Just when you thought politics couldn’t possibly get more volatile, along comes Ron DeSantis. We did not, it turns out, hit rock bottom with Donald Trump.
Sadly, Trump was just the warm-up act for the GOP headliner: AN AMERICAN AUTOCRACY. Although the GOP is still holding auditions for lead singer, Ron DeSantis is a top contender, having handily made it to round three with his reedy tenor voice and growing MAGA fanbase. The GOP’s second fav seems to be faux dem Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose rock hard abs are reeling in the female vote, but whose gravelly vocals are no competition for the governor’s.
DeSantis’ hit tune, “Freedom,” touches on the laments of his privileged white male fans. His not-so-warm-and-fuzzy lyrics strike a chord with his diehards… “You are the chosen ones, the deciders, per my directives of course.” In this political/musical dystopia, DeSantis and his band get to decide what their constituents read, what they can study at the state’s universities and public schools and who has control over the bodies of women. They also use power chords to intimidate, laying down tracks on what the press can publish and say about them, where and under what circumstances people can protest, who has the final say in election results and which elected officials get to stay in office. There is also the presumption that their white maleness and superior guitar riffs afford them the right to determine who has access to healthcare, which parts of American history can be sung, spoken or written about and which groups of people are to be publicly acknowledged based on their sexual orientation. The DeSantis “freedom” refrain also extends to guns, which are now readily available to any and every citizen in Florida, drum roll please. No permit, training, clean bill of mental health or registration needed. Cue in the laser light show and first lady in cape and white gloves.
And now that Ron DeSantis is officially a presidential candidate and in his mind, the lead singer for the GOP, he is desperately seeking approval from a wider fanbase. To this end, DeSantis has done everything he can to demonstrate how exactly the American Autocracy could come about, using his transformed State of Florida as the backdrop in this tent revival, with wife and kids as the Van Trapp Family Backup Singers.
Should DeSantis be successful in securing the presidency in 2024, he will have halved the amount of time it took for Hitler to rise in his party, become Chancellor and then to flip Germany from a democracy to a dictatorship. Judging from current GOP rhetoric, Republicans would be busting their lederhosen from hypertensive pride were they to overthrow our democracy in this manner, especially in such a short span of time.
DeSantis is the man for the job. He has PROVEN he has the chops and can get the job done expeditiously, whatever the cost in lives and money. And then there’s that popular power move found in the DeSantis playbook… the governor is STEALTHY, repeatedly pushing through unpopular legislation under cover of darkness, timing his signing of bills in perfect synchronicity to major distractions in the news cycle, like the arraignment of a former president.
DeSantis, a well-educated man, knows exactly what constitutes an autocracy and what his role as dictator would entail. Come on folks… he graduated from Yale and Harvard, where classes in world history are standard fare. Combine DeSantis’ B.S. in History with his unbridled narcissism and sense of entitlement, throw in a cheerful plot adapted from the Sound of Music and what have you got? Fertile ground for an abundance of power grabs framed as his saving the country from “wokeness,” whatever the hell that is.
For now it’s Floridians who are losing basic constitutional rights, social services, education and medical professionals, agriculture and construction workers and protections from gun violence. In 2024 it will be the entire U.S.A., should DeSantis get elected. DeSantis has made his ambitions clear. Damn, he’s written a whole book about it: “The Courage to be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America’s Revival.”
If you haven’t kept up on all of DeSantis’ greatest hits, know this: he has vigorously reshaped Florida’s government to harmonize with his autocratic ideal in less than two years. And handily. Imagine him doing that to our entire country. In four years the curtains would close on democracy. Show over.
More heavy reading:
Ron DeSantis Is All In—On Creating An American Autocracy, Mother Jones
Ron DeSantis’s Orwellian Redefinition of Freedom, The Atlantic
What Bills Did DeSantis Sign as He Propelled Florida to the Right?, NY Times
Ron DeSantis Is a Man Of No Qualities, Esquire Magazine
Ron DeSantis Has a Jekyll and Hyde Persona, New York Times
Political Positions of Ron DeSantis, Wikipedia
Be sure to read our follow-up piece: “The DeSantis Carnage,” a comprehensive list of DeSantis’ atrocities with links to coverage by the local, state and national news organizations.