demonstrates.

Project 2025 is correct in one assertion: FEMA is indeed “overtasked.” But far from gutting FEMA and its capacity to help Americans and their towns and cities, FEMA needs buttressing and support. It already has a big mission and that mission is only going to get bigger.

If Donald Trump is elected and Project 2025 implemented by his sycophants, enablers and loyalists, when it comes to disasters they won’t make America great again.

Instead, they’ll make it weaker, more vulnerable and more devastated— and they’ll do it in Southwest Florida just as much as they’ll do it everywhere else they can.

That is, unless the American people stop Project 2025 at the ballot box this November.

To subscribe to FEMA’s Daily Operations Briefing, click here. This free service provides a daily overview of American disasters, hazards and FEMA responses. (It’s especially informative during hurricane season.)

Liberty lives in light

Project 2025 would end federal flood insurance, devastate Southwest Florida and coastal communities

*Florida National Guardsmen evacuate flood victims in Arcadia, Fla., in the wake of Hurricane Ian on Oct. 3, 2022. (Photo: US Army/Spc. Samuel Herman)*

July 7, 2024 by David Silverberg

Project 2025, a blueprint for post-election decisionmaking in a second Donald Trump administration, is recommending termination of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

All of Southwest Florida and its residents rely extensively on NFIP for affordable insurance in the face of events like hurricanes, storm surge and flooding.

“The NFIP should be wound down and replaced with private insurance starting with the least risky areas currently identified by the program,” states Project 2025.

It’s a radical proposal that could have a devastating fiscal impact on Southwest Floridians.

A quick primer on Project 2025

Project 2025 is a sweeping, 887-page tome of recommendations for presidential and legislative changes to be made under a conservative president, in this case, upon the election of Donald Trump.

The Project is actually a continuation of an effort by the conservative, Washington, DC-based Heritage Foundation think-tank that began in 1981. Then, the Foundation published a book called Mandate for Leadership with conservative policy recommendations. These were largely adopted by President Ronald Reagan, who handed out the book at his first Cabinet meeting.

Since then, a Mandate has been published every four years.

Project 2025 is a continuation of the Mandate series, only broader, more comprehensive, more radical and entirely Trumpist. It has also expanded beyond just the book and policy recommendations to include recruitment of personnel, training for those people and a 180-day Playbook for immediate implementation should there be a change of administrations.

Because of the radical nature of its current recommendations and Trump’s avowed pursuit of retaliation, revenge and retribution, Project 2025 is getting much more attention than previous Mandates.

It is sweeping in that it includes a complete reorganization of the federal branch, installment of ideological loyalists in place of non-political civil servants and reorientation of government toward unchecked presidential rule.

A quick primer on the National Flood Insurance Program

In 1968 Congress passed the National Flood Insurance Act, spurred by losses in Florida and Louisiana caused by Hurricane Betsy and its storm surge. The bill was signed by President Lyndon Johnson and led to establishment of the NFIP to protect Americans from the financial hardships of flooding.

The program, which is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), takes three forms.

One is mapping flooding risk along rivers and coasts. By 2018, the fiftieth year of the program, NFIP had mapped all of the nation’s populated areas, or 1.1 million miles. Among other things, these maps help mortgage lenders determine flood insurance requirements.

A second goal is to mitigate risk by supporting local flood prevention and management measures. The program’s managers estimated this saves the country over $1.6 billion each year in flood losses.

The third pillar—and the one closest to everyday property owners in Southwest Florida and across the country—protects insurance policyholders from financial flood losses. In 2018, 5 million people held NFIP policies in 22,000 communities across the country.

Under NFIP, homeowners who meet its requirements can get flood insurance for most buildings and dwellings of all sorts, including condominiums, mobile homes on foundations, rental units and more. Policyholders are charged lower than market rates to make it affordable. Many commercial insurers don’t offer flood insurance and NFIP is the only option.

While homeowners are not required to purchase the insurance, some federally-backed mortgages require it if the building is in a Special Flood Hazard Area—places especially prone to flooding.

Given Florida’s susceptibility to storms, its flat terrain and its extensive coastline along the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, NFIP is crucial to protecting Floridians and making life affordable.

In Southwest Florida, the City of Naples and Everglades City joined NFIP in 1970. Charlotte County joined in 1971. Collier County followed in 1979. Lee County joined in 1984 when it did its first flood insurance study and created maps to establish flood zones and determine elevations. Today, there are 51,103 NFIP policyholders in Lee County (statistics are unavailable for Collier and Charlotte counties).

Participation in the program “is crucial for coastal communities such as Lee County because most standard homeowner’s insurance policies do not cover flood damage, and without access to NFIP coverage, property owners would have to bear the full financial burden of flood-related losses or pay higher premiums from private insurers,” states the Lee County website.

Project 2025 versus NFIP

Project 2025 has no use for NFIP.

In its chapter on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), it deals with FEMA and dismisses NFIP in a single paragraph on page 153:

“FEMA is also responsible for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), nearly all of which is issued by the federal government. Washington provides insurance at prices lower than the actuarially fair rate, thereby subsidizing flood insurance. Then, when flood costs exceed NFIP’s revenue, FEMA seeks taxpayer-funded bailouts. Current NFIP debt is $20.5 billion, and in 2017, Congress canceled $16 billion in debt when FEMA reached its borrowing authority limit. These subsidies and bailouts only encourage more development in flood zones, increasing the potential losses to both NFIP and the taxpayer. The NFIP should be wound down and replaced with private insurance starting with the least risky areas currently identified by the program.”

Project 2025 has numerous authors and, as Edwin Feulner, founder of the Heritage Foundation, is proud to point out in an afterword, it draws on the expertise of 360 experts and 50 organizations. The recommendation to terminate NFIP is under the byline of Ken Cuccinelli.

Cuccinelli has long been known as an ideological extremist. He ran for governor of Virginia in 2013, losing to Democrat Terry McAuliffe. He had a tempestuous tenure as Virginia’s attorney general from 2010 to 2014 where he denied climate change and fought research into it, even launching an investigation of a climate scientist whom he accused of fraud for his scientific conclusions. In this case, Cuccinelli was rebuffed by the Virginia Supreme Court.

He’s an anti-immigration hardliner who has advocated repeal of birthright citizenship. Under Trump he was appointed acting director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services directorate of DHS. However, his appointment was disputed and resulted in suspension of all his directives. At the same time he was appointed acting deputy secretary of DHS but this too was determined to be improper by the Government Accountability Office. He was the subject of whistleblower complaints for his decisions regarding handling DHS intelligence.

After Trump’s departure from office, Cuccinelli joined the Heritage Foundation as a visiting fellow and last year in Florida he launched the Never Back Down Political Action Committee on behalf of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid.

Analysis: A fiscal fiasco

Termination of NFIP would be as fiscally catastrophic for Southwest Florida as the worst, most destructive hurricane—in fact, much worse. It’s not enough that Florida is facing an insurance crisis anyway—this would dump yet another cascade of woe and expense on homeowners.

It would immediately impoverish existing homeowners who wouldn’t be able to afford commercial flood insurance—if companies even offered it. More than likely, most would have to leave the state for less expensive areas.

It would create two classes of Floridians: the uninsured and the ultra-rich. The uninsured would be wiped out every time there was a storm or flooding event because they would have no backstop or support. The ultra-rich, already paying high premiums for property insurance, would be the only ones able to afford what would be staggering flood premiums at commercial rates. Not even the merely wealthy would be able to keep up.

Flood insurance for Southwest Florida’s most flood-prone areas, its barrier islands like Gasparilla, Pine, Captiva and Sanibel, would be astronomical. Rates for property on larger islands like Estero and Marco would hardly be better.

This would come amidst the ravages of climate change, which is incontrovertibly causing more frequent and intense storms, greater storm surge, sea level rise, tidal inundation and more frequent flooding—and nowhere is this truer than in Florida, which is perhaps the most climatically vulnerable state in the union.

Lee County is already in a crisis because it failed to meet FEMA requirements for permitted rebuilding after Hurricane Ian and faced the loss of its discount under the Community Rating System. That’s a FEMA program providing discounts on flood insurance premiums to communities that exceed NFIP minimum requirements.

Without the discount, affected homeowners are looking at hikes of $300 to $500 in their insurance bills. Potential loss of the discount has caused distress, fear and anger among Lee County property owners and officials.

NOW IMAGINE THE COST IF THERE IS NO FEDERAL FLOOD INSURANCE AT ALL! THAT’S WHAT PROJECT 2025 IS PROPOSING.

This disaster wouldn’t just affect Southwest Florida: the end of NFIP would hit every community on every body of water that could flood: oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, even canals. Even places inland and as landlocked as South Dakota, Nebraska, Arizona and New Mexico would be affected.

In 2018 FEMA estimated that 13 million Americans lived in flood zones. However, that same year a study, “Estimates of present and future flood risk in the conterminous United States,” by seven scientists called the FEMA estimates too low. They put the number at 41 million. That has probably risen in the years since and is expected to rise even further in the years ahead.

The scientists also noted that “…It is evident that the absolute value of assets on the Floridian floodplain is also particularly high at $714 billion: Florida is thus a hotspot of flood exposure.”

Imagine over 40 million Americans stripped of access to affordable, government-backed flood insurance as Project 2025 envisions.

Project 2025 is scornful of NFIP’s “subsidies and bailouts” that “only encourage more development in flood zones, increasing the potential losses to both NFIP and the taxpayer.”

However, there’s another way of looking at this: NFIP policyholders are getting the benefit of the tax dollars that they paid to the US Treasury.

It always needs to be remembered that taxes aren’t a one-way street. The taxpayer puts money into the national treasury—but the taxpayer also gets benefits from the taxes he or she paid and those benefits take many different forms.

In this case, taxpayers living in flood zones get the benefit of their tax dollars in the form of subsidized federal flood insurance at lower than commercial rates. It isn’t a handout or a bailout; it’s a purchase made through taxes.

As for encouraging building in flood zones, as Lee County residents have discovered, FEMA is very strict and alert to building and construction in flood plains and communities participating in NFIP have to rigorously adhere to FEMA standards.

Rather than encouraging unregulated building, NFIP provides an incentive for communities and individuals to prepare for climate change, build resilience, strengthen homes and adhere to firm standards.

Commentary: The consequences of Project 2025

In the past, presidents and political parties didn’t rely out outside entities like Project 2025 for these kinds of sweeping proposals. Instead, they laid out their ideas for the entire electorate to see in the party platforms that they adopted through consensus and party input at their national political conventions.

In 2020 the Republican Party surrendered its political platform to Donald Trump, not bothering to adopt a set of proposals from Party members as it had in the past. Instead it stated that “the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.” It adjourned without adopting a new platform “until the 2024 Republican National Convention.”

In the absence of a Party platform, there is Project 2025 to provide the world with a roadmap of Republican intentions.

As alarm has spread over the Project’s recommendations, Trump has disavowed any knowledge or awareness of it.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” he posted on his Truth Social platform on July 5. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

However, as Edwin Feulner noted in his afterword to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation Mandates have had Trump’s attention since 2016. That one “earned significant attention from the Trump Administration, as Heritage had accumulated a backlog of conservative ideas that had been blocked by President Barack Obama and his team.”

Feulner continued: “Soon after President Donald Trump was sworn in, his Administration began to implement major parts of the 2016 Mandate. After his first year in office, the Administration had implemented 64 percent of its policy recommendations.”

Since it’s safe to say that Trump lies with every breath he takes, his protestations of ignorance of Project 2025 and its origins ring hollow. Furthermore, since his word is worthless, so is any pledge he makes not to implement Project 2025.

Even if Trump has not or will not read all 887 pages (hard to imagine him reading anything longer than an X posting!), his cultists will be looking to Project 2025 for guidance if he’s elected. In keeping with the Heritage plan, they’ll seek to implement its proposals in the first 180 days of his administration, many through executive action.

This article looks at just one small slice of Project 2025 that directly affects Southwest Florida. But if implemented as a whole, Project 2025 will be a disaster for all of America. Coupled with the total presidential immunity just granted by the Supreme Court, it will result in a radical reordering of the United States and American society. It’s a roadmap aimed at enabling a total dictatorship of unchecked power enforced by advanced technologies. Or as Winston Churchill put it when speaking of the Nazis, “all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”

The world knows America is at an inflection point. The battle is on between democracy and dictatorship. Project 2025 makes clear what’s at stake—for every Southwest Floridian and every American citizen.

This is the first in an occasional series of articles examining the implications of Project 2025 for Southwest Florida and the nation.

Liberty lives in light