dissecting desantis
Ben Everidge for Thomas
story update: july 10, 2020
News headlines report that “Florida Emerges as World’s New Epicenter for COVID-19”
Cause suggested as Florida was last to impose stay-at-home orders and one of the first to re-open without meeting CDC recommended guidelines on re-opening standards
43 ICUs in Florida are reported at capacity, with no available beds
244,143 total COVID-19 cases to date - a Florida record
4,101 total COVID-19 deaths to date - a Florida record
7,000 daily hospitalizations this date - a Florida record
120 deaths in a single day this day - a Florida record
11,458 new cases reported July 4th - a Florida record
11,433 new cases reported today - a next-to-Florida record day
Governor DeSantis says, “There’s no need to be fearful”
story update: July 12, 2020
“Florida shatters single-day infection record with 15,300 new cases”
“The most by any state in a single day since the pandemic reached the United States”
The original story - Everything is Upside Down ….
In this first-term Governor’s Administration, everything seems upside down in the Sunshine State.
Florida’s troubled affairs can easily be illustrated by the embarrassing photo of Ron DeSantis wearing a face mask wrong side up as he conducted a press conference at the Urban League of Broward County in Ft. Lauderdale.
Wearing a face mask the wrong way, with one of the two elastic loops that go over one’s head rather than one’s ears dangling in front of you, would be comical under normal circumstances. Political fodder, if you will. A ready-made Saturday Night Live skit.
Except, these are not normal circumstances and are not a laughing matter. On the same day that the Governor struggled with his N95 face mask, Florida recorded its highest single-day COVID-19 tally, 1,413 new cases.
Real lives were and still are on the line in the third largest state in the Union as COVID-19 makes its deadly march through our neighborhoods like other communities around the nation. We are not unique, clearly, but 2,764 Floridians have died from this virus, while 65,992 have tested positive as of today.
DeSantis, 41, has a Harvard University law degree and earned his undergraduate degree from Yale University. He is a Naval Reserve officer and former member of Congress. You would expect better decisions from the state’s chief executive.
But Governor Ron DeSantis appears to have made his third perilous coronavirus decision this year alone. A lethal trifecta that cannot be explained away as political rookie miscalculations.
Stubborn refusal to close the beaches
Back in March, with the novel coronavirus spreading like wildfire and gripping the attention of nearly every American, with vigorous recommendations to social distance and limit group size to ten or less, Ron DeSantis ignored pleas from medical experts to close Florida’s beautiful beaches to college spring breakers.
Images of crowded Florida beaches during a global pandemic went viral, not surprisingly. Social distancing to abate the virus’ spread was the mantra of the day, but the Governor ignored it. Florida Man, the vexing meme, appeared to be thriving again, but only now was Governor DeSantis associated with the disparaging moniker.
It took DeSantis days to finally act on the health recommendation for which he was widely criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike. DeSantis took even longer to issue a stay-at-home executive order even though 30 states and the District of Columbia had previously done so. DeSantis explained that he was waiting to hear from the White House on whether he should keep people home. It is no accident that with statements like that, the critics refer to Governor DeSantis as a “mini-Trump.”
Hid the scope of the virus
Once the Governor issued the stay-at-home order, he withheld COVID-19 case information from the public to dampen Floridians’ concerns about the virus’s scope and danger. Various state news organizations are investigating the state’s alleged under-reporting.
DeSantis also exempted several Florida enterprises from the closure order, including, laughingly, World Wrestling Entertainment, the WWE, which he declared an “essential service” on April 15th.
Rather than wait out the new case trendline recommended by the Centers for Disease Control in Washington, DeSantis re-opened the state prematurely, according to those same health experts who had to browbeat the Governor into acting to mitigate the state virus rise in the first place. DeSantis sat in the Oval with Donald Trump. Despite evidence to the contrary, they ill-advisedly played up to the President’s need to put the pandemic off news pages for re-election purposes.
Florida was needlessly still at risk.
Inviting a sizeable political convention to Florida too soon
The Republican National Convention is coming to Jacksonville at the urging of the 46th Governor of Florida. Never mind that new COVID-19 cases at 1,698 were alarmingly higher on June 10th than its previous high-water mark of 1,413 new cases on April 17th.
Source: The New York Times
In other words, Florida is trending up on new cases, not down, when managing the deadly disease. The governor has been explaining this rising trend away by claiming that Florida is doing more testing, thus increasing the number of new cases.
This defense of the recent rise in new cases ignores the simple fact that there are many new cases every day in Florida. Not fewer. Whether you test more or not, the virus is still in alarmingly high numbers.
Compounding the Florida nightmare with COVID-19 is the poor response time of the state’s re-employment assistance program, which has been sloth-like since the pandemic's onset. Floridians waited far too many weeks for their unemployment checks and federal assistance supplement, and the system, which has a $77 million software program powering it, has been a disaster operating. The DeSantas gang blames former Governor Rick Scott for purchasing the lemon. However, a year after problems were noted about the system’s failings, fixing the program was on Governor DeSantis’ watch.
The question is: How many Floridians will blame Ron DeSantis for the network's poor administration and oversight when it comes time to vote again in 2022?
Strengths
With all of this said, DeSantis’ strengths in Florida are:
His Bronze Star military service in the Middle East in a state that has some 1.5 million veterans and active duty living in Florida
An Ivy League education that should promote more excellent analysis and evaluation of policy options and innovations
Political support from the President and the Republican Party that saved him in his primary against Agriculture Commission Adam Putnam and the general election against Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum
Weaknesses
The Governor’s weaknesses are equally evident:
DeSantis is too closely identified with Donald Trump. He is derisively referred to as “mini-Trump,” and his mannerisms have an uncanny resemblance to the President, who is currently losing popularity in the state by the day
The Governor barely won the election. His margin of victory was razor-thin, and there was an automatic recount that took a while to determine that DeSantis was elected
The state’s Republican Party registration has fallen behind Democrats by 4.86 million to 5.18 million, respectively. Independents are even closing the gap with Republicans 3.56 million to 4.86 million voters
The coronavirus response by the Governor and his team has been confusing, slow, and needlessly dangerous, with it appearing that the Florida chief executive is taking his orders from the White House and not on his own accord
Having re-opened the state after the stay-at-home order, virus counts are spiking and may continue, especially if the Republican National Convention comes to Jacksonville as planned
Elderly Floridians have heard the Governor and his GOP speculate that it might be okay for older residents to die rather than be protected or treated for COVID-19 since they are at the end of their earning lives, for all practical purposes
The unemployment network fiasco to date
Conservative Florida firebrands like Rick Wilson, David Jolly, and Joe Scarborough are watching his every move and have had no hesitation in criticizing the governor-warranted
A promising start
Before the pandemic, Governor DeSantis had generally wowed voters of all persuasions. He surprised environmentalists by taking on a surge in Red Tide and Blue-Green Algae outbreaks, blaming the normally Republican-supported Big Sugar for the state’s challenges. He even created a Chief Scientist position for the state, a welcome relief from the previous Governor, now U.S. Senator Rick Scott, who denied climate change in all manner.
Social activists were also pleased that the Governor elected to pardon the Groveland Four, four men of color who were convicted 70 years earlier for a rape that evidence demonstrated they did not commit.
Three vacancies were filled by generally acceptable State Supreme Court appointments and appeared to coincide with DeSantis’ efforts to appear more bipartisan.
DeSantis had a highly active first year as Governor. His second year has been a self-inflicted disaster for the state thus far.
Will new virus cases continue to rise, or will they fall? Will hosting the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville in a few months make matters worse or not make a difference? Was re-opening Florida so soon a politically fatal decision for this young governor?
Stay tuned. This story is continuing to develop. DeSantis will be Governor for at least two-and-one-half more years.
Thomas Rank: D