A truly amazing 5,500-word anti-Florida, anti-Ron DeSantis hit job appeared on USA Today on Monday: “DeSantis war on "wokeism" leaves many missing a Florida they once knew.” The story by Tom McLaughlin, a reporter for the Pensacola News Journal, included five other Florida-based contributors and appeared originally in the PNJ: “Proud purple to angry red: These Florida residents feel unwelcome in 'new' Florida.”
The crew talked to a starkly unrepresentative slice of Florida denizens -- transgenders, drag queens, Democratic party activists, and liberal snowbirds -- all of whom voiced hysterical fear of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and whose collective paranoid-leftist worldview faced not the least breath of journalistic pushback anywhere in the vast hit piece:
For many, Florida has changed. What was once a proudly purple state has turned an angry red, they say. Gov. Ron DeSantis, with the dedicated backing of a Republican supermajority in the state legislature, is waging war on what he calls "wokeism" -- a term he has loosely defined as "a form of cultural Marxism." But many -- people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, non-Christians, teachers, union members, students -- feel it is a war against themselves, as they face ridicule, discrimination, and, potentially, violence.
The NAACP, Equity Florida and the League of United Latin American Citizens each issued travel advisories for Florida. The NAACP advisory states, in part, "Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ individuals."
….
There exist widespread reports of people abandoning the state because they no longer feel welcome here. Following her family's exodus to Pennsylvania in May, former Brevard County resident and Democratic Party activist Stacey Patel told FLORIDA TODAY, "It's like breathing, you know? After holding your breath for a really long time."
Actually, there’s ample evidence people are coming to live in Florida (the fastest-growing state, according to the Census Bureau).
Democrats also count themselves among the groups feeling persecuted. Patel's family was vilified, she said, for its party affiliation.
….
David Lucas grew up listening to his 90-year-old father's stories of how cruel the world was to Black people in decades past.
While the 60-year-old Lucas has been spared much of what his father's generation endured, he's been getting an unexpected reality check on how some things have yet to improve for minorities.
The flurry of bills passed in Tallahassee over the past two years that impact voting, immigration, education, guns and LGBTQ+ people has left his head spinning.
Part of the peril posed by DeSantis: Less human smuggling?
The new Florida law imposes penalties for those employing undocumented immigrants, and enhances penalties for human smuggling.
Lucas had a ton of Florida-related complaints, and the article runs down every one of them, again without rebuttal.
Then there were the transgender veterinarian who “no longer feels secure in Florida” and compared transgender laws to “Jim Crow,” or another Democrat making an ignorant “Jim Crow” comparison who had his complaint forwarded: “[Andy] Crossfield empathized with liberal friends who yearn to flee the state.”
“Flee the state?” Does Florida need an Underground Railroad for persecuted liberals?
Alexander Vargas is a 19-year-old college student. His biggest worries should revolve around getting good grades, figuring out what kind of a career he wants after college, and deciding what he wants to do for fun every weekend.
Instead the Stetson University psychology major is always reminding himself to steer clear of public men's restrooms so he won't get fined for using bathrooms that align with his gender identity, but not the gender he was assigned at birth….
Apparently all the rude and nasty people in America live in Florida:
Vargas has been called a freak and he's had slurs hurled his way.
He's seen others in Florida subjected to the same things.
McLaughlin mercifully ended this 5,500-word journalistic anti-masterpiece with drag performer Jason DeShazo, asking a rhetorical question: “Does DeShazo feel that as a gay man and a drag queen he is no longer welcome in Florida?”
DeShazo, of course, agreed.
