Republican Stupidity

Someone — maybe Churchill? — is rumored to have said Americans always do the right thing, eventually, after exhausting all other possibilities first. America’s Wang has a different M.O.; Florida always does the wrong thing, then does the wrong thing again and then gets buyer’s remorse when it’s too late to mitigate the damage. Exhibit A, from Florida Politics:

New Florida polling shows Ron DeSantis out of favor with voters in the state, a stunning shift in the year since his successful re-election.

The Cygnal poll of 800 likely General Election voters, reported first by Florida Politics, reveals the Florida Governor is at 50% disapproval against 47% approval.

Though 85% of Republican registrants and 87% of those who voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election still regard the Governor favorably in the poll conducted Nov. 11 — 13, other sub-groups have soured on DeSantis early in his second term.

Well, I’m glad those chuckle-fuck independents and assorted others finally got smacked upside the head with a clue-by-four and caught up with the 50% of Democrats in the state who bothered to show up to vote in 2022. But it’s too goddamn late now.

Unless Trump chokes on a Filet-O-Fish, we’re stuck with Hinky Boots as governor until 2000-and-fucking-26. Just imagine the havoc he can wreak in that interval. Oh wait, we don’t have to imagine it. Here’s a progress report on a DeSantis hire from Politico:

‘This guy is a charlatan’: University of Florida turns against Joe Ladapo
Colleagues say the state surgeon general rarely is on campus and has “sullied” the reputation of the flagship school.

Ya think? Your humble correspondent/Florida grad figured that shit out long before DeSantis hired Ladapo and UF gave him tenure, i.e., when the crackpot physician stood alongside the “demon sperm” doctor to spread dangerous lies about COVID-19 mitigation efforts in 2020.

Ladapo earns a $250,000 salary as surgeon general and a $262,000 salary from UF, according to state and university records.

But some of Ladapo’s UF College of Medicine colleagues were concerned he bypassed crucial vetting during his whirlwind hiring process, regardless of whether it was legal…

“For some reason the medical and public health communities aren’t outright investigating him … probably because he isn’t operating as a scientist or a faculty member,” [United Faculty of Florida-University of Florida President Meera] Sitharam said in an email. “He is operating in the murky world where public health is held hostage to political fortunes, which is in part because public trust in health related institutions has been deeply eroded.”

Yep, and we know exactly who eroded it too.

Meanwhile, Ladapo’s boss, the governor, is threatening to bomb the Bahamas?

Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to let people in the Bahamas know it’s a bad idea for anyone to be “firing rockets” at South Florida.

During remarks Tuesday in Manchester, New Hampshire, the 2024 presidential candidate once again analogized the war between Israel and Hamas to a hypothetical involving a malefactor shooting missiles from the Bahamas toward the state he runs.

“You know, as Governor of Florida, if somebody from the Bahamas was firing rockets into Fort Lauderdale, we would not accept that,” He said. “We would flatten it, like, in no time. We would never accept that happening to our people.”

It wasn’t just a one-off — that’s a stump speech line. But I’m pretty sure Joe Biden controls the ordnance, not Ron DeSantis. Let’s keep it that way.

Open thread.

SunBund Brief (Open Thread)Post + Comments (128)

Things got ugly at a Tuesday strategy meeting held by Never Back Down PAC bigwigs, i.e., the geniuses who are running the flailing Ron DeSantis 2024 campaign, according to NBC News. The main item on the agenda was how to stop Nikki Haley’s surge.

But PAC consultant Jeff Roe, a hired gun, and board member Scott Wagner, allegedly a DeSantis confidant, huffed and puffed in a manner reminiscent of toxic masculinity decanter Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK).

“You have a stick up your a–, Scott,” Roe fumed at Wagner, who is a member of the Never Back Down board.

“Why don’t you come over here and get it?” Wagner responded, rising from his chair. He was quickly restrained by two fellow board members. The interaction was relayed to NBC News by a source who was in the room.

The infighting represents an escalation in the long-running war between Never Back Down’s professional political operatives and DeSantis’ Tallahassee-based inner circle over who is to blame for the governor’s failure to compete effectively with front-runner Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.

Fellas, I’ll tell you who’s to blame, and I’ll do so free of charge. The person who is to blame is Ron DeSantis. The tell is that voters were more enthusiastic about his candidacy before they met him. Afterward, they were all like, “Ewww, get this scowling, snippy, beady-eyed, weird-boots-wearing poser outta my cornfield.”

Now, trying to depose the cult figure from a cult of personality was always going to be a tall order. It’s understandable that donors admired the cut of Ron’s jib in what they prematurely assumed was the post-Trump era. DeSantis ticks so many boxes: plutocrat lackey who presents as populist, deeply corrupt, overt authoritarian tendencies, inspires enthusiasm among racists, misogynists, Nazis, etc.

But your boy Ron just doesn’t have it, whatever “it” is. He’s an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding. It’s time to punch each other in the dicks one last time and go back to Tallahassee.

Open thread.

PAC Men (Open Thread)Post + Comments (101)