05-02-2022, 10:07 AM
(05-01-2022, 11:49 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(05-01-2022, 03:52 PM)David Horn Wrote:(04-30-2022, 03:06 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: In many people's minds Ron DeSantis is so scary that he has been given the nickname DeSatan.
That's good! DeSantis, unlike his "mentor", has the wherewithal to actually do serious harm. Here's the question: is that his intent? I tend to see him as an autocrat in performance clothing. Is that a benefit to him personally or not? It's hard to see it helping him do anything but play his base like a fiddle or fail miserably trying to do something substantive.
DeSatin's score is only 12-10. He may be able to get away with a lot in Florida, but he won't be elected president unless the Democrats nominate Harris, Booker, Klobuchar, Buttigieg, or some other loser (among all of the many failed 2020 Democratic candidates, only Bernie could beat him, IF nominated, and he's getting too old).
He has ordered a cover up deaths from COVID-19 plague in his state on behalf of the tourist trade in Florida, which is criminal. Figuring that COVID-19 kills like a shooting war, I can state that encouraging people with no business going to a war zone for hedonistic purposes is callous contempt of human life.
Florida's politics seem to give complete power to either Party if it has even a bare majority, and the current Florida GOP is able to win statewide reliably in shaky elections. Florida has not been close to the national average by a narrow margin since 2000; it has consistently been "lean R". If one Party is effectively locked out of statewide elections and the winning Party acts in lockstep, then almost any graft or corruption is possible. There is no democracy within the Republican Party, which has been its strength in acting decisively on every possible issue. The weakness is that when things fall apart, everything can fall apart. These GOP ended up in lockstep on the Capitol Putsch because it could not abandon its rogues as healthy communities must.
COVID-19 and the Capitol Putsch may constitute the Crisis this time in America. It will test whether some modes of thought and personal practices collapse or get entrenched. If things go well in this Crisis then we will have major reforms, including Constitutional amendments. One obvious candidate will be a "sore loser" amendment that removes the incumbent lame-duck President should he dispute the election after it is litigated for the remainder of his current Presidency. I doubt that we want the President having the Armed Forces under his command deciding the election on his behalf. (The Joint Chiefs of Staff made clear that Trump lost and that he would have no support after his term of office ended).
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.