If these were ethical times, the Florida governor presiding over a COVID-19 pandemic body count of almost 63,000 souls might be inclined to portray a measure of humility during the 2022 State of the State address.
But not Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
He’s no contrite public servant, perhaps not a servant of the people at all. Just a self-serving politico who continues to hand out COVID-mitigation resources — at first, vaccines, now a scarce new monoclonal antiviral drug to treat immunocompromised transplant patients — as if they were campaign trinkets.
DeSantis isn’t remorseful that the variant omicron is running wild in Florida, and public health experts are ringing alarm bells about the potential for chaos to erupt yet again in hospitals and schools, to name two of the many institutions already burdened by uncontrolled COVID-19 infections.
Behold the number of new cases, from Dec. 28 to Jan. 10 alone: 822,903 in Florida. That’s almost a million people in less than two weeks, folks. And that’s not counting people taking at-home COVID tests — and not reporting their positive results to the Florida Department of Health.
Yet, this was the message of the day from DeSantis in Tallahassee:
“We were right,” DeSantis asserted before lawmakers Tuesday referring to his COVID-19 mismanagement strategy, “and they were wrong.”
“They” being the federal government under President Joe Biden, of course, because the original White House mishandler of COVID remains the convenient, revered caudillo for whom even true conservative Republicanism is abandoned.
The partisan dig first; the people’s business second — or never.
No, under DeSantis — or, “Gov. DeInsanity,” one of his more recently acquired nicknames, given the level of official quackery he has brought to the pandemic — the state of on-and-off contagion could stay with us for years to come.
Without proper mitigation to rein in the spread, different mutations of the virus will always find fertile ground among the unmasked, the wrongly masked, and the anti-vaxxers in Florida. And among the risk-takers vaccinated, too, as the COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t prevent infection from the omicron variant, only reduces the chances and the need for hospitalization from severe illness.
Very Darwinian of DeSantis to allow unbridled contamination by insisting on keeping schools open no matter what and by forbidding local governments and businesses in cities like that of epicenter Miami-Dade County from establishing rules more appropriate to urban settings.
But DeSantis knows that people with financial resources can take care of themselves. And take care of him — with donations. Behold the $67 million reelection war chest. And he can take care of them, assigning rich and red areas first dibs on resources while the rest of the population, including Latinos and African Americans of modest means, struggle with the basics and suffer through illness and death.
The governor can spin such a good narrative — and take all the credit for a booming economy — that he’s extremely popular, even with the minority groups he’s shortchanging. He just sounds the freedom bell, and they show up, giving him high poll ratings and the promise of their vote.
“While so many around the country have consigned the people’s rights to the graveyard, Florida has stood as freedom’s vanguard,” DeSantis said, proud as a Coconut Grove peacock. “Florida has become the escape hatch for those chafing under authoritarian, arbitrary and seemingly never-ending mandates and restrictions.”
Yet, governors don’t come more authoritarian than DeSantis, who has abandoned small- government principles to place his own mandates on vital issues like how businesses must run their shops during COVID-19. Unsafely, of course, in promotion of his and his surgeon general’s debunked herd-immunity theory.
Freedom only applies to what DeSantis wants to promote: the freedom to infect others by not wearing masks; the freedom to remain ignorant of history — or at least some of it.
But his definition of freedom doesn’t apply those who beg to differ. That’s why a civic activist who wanted to be heard was arrested in advance of a DeSantis press conference last week. That’s why the governor decides what our children are supposed to learn — nothing critical of the ingrained prejudice exhibited by people like him. And, coming up this legislative session, dictating procedures doctors can offer a woman in a time of need.
And, lawmakers, follow the leader like papagallos — good little parrots — or else!
“The freest state,” the governor called us, arrogance at the ready.
Free to kill ourselves — and others while we’re at it?
Yep, that’s who we are.
That’s what Florida has become under Ron DeSantis’ leadership, and will continue to be — faux free — well into 2022.
———
