DeSantis’ next war on woke could ruffle some feathers

What’s subsequent on the battle on woke?

Or fairly, what’s left?

5 years into the DeSantis administration, it’s exhausting to think about a liberal notion that the governor hasn’t already savaged.

His political operatives have to be frantic. With one other yr earlier than the Iowa caucuses, the governor wants new materials to maintain the fake outrage that has made him such a formidable presidential contender.

Gov. Ron DeSantis describes Florida because the state “the place woke goes to die,” however at this level, there’s not a lot woke left to kill.

Books deemed contaminated with wokeness have been forged out of libraries and school rooms. Even math textbooks had been discovered (by rightwingers with vivid imaginations) to be contaminated with wokeness.

College curricula have been scoured for hints of important race idea. Schools and universities have been accused of permitting liberal professors to spout “cultural Marxism,” a highfalutin’ synonym for woke.

On Jan. 20, the DeSantis administration rejected the Faculty Board’s African American research coursework for Florida excessive colleges, claiming that the AP elective “lacks instructional worth.” State Training Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. invoked the magic word, tweeting “We don’t settle for woke indoctrination masquerading as training.”

Florida prisons created the template for woke eradication campaigns. Final month, the Marshall Project listed greater than 20,000 books and periodicals prohibited by the Florida Division of Corrections. However after banning “Storey’s Information to Elevating Chickens,” and “Plumbing for Dummies,” jail censors have to be working out of objectionable literature.

The governor burned through his checklist of MAGA set off points like there was no tomorrow: drag queens, transgender children, Black Lives Matter, COVID protocols, abortion rights, minority voters, disobedient college boards, vaccines, Dr. Fauci, undocumented immigrants (the non-Cuban form), sustainable investing and the sins of Disney or some other company, instructional or authorities entity that abides the evils of variety, fairness and inclusion.

“This wokeness is harmful and we’ve acquired to defeat it on all fronts,” DeSantis declared.

Bother is, Ron’s working out of fronts. The governor wants recent woke.

That’s the issue with a political technique designed to out-Trump Trump. Overlook governing. A candidate have to be in perpetual marketing campaign mode, from one election to the subsequent, uttering such a cascade of outrageous declarations that the mainstream media and fact-checkers can’t sustain.

Finally, DeSantis’ agenda of continuous political stunts and fake grievances is bereft of substance, however it’s much more enjoyable to cowl than, say, Florida’s property insurance coverage disaster.

He makes a columnist’s life straightforward. So, I’m prepared to assist the man out with an array of recent provocations to evoke his base — white guys, principally, who assume minorities, immigrants, vegans, gays, west coast techies, east coast intellectuals, climatologists, historians, epidemiologists and uppity girls are colluding to remove their gasoline stoves, purple meat and assault rifles.

What’s going to antagonize liberals and excite the MAGA plenty? I’ve acquired some thrilling prospects:

Change the identify of the Sunshine Skyway to Putin Crossing. Declare Florida a sanctuary state for January 6 insurrectionists. Approve drill rigs simply off the Florida shoreline. Ban electrical stoves. Promise, if elected president, to nominate Marjorie Taylor Greene to the Supreme Court docket. Arm college crossing guards. Declare open season on Key deer. Convey again the electrical chair.

One other sure-fire made-for-MAGA has been seething within the rural reaches of Florida — DeSantis nation — for the reason that state outlawed cockfighting in 1988. Discuss woke.

The blood sport hasn’t gone away.

Simply final month, FBI brokers investigating a kidnapping report in rural southwest Miami-Dade County, occurred throughout a cockfighting ring.

A number of months earlier, Citrus County deputies investigating a noise criticism arrested seven males at a yard cockfighting venue. Over the previous couple of years, police made 30 arrests and seized 41 roosters in Lafayette County; 5 had been arrested and 60 cocks seized in Marion County; 14 arrested and 481 roosters confiscated in Polk County; two had been arrested and eight roosters seized in Desoto County; one man was arrested with 310 preventing birds within the decrease Florida Keys; 4 had been arrested and 248 preventing cocks had been seized in Volusia County.

Police nonetheless haven’t solved the 2018 homicide of a cockfight referee at a ramshackle preventing venue in Snake Creek Basin, an infamously lawless nature protect west of Hialeah, a woke-free zone.

Clearly, sure rural Floridians would relish the notion of upsetting the citified do-gooder liberals who disadvantaged them of their God-given proper to observe roosters mangle each other.

Our governor has a chance to indicate MAGA voters simply how free it will get within the “freest state” by reviving cockfighting. He’ll be capable to garnish the battle on woke with dangerous blood and ruffled feathers.

Fred Grimm, a longtime resident of Fort Lauderdale, has labored as a journalist in South Florida since 1976. Attain him by electronic mail at leogrimm@gmail.com or on Twitter: @grimm_fred.