Well, at least it was mercifully brief. Sixteen minutes, start to finish.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ second inaugural address Tuesday sounded word-for-word like a reelection campaign rally — only shorter. It was delivered from a familiar place, the steps of the historic Capitol in Tallahassee, but was aimed at a faraway national audience of Republican presidential primary voters.
The governor’s talk carried a lot of the usual DeSantis rhetorical flourishes, and very little in the way of specifics.
If you didn’t catch it, here’s some of what you missed:
“When the world lost its mind — when common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue — Florida was a refuge of sanity.”
Some 84,000 people have lost their lives due to COVID-19 in this “refuge of sanity.” Here in Florida, the state’s chief public health officer doubted the efficacy of vaccines or masks at the height of the pandemic. Unlike in California and New York, a huge portion of those deaths came after the development of vaccines, and, according to a Yale study, largely among the very Republican voters who were most likely to believe the anti-vaccine lies offered by Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo.
Is that enough sanity for you?
The myth of ‘the freest state’
“We choose to navigate the boisterous sea of liberty rather than cower in the calm docks of despotism,” DeSantis said.
Freedom and authoritarianism don’t mix. The notion of Florida as “the freest state” is a myth, manufactured by DeSantis and his image-makers to sharpen the narrative of his expected presidential candidacy.
His is a curious definition of freedom.
Florida has become a place where it’s easier than ever to remove books from school libraries, but harder than ever for people to request vote-by-mail ballots.
In the “freest state,” Florida teachers fear talking about the country’s racist history. A vote of the people to ban large cruise ships in Key West was wiped away by DeSantis and Tallahassee politicians. How free is that?
In this supposedly “free” state, academic freedom faces the most dangerous sustained assault in Florida’s 178-year history.
In “the freest state,” higher education is perpetually under the thumb of the governor’s office. On Wednesday, DeSantis demanded that all colleges and universities report every dime spent on “diversity, equity, inclusion and critical race theory.”
Pocketbook crises, ignored
DeSantis’ speech was memorable mostly for what he didn’t say.
There was no mention of the two pocketbook crises hammering so many Florida residents, the skyrocketing cost of homeowners’ insurance and the lack of housing affordability.
Florida faces a heartbreaking epidemic of child sex trafficking, especially in its urban centers in South Florida and elsewhere, as has been well-documented by this newspaper in the recent series Innocence Sold.
That, too, escaped DeSantis’ attention. However, if you listened closely, it did sound as if he made a passing reference to the societal dangers that are posed by drag shows.
“We will defend our children against those who seek to rob them of their innocence,” he said.
In this era of rising sea levels, there was not one word about climate change and its growing threat to our precarious quality of life.
But he did celebrate Florida’s newfound status as America’s fastest-growing state, which, DeSantis claimed, is not the result of year-round sunshine or the lack of a state income tax, but to his own policies.
”We are No. 1 in these United States in net in-migration,” he boasted.
Let that sink in as you stew in traffic on I-95 or Federal Highway.
DeSantis did not even mention abortion or guns, or any other issue that is expected to dominate the regular 60-day session of the Legislature that will begin in March.
This was no ordinary roll-out of a governor’s term of office, because this is no ordinary governor, and it is no ordinary time in our state’s history.
On a grand stage for a few fleeting moments Tuesday, DeSantis had an opportunity to offer words of unity and inclusion to all Floridians. But he did provide this:
“We will never surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die!”
In a recent court case, DeSantis’ own general counsel defined “woke” as “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”
Florida: Where addressing systemic injustices in society goes to die.
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