Children are the true victims in DeSantis's education culture wars

The damage DeSantis will do as he runs for president by ginning up his fact his wilfully fact-free base will be incalculable, and most of that damage will be done to children.  

DeSantis doesn't have any ideas that will actually help people; see skyrocketing rents, insurance costs, and 1.1 million uninsured Floridians as examples of that; no, he is all grievance and culture wars, and many of those battles are being fought in Florida schools where children aren't just collateral damage they are the main victims.   

The attacks on LGBTQ children and the whitewashing of history are well documented, but we also have the mass banning of books, the canceling of plays, the dismantling of classroom libraries, and the attacks on the teaching profession, which will only ensure fewer people become teachers and now the state has all but ended the Youth Risk Behavioral Study, which gave the district important information on the well-being of the states children. That last one may save actual lives but is now just another casualty in the governor-made culture war. 

What do all of these things have in common? Children are being hurt, children are being hurt, and children are being hurt.

And again, for what? So a petty and selfish man can advance himself is what. 

Adults will be fine. Teachers will get other jobs, and some people may move; personally, I can vent by blogging, but children, what besides suffering are they able to do? Victims of a war they didn't start and definitely don't deserve.  

Ugh...

The Greene administration doesn't want to hear how bad its doing or hiw kids are doing for that matter

 Surveys survey my kingdom for a survey.

After a year of attacking LGBTQ kids, whitewashing history, banning books, canceling plays, and general malaise, you might think Greene and her administration might want to know how people think they are doing, but you would also be wrong.

Neither the teacher nor parent surveys ask a solitary question about Greene and the administration, not a one and speaking of surveys. 

So we have a survey that gives us some pretty upsetting/concerning news, and what do we do with it? Bury our heads in the same is what. Why would we want to learn about things that negatively affect our students when it's easier to blame CRT, DEI, or WTF? Okay, that last one isn't real, but seriously, WTF?

From News4Jax

 The Commissioner of Education sent a letter to the Duval Schools’ Superintendent, Dr. Diana Greene, “strongly urging” that the district end its participation in a CDC youth-risk behavior survey (YRBS).

The letter states, “The CDC survey asks leading questions phrased in a way that may actually introduce risky behaviors to students, prompting them to engage in potentially detrimental activities.”

It continues, “This letter serves to share my grave concerns with your continued participation in this survey, as such an inflammatory and sexualized survey is not in the best interest of Florida students.”

The district also received notice that the Florida Department of Health is terminating its contract with Duval County Public Schools for providing data collection and evaluation related to the YRBS.

https://www.news4jax.com/health/2023/02/10/duval-schools-youth-risk-behavior-survey-terminated-by-state/

This has nothing to do with the CDC and everything to do with Floirda's war against science and decency, and Greene shrugged her shoulders and said sure, we don't need to know if some kids are miserable or thinking about doing the unthinkable. 

The Florida department of health is run by an insane grifter who makes Ben Carson look normal.

There are to many articles about him to site, but if you are interested, here are a few.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/01/04/ladapo-surgoen-general-university-florida/

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/579031-joseph-ladapo-used-seriously-flawed-science-to-warn-against-vaccines-uf-faculty-peers-say/

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/desantis-surgeon-general-joseph-ladapo-spreading-covid-vaccine-misinfo-n1282191

No serious person should listen to him, so Greene or course asks how high he wants her to jump, and because of it, kids will pay the price. 

Actual picture of Greene at recent SB meeting 

    

Dr. Greene went all in with Moms for Liberty, and then they @#%$ on her!

Not to be that guy but why would a professional black woman think a bunch of day-drinking soccer moms with a superiority complex would ever have her back? Holy miscalculation Bat Man.

At the last school board meeting, insurrection Barbie, April Carnie, fighting back crocodile tears spoke about how so many teachers had reached out to her about what was happening in their classroom libraries and what a shame it was. Apparently completely unaware (sic) that it was her group Mom’s for Liberty that made it happen.

Then she implied it was a nefarious plot by the district to make Manny Diaz, and the state look bad. Oh sweetie, you are like the dog who caught the car. It wasn’t a plot, it wasn’t something nefarious, it was run of the mill every day, Greene administration incompetence. Nothing more, nothing left.

When the state put DCPS and all of public ed in its book hole, rather than reaching out, I am, sure as I am the sky is blue and puppies are cute, and getting clarification like 65 out of the other 67 districts did, they chose to keep digging, AS THEY AWAYS DO!!!!   

There are a lot of great things going on in the district, thousands of teachers working with tens of thousands of children, succeeding, often despite the state and district, but if there is one thing DCPS does better than any other district, it makes problems worse.

Enough of that. Greene sided with Moms for Liberty when they attacked teachers, marginalized LGBTQ children, endorsed the whitewashing of history, banned books, and canceled plays. She betrayed teachers, students, and education itself to run with the mean girls. When they said jump, Greene dutifully asked how high, and for all that fidelity, they just %@$# on her.

Watch the video here.

https://twitter.com/AGGancarski/status/1623487827538489344

ugh

Greene completes bungles book bans. It is worse than you know. (draft)

 If you thought all the classroom libraries being shuttered and books being banned was bad, put your trays in the upright position and buckle up because it is a lot worse than you know.

Jax Today reported what the other local districts are doing. In St. Johns county, they sent out a banned list of a few dozen books but left classroom libraries for the most part alone. In Clay county, they said, well, we have till July first, so we will take our time and figure it out. Um, JULY 1st!? Do you mean DCPS didn't have to do this during the school year? Do you mean DCPS has 6 months to figure it out?

What the everloving $#@$!!!!

Here is some more from Jax today,

Duval School Board member Darryl Willie says his third grade daughter came home one day after school recently and said she had a horrible day because they had to pack up their classroom books. “So I’m experiencing this just like other parents are,” Willie says. “I have a feeling it’s going to be detrimental to many of our kids. Where are we pulling books from? Some of our kids do not have access, and now we’re expecting them to do great on a test, but they don’t have text to read in a classroom.” 

https://jaxtoday.org/2023/02/07/most-florida-school-districts-arent-requiring-teachers-to-hide-schoolbooks-duval-is/

Gee Darryl, if only you knew somebody who could do something. Checks notes; what, he is on the school board? He could do something about it???? Oy vey, why is he there again? You know, I thought he was going to be terrible, but the reality is, he has been alright until @^%$ing now! Is up down, is black white, did D-Wilie forget he was one the school board?

Deep breaths, deep breaths.

Jax Today also reported in the last two weeks, the district's 51 media specialists, sigh, 51, had reviewed 2k books, with 1,598,000 books to go, which at this rate will take about 31 years. 

Let's review, DCPS, a district with a reading problem, only has 51 media specialists; how the beep does that make any sense? Greene chose to shutter classroom libraries during the school year when the district had over six months to figure it out; meaning they did not have to. SB member Darryl Willie is upset, but what can he do? It's not like he is on the school board, oh wait he %$@#ing is. And it will take almost 31 years at the rate we are going to review all of DCPS's books. 

We could and should be doing better. Our leadership has utterly failed us. 

The stunning cognitive dissonance of Florida education policies.

DeSantis has said teachers are encouraging elementary school-aged children to switch genders. May of his closest allies have been calling teachers pedophiles and groomers. The state legislature says the system is so beyond repair they must pass universal vouchers even for the children of millionaires too. The Republican party constantly attacks public education, calling these gov’ment schools and railing against their monopoly, which they don’t have, not even close. So, what does all this have in common? The Republican party has been in complete control of public education in Florida for going on 24 years. Not the unions, not Mrs. McGuiicuty at P.S. 109, but the republican party.     

Then think about this. There has always been homeschooling, and private schools and charter schools have been around for decades, long enough for over 700 of them to open, take public money, and close, leaving families and taxpayers in a lurch. If this hasn’t generated the competition they scream is necessary now to create innovation, I would say that ship has sailed.

The Republican party attacks, and marginalizes, blames, and lies about public education at every opportunity possible, and for what? It isn’t because they care about poor and minority children, that is for sure. Is it so millionaires can get vouchers to send their children to exclusive private schools where we could never send ours? Maybe because that’s what will happen when HB 1, the universal voucher bill, passes.

Is it to indoctrinate children in religious education? I mean #%$@ the first amendment because they think only the second amendment and then just part of it means anything. Probably because most voucher money goes to private schools that are allowed to openly discriminate against LGBTQ and disabled children.  

Is it because the unions are so mean? I am a union member, make that proud union member but let’s think about where they have gotten us. Florida is near the bottom of teacher salaries and school spending. Anybody under 15 years of experience can be fired for any and no reason at the end of the year, and my 13-year-old car with 140k miles is where. Attacking unions, which can’t strike in Florida, is punching down.   

How about because public education is dominated by women? Maybe, we know what they think about a woman’s bodily autonomy, and there is this.

Better cover your shoulders, ladies, and take whatever they want to give you and be thankful for it.

Why do they hate public education so much? I bet many of them couldn’t articulate why, using facts anyways.

Now there are problems in public education, that is certain, but after nearly 24 years of complete control, shouldn’t the republican party be responsible for them? Heck, they created most of them by starving schools or resources and saddling them with terrible leadership and poor programs. And instead of fixing those problems, their solution is to blame unions and throw all the babies out with the bathwater.

Things are about to get a lot worse. Lives are about to be ruined or hamstrung, and a I told you so, you all should have known, is the best we can hope for.   

It is past time to say "no more" to Ron DeSantis

 What state celebrates National Literacy Week by having all of its teachers cover or remove their books in the classroom library?

Sadly ironic.

What state has created a law that scares elected school boards and district leadership into acting like this book review policy is a normal occurrence in the US?

Very un-American.

What state is on track to take $2B out of public classrooms next year to give to parents who already send their children to private schools?

Most creative welfare program for the wealthy

What state filled the spot of the president of one of the most nationally recognized universities with a candidate with only college leadership experience of leading a private college smaller than our local Community College?

The beauty of hiring someone while skirting Florida's sunshine laws legally...

What state denied an AP Black History class?

Nothing says we do NOT support a rigorous college education than this...

What state moved the education commissioner from the state board of education to the president of the college, knowing that he lacks education credentials but is a big fan of the governor?

Always nice to see how many overpaid jobs a brown noser can get..

What state increased new teachers' pay last year by taking away the performance pay of veteran teachers?

Sound bites can get you far because people do not know the details...

What state offers signing bonuses to select new teachers who actually do not meet the regular requirements of the job?

If you pick a program that benefits the military or their families, you can get away with anything, regardless if it impacts the problem.

If you have not guessed, I'll give one final hint: Desantis is the state governor.

We are very fortunate to have all of the excellent teachers that we have. They are passionate about education and children to endure this continued disrespect from our state government.

Thank you to all of the teachers - public, charter, and private. You are teaching the leaders of our future.

At some point, people need to become more informed and say No. No, we are not going to defund public schools anymore. No, we will not listen to talk about public schools being woke and pushing CRT. No, we are not going raise new teacher wages without being fair to veteran teachers and be committed to bringing all of their salaries in line with market wages. No, we will not allow a work culture that burns teachers out by expecting too much to be done in their off time or for them to feel obligated to buy supplies. No, we will not entertain having more poorly trained armed guardians because we know where that will lead. No, we will not continue to fund any new charter schools - make them get creative and replace the struggling ones.

From Bush to Scott to Desantis, we have really done a lot of damage. It is time we said no, no more.

Duval closes classroom libraries 5 months early because of reasons.

It is a tragedy what DCPS is doing. Ripping books from teachers and students alike. The thing is, it didn’t have to happen the way it did. If DCPS would have just reached out to the state, they would have learned classroom libraries didn’t have to be cleared or cataloged till May 31^st when the school year is basically over, or maybe they did and all this chaos and consternation is by design.

Does it matter if Greene is a homophobe attacking the LGBTQ community or just going along with what she believes the state wants, too cowardly to stand up for some of our most vulnerable children? No, it doesn’t because the results are the same.

Does it matter if Greene thinks veteran teachers aren’t worth protecting or defending, or aren’t worth treating fairly, or if she just mindlessly went along with the state's scheme to cut their salaries to raise starting salaries? No, it doesn’t because the results are the same.       

Does it matter if Greene thinks the whitewashing of history or limiting how teachers can teach is a good thing or if she believes the governor walks on water and can do no wrong? No, because the result of kids not getting the education they deserve is the same.   

So at the end of the day does it matter if the Greene administration was just incompetent by purging classroom libraries 5 months before they needed to or just mean by purging classroom libraries 5 months before they needed to? No, because the result is the same, a district in chaos with rudderless leadership.

Friends, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

We could and should be doing better.

Mom's for Liberty wants to review teachers books, Get the %@$# out if here!

Mom's for Liberty  Fascism, in between blaming teachers for their favorite wine bar running out of zinfandel and calling them pedophiles and groomers, is volunteering to review teachers' classroom libraries. That's like the arsonist volunteering to pick up marshmallows on the way to your house fire.

Never have a group of bored women with too much time on their hands done so much damage to so many. Now they want to review teachers' books? @%#$ them.

From Media Matters,

“Parental rights” means strategically harassing public schools 

 Moms for Liberty, a nonprofit claiming to advocate for “parental rights,” appears to be using parents as pawns to advance a far-right agenda. 

The group — which has quickly gained substantial media attention, becoming a right-wing sweetheart and mainstream spectacle — has attempted to paint itself as a grassroots entity driven entirely by passionate parents. But in reality, it benefits from right-wing funding and ties to traditional Republican political figures. 

As issues related to parents, schools, and so-called “critical race theory” drive local organizing and elections, it is essential that media report on Moms for Liberty and similar groups with the appropriate context...

... Moms for Liberty presents itself as a grassroots effort led by parents, but in reality the organization is well-connected with a variety of Republican politicians and entities. 

The group’s most notable GOP affiliation comes from Christian Ziegler, vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party. Ziegler spoke to The Washington Post and praised Moms for Liberty, saying, “I have been trying for a dozen years to get 20- and 30-year-old females involved with the Republican Party, and it was a heavy lift to get that demographic. But now Moms for Liberty has done it for me.” 

He also said he expects Moms for Liberty’s members to, as the Post put it, “become foot soldiers” for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ reelection campaign. Ziegler served as a “media surrogate” on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and was once a Heritage Foundation congressional fellow. 

https://www.mediamatters.org/critical-race-theory/unmasking-moms-liberty

Great foot soldiers for DeSantis

Mom's for Liberty doesn't care about children or education, just their 15 minutes of fame and telling other parents what their children can and cannot learn. They are fascist foot soldiers looking to push an ethnocentric dogma on everyone else. When the story is written, they will be the villains; it is just unfortunate that thousands and thousands of students and teachers will have to suffer in the meantime.  

To learn more, click the link, https://newrepublic.com/article/166373/moms-liberty-schools-nightmare-midterms

Civil Rights icon Rodney Hurst disinvited from DCPS as black history month starts

 Rut ro, Jacksonville, we have a problem.

A few weeks back, I was told local National Honor Societies were being told to no longer invite professors who hadn't been vetted to speak to their members. 

https://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2023/01/dcps-is-creating-enemies-list-of.html

I thought, wow, that's bad, but there is so much bad going on it is hard to keep up. 

I included the note in a list I sent reporters about closing libraries and moved on. 

Later a reporter told me that the district had said professors weren't being disinvited. I replied it wouldn't surprise me that the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing in DCPS, but it reminded me of something I had seen about civil rights icon Rodney Hurst, and I reached out to him and asked if he had been disinvited and he told me.

 It happened. The teacher said the principal was "uneasy" with inviting me. He also said that he had been told his books about the Civil Rights movement were being removed from classroom libraries.

What the ever-loving beep, uneasy, with inviting him?

Let's talk about Rodney Hurst,

Taken from a DCPS page about him.

• In 1944, Rodney L. Hurst, Sr. was born. He grew up primarily in Jacksonville, Florida. Throughout his life, he frequently traveled between Jacksonville, Florida, and Aiken, South Carolina. His mother, Janelle "Jan" Saunders Wilson, and grandmother, Lizzie Foreman Williams, educated him. Mr. Hurst has a sister called Joan as well. He was a book writer and wrote multiple books in his lifetime. His most recent book, "Never Forget Who You Are: Conversations about Racism and Identity

• https://dcps.duvalschools.org/Page/31717

So he's not allowed to talk to DCPS kids because it makes adults uneasy, but DCPS cab include them in a page about African American icons?

That is the environment that DeSantis has created and Greene has exacerbated. Any lessons about civil rights and black history have become "uneasy". They don't want these topics taught with any validity because it makes adults feel uneasy, and parents, especially white parents, may have to answer some difficult questions we wouldn't want that would we ?(sic)

Some more about Rodney Hurst

From CRMVet.org

It was never about a hot dog and a Coke! (Narrative)

It never ceases to amaze me how selective our memories are when it comes to situations filled with embarrassment, shame, and hurt. We choose to forget turbulent times rather than learn from them, as if not talking about them will make them go away. Just as closing our eyes does not cause us to go blind, shutting our mouths does nothing to erase memories or make events disappear from history.

Unfortunately, many whites and Blacks in Jacksonville, Florida have yet to grasp that reality. They have rationalized away the days of racism and segregation while insisting they stay buried in the past. On the surface, "Let bygones be bygones," sounds plausible. But U.S. philosopher and poet George Santanyana (1863-1952) said those "who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." To paraphrase his words, those who do not learn about their past will assuredly repeat it.

The civil rights movement in the late fifties and early sixties is a history of brave and unselfish Black leaders fighting against racism and segregation, and for the equality of all people in the United States.

Most Black and White citizens of Selma, Birmingham, Memphis, and Atlanta are acutely familiar with the violent civil rights struggles that occurred in their cities. Though the struggles in those cities may be more familiar, Jacksonville was not immune to the same type of cruelties.

I share in my book, It Was Never About a Hotdog and a Coke:... a facet of Jacksonville's history very few are willing to discuss, let alone embrace. Although its darkness may give Jacksonville's reputation a black eye, the eye-opening details, when synthesized, provide a remarkable history worth telling.

As a member of the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP, what I submit to you are eyewitness accounts, including my own. Trust me when I say we fought social injustice in Jacksonville as earnestly as those on the national level.

At age eleven, I joined the Jacksonville Youth Council National Association of Colored People (NAACP) at the invitation of Rutledge Henry Pearson, the Youth Council's Advisor and my eighth grade American History class instructor. At age 15, I would become president of the Youth Council NAACP. By the hundreds, young Blacks in Jacksonville responded to the call of Mr. Pearson to fight racism and segregation through this extraordinary organization.

The Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP represented non-violent, church going, committed, and dignified young people determined to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem. They have held true to these values throughout their adult lives.

If segregation sought to remind Blacks of their perceived second-class citizenship in this country, then segregated lunch counters represented visible vestiges that served up daily insults. The time finally came when the Youth Council NAACP simply said, "enough is enough." Disregarding the personal physical peril, members of the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP made the decision to confront Jacksonville's segregated policies and its accompanying Jim Crow laws.

Scores of Black heroes who participated in sit-in demonstrations surfaced across the United States. For the most part, those participants came from the campuses of Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). However, in Jacksonville, most of the demonstrators came from Black high schools. The peaceful protests of teenagers who dared to challenge segregated white lunch counters is not a myth or an urban legend. Nor is the attack by more than 200 whites with baseball bats and ax handles on 34 Black NAACP Youth Council members on August 27, 1960.

Today's generation must understand the circumstances and the times that led to this racially explosive and violent day in Jacksonville's history.

https://www.crmvet.org/vet/hurstr.htm

Read that last sentence again. Today's generation must understand the circumstances and the times that led to this racially explosive and violent day in Jacksonville's history.

How will today's generation understand if they aren't allowed to learn what's happening? If people that were there aren't allowed to speak.

I don't know the principal who would have felt "uneasy" if Mr. Hurst was allowed to speak. Though I do know the environment that DeSantis and, to a lesser extent, Greene have created, and that's one of fear, which makes me believe they have learned nothing, and sadly they seem  all to determined that students don't learn anything either.  

To learn more about Axe Handle Sunday, something they didn't bother to teach when I was in school, click the link. 

https://www.jacksonvillemag.com/2020/07/01/a-look-back-at-1960s-sit-ins-and-axe-handle-saturday-with-rodney-hurst/

Florida says guns aren't the problem, diversity, equity and inclusion are (draft)

Florida's political leaders would have people belive guns are not the problem in Florida, but diversity, equity, and inclusion are.

Florida is just upside down, and there is no other way to see it. It’s become a fascist paradise where guns, the leading cause of childhood deaths, are celebrated, and diversity, equity, and inclusion, things we should all strive for, are demonized.

Monday, the Florida legislature announced plans for permitless carry, further establishing they only care about the second half of the second amendment, and this will undoubtedly cost people their lives.

From American progress:

•  A 2022 study found that right-to-carry laws increase firearm homicides by 13 percent and firearm violent crimes by 29 percent.⁷
• A 2019 study concluded that the adoption of right-to-carry laws were associated with a 13 percent to 15 percent increase in violent crime rates a decade after implementation.⁸
• A 2017 study found that laws were associated with a 10.6 percent higher handgun homicide rate.⁹
• A 2022 study found that states weakening concealed carry laws and allowing individuals convicted of violent misdemeanors to obtain a license to concealed carry was associated with a 24 percent increase in the rate of assaults with firearms.¹⁰ “In general, violent crime increased after states loosened concealed carry permitting requirements,” said lead author Mitchel Doucette. “Allowing more individuals to carry concealed guns in public—including some who would have previously been denied carry permits due to prior arrests or restraining orders—can increase inappropriate use of firearms in response to interpersonal conflicts, disputes, or other situations.”¹¹

 

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/fact-sheet-weakening-requirements-to-carry-a-concealed-firearm-increases-violent-crime/

 

All of that is dreadful, but let's look at the last one. Nikki Fried tweeted that in her last two years, 11 thousand gun licenses were rejected; well, they won’t be rejected anymore.

 

Then think about this, there were 3,041 gun deaths in Florida for the most recent year data was available. In Florida, that projects to an additional 304 deaths. 304 families shattered by gun violence. The Florida legislature has just entered us all into a death-by-gun lottery where the odds are better than winning the actual lottery.

 

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm

 

Okay, that would normally be enough but not for Florida where DeSantis has a rigid gin up his fact-free base and own the libs schedule because on Tuesday he went after higher ed and the “gasp” menaces of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Diversity: the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.

Equity: the quality of being fair and impartial.

Inclusion: the practice or policy of providing equal access to opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized, such as those who have physical or intellectual disabilities and members of other minority groups.

Gulp, how dare institutions of higher learning oh wait, checks notes, all of the above are signs of a healthy society?  Then what the heck is DeSantis doing? Gin up his fact-free base for personal gain? okay, cool, cool. cool.

Remember when DeSantis was asked to define Woke, and what he said sounded awesome?

“the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”

https://www.okayplayer.com/news/ron-desantis-woke-defintion.html

And he wants that to die?

From News4Jax:

 Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday took aim at diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs at Florida’s public universities, saying they are a drain on resources and impose an agenda on people.

Speaking at State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, DeSantis started by saying he wants to make sure that everybody that goes through a Florida university has to take “certain core course requirements, that’s really focused on giving them the foundation so that they can think for themselves and the core curriculum must be grounded in actual history, the actual philosophy that has shaped Western civilization,” though he wasn’t specific.

“We are also going to eliminate all DEI and [critical race theory] bureaucracies in the state of Florida, no funding and that will wither on the vine,” DeSantis went on to say. “And I think that that’s very important because it really serves as an ideological filter, a political filter.”

https://www.news4jax.com/news/florida/2023/01/31/live-gov-ron-desantis-holds-news-conference-with-state-universities-chancellor/

First, from what I understand, DEI initiatives and programs make up less than 1 percent of higher education budgets, and did you ever notice there is never an example? Never any evidence? These are just sweeping statements put together like fascist mad libs.

For somebody who complains about an ideological agenda, Emperor DeSantis, wait, he’s not emperor yet? DeSantis sure pushes a huge ideological agenda.

On a side note, at my school, we went through an hour-long equity training at our last early release day, with a promise of part two later in the year. Ssshh don't tell Desantis, or he will cancel pizza day or some other bat sh8t crazy thing.

This is the long and short of it, if republicans had policies people liked, and I get voters in Florida love them, but by and large, they don’t; people would like them, but they don't, and that drives them crazy, and all these culture wars aren’t going to help him. Sure, the crazy people will embrace it but non-crazy people, most people aren’t going to all of a sudden say, fascism sounds all right, Gilead, here I come.

Florida is the upside down of the United States; imagine thinking guns are good but fair and inclusive isn’t.