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We Cannot Let The Most Dangerous, Uncharismatic, and Hateful Politician in America Win [1]
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Date: 2023-07-27
In my sixteenth year of being an avid connoisseur and purveyor of politics, I have become addicted to monitoring the game. Of course, it began with the advent of Barack Hussein Obama, a product of miscegenation, an illegal practice in most of the country in 1961, the year of his birth. Obama is also the son of an African immigrant, another fact of his life that should have been a hindrance. Still, Obama overcame, and proceeded to take his place as the first and possibly last black President of the United States.
Standing at the center of the political arena for eight years as the forty-fourth President, everything revolved around Obama. And yet, the same arena was replete with pitfalls, personified by the men and women — mostly white Republicans — who incessantly plotted his downfall. Unfortunately, Obama, a beacon of hope for millions, brought out the worst in a great number of Americans.
One of the worst people is Donald Trump, an avowed racist, rapist, and all-around degenerate. During Obama’s first term, Trump saw his opportunity to implant himself into the public consciousness by openly questioning Obama’s legitimacy. The accusation was proven demonstrably false after Obama was forced to present a birth certificate, the document that proved that he was an American citizen. The damage remained though, as millions of gullible Americans, unfortunate byproducts of racism and ignorance, gave into the big lie. Obama would thump Trump during the White House Correspondents Dinner, making the ascendant Trump a temporary laughing stock before going on to secure reelection. The sour and vindictive Trump would never forgive Obama for lashing his pride with penetrating humor, and secretly vowed revenge.
***
In 2013, during Obama’s second term in office, Ron DeSantis, a little-known politician hailing from Florida secured a seat in the United States House of Representatives. It was the same year that my Dad became sick with cancer and advanced kidney disease, leaving me little time to focus on DeSantis.
When Dad’s condition became terminal, he was transported to the last hospital wing he would ever stay in, a place called Select. One of the few good things about the Select area of the hospital was the visitation policy. I could visit my father for as long as I wanted, and was able to strengthen my relationship with my Papa during his last days. As his condition deteriorated, Papa and I bonded over our love of Obama and politics. We could immediately identify with Mr. Obama, a black man and a direct descendant of African ancestors.
Dad’s stay in the last hospital coincided with another iteration of a government shutdown, instigated by Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his Republican cronies. Ron DeSantis was one of those cronies, although he served in the House of Representatives, which is often referred to as the lower chamber.
DeSantis was a member of the Freedom Caucus, a marauding band of about forty congressional republicans, despicable individuals bent on using public policy to create adverse outcomes for traditionally marginalized Americans. Their unstated goal is to create a burgeoning fascist country, a place that is hostile to gay, lesbian, black, women, and transgender people. As a member of Congress, DeSantis was a backbencher, easily forgettable then. However, Papa and I knew much about the Freedom Caucus and how dangerous they were. The country was lucky to have Obama and Joe Biden as leaders, two men who stood up and fought for regular Americans.
During one particular hospital visit, as the government shutdown extended into the second week, Dad and I agreed: the Republicans, enemies of the people would underestimate Obama, discounting his nerve, intelligence, and will.
“The Republicans are always slighting Obama,” said Papa. His speech was somewhat slurred, an offshoot of chemically induced dementia.
“Because they think that he is stupid, Papa,” I said.
The Republicans’ distaste for Obama was striking and irrational, removing their ability to occlude their naked, intense, and bitter hate.
“Yes,” said Papa. “At least that is what they wish. They wish that Obama was a simpleton.”
“And of course, he is not a simpleton,” I said. “He is the first black man to be the president, and he knew that he would be under more scrutiny than previous presidents. He would not have run if he did not know he was brilliant and tough enough to handle the job.”
“He will outmaneuver them,” said Dad.
“As he always does.”
The government standoff ended after two weeks with the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, still intact.
Papa succumbed to kidney disease three weeks later.
Three years after my father died, Americans thought it was a good idea to elect Donald Trump, the antithesis of Obama, as the forty-fifth President of the United States. Filled with visceral hatred and jealousy toward his predecessor, Trump endeavored to undo all of Obama’s achievements. If not for the timely intervention of a rapidly deteriorating John McCain, a principled conservative, Trump would have gleefully signed away the Affordable Care Act, thereby snatching health coverage away from millions of desperate Americans.
Trump’s malignancy extended beyond his morbid obsession with Obama. During his first two years in office, he championed policies that further complicated the already fraught lives of the traditionally marginalized, confirmed two reactionary Supreme Court Justices — one of whom was credibly accused of sexual assault — and cozied up to murderous dictators. He became an anathema to multiple millions of Americans, the embodiment of the kakistocracy, and we could not wait to exercise our righteous anger through our votes.
In the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections, Trump attempted to use hatred of immigrants to ignite his base of voters. Brown immigrants were an overwhelming horde invading multiple American cities, with designs for taking jobs and raping women. Trump also offered his endorsement to a slate of politicians, one of them being Ron DeSantis, who gave up his seat in Congress to run for the governorship of Florida. DeSantis introduced himself as a disciple of President Donald Trump, a hard-charging and unyielding conservative, racist, and intolerant to his very core. He extolled his weird admiration for Trump in a particularly disturbing commercial, pretending to read a Make America Great Again book to one of his children.
Donald’s Trump strategy of using fear and hatred to generate electoral gain was largely unsuccessful. A blue wave ran across the shore, wiping away scores of Republican politicians as Democrats took over the House of Representatives. Democrats also secured key governorships in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, fortifying the fabled blue wall.
It was not all good news, though, because Ron DeSantis, despite being spanked in the debates by Democrat Andrew Gillum, won the Florida governorship by a hair. Still, I was elated because a democratic House of Representatives would quell the Trump administration’s worst impulses. Once again, DeSantis remained an afterthought in my mind.
Trump’s losing streak stretched through to the presidential elections, as he lost to Joe Biden by more than seven million votes. Refusing to accept the certainty of his defeat, Trump fought hard to stay in office by making illegal calls to governors and secretaries of state, launching frivolous court cases, and suborning sedition and insurrections. Fortunately, Trump’s attempt to overturn the election was thwarted by the forces of good, precipitating his departure to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. DeSantis remained the governor of the same state.
Thinking that Trump was consigned to the dustbin of history, DeSantis aggressively sought the political spotlight by exhibiting his abjectly cruel nature. Of course, Florida is home to many established immigrants and their immediate descendants, in addition to being a place of refuge for migrant individuals. DeSantis is a proven and unyielding racist, indisputably unsuited for head of state.
In the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections, DeSantis flaunted his disturbing penchant for base cruelty and malice. He made empty promises to scores of vulnerable migrants, tricking them into boarding buses and planes that ferried them to strange places. Many migrants were abandoned on street corners in the dead of winter, starving and forlorn, bereft of the required necessities to maintain their existences. Millions of Americans were shocked and ashamed by DeSantis’s devilish behavior, and expressed their condemnation of the sadist’s actions through statements in various communication mediums. Of course, DeSantis relished the negative attention because he was able to “own” the snowflakes, aka the liberals. As non-sociopathic people cried for those poor immigrants, lamenting the unfathomable cruelty, DeSantis uproariously laughed as he bathed in our tears.
DeSantis’s cruel exploits coincided with his meteoric rise in the public’s consciousness. Amazingly, he won re-election by nineteen points in Florida, a former swing state that had voted for Barack Obama fourteen years previous. DeSantis ascertained his triumph as a mandate, and members of the political world dubbed him as the guy to supplant Donald Trump as the leader of the Republican party.
During the first part of the year, DeSantis flexed his political muscle, as he signed legislation that curtailed the civil rights of LGBTQ citizens, rescinded the right for a woman to choose, and disrupted the lives of vulnerable immigrants. With unabashed alacrity, DeSantis sought to remake the education system in Florida by banning books, resisting the implementation of African studies, and empowering racist parents to disrupt school curriculums. Once again, critics expressed outrage, but their protests seemed to imbue DeSantis with more energy and venom. He was conducting a war on Woke ideology, described by him as an existential threat to American freedom. As he spoke before partisan audiences, he vowed to defeat wokeism, assuaging the fears of terrified Caucasians.
DeSantis was confident that his actions would position him to take the mantel from Donald Trump, his twice impeached and twice indicted former benefactor. Trump, sensing a threat from DeSantis, launched a concerted attack against his former protégé each successive day, calling him ungrateful and disloyal. And as the Republican Presidential Primaries approach, Trump has increased the intensity of his attacks against Ron De Sanctimonious (Trump’s name for DeSantis), causing the erstwhile Republican frontrunner to lose ground as he pursues the Republican nomination for President. At the time of this writing, Trump maintains a lead in the polls. DeSantis is a distant second place, and is on the verge of losing his second-place status to Vivek Ramaswamy. Members of the political glitterati smell blood in the water, as they begin to question if DeSantis has what it takes to defeat Trump.
I often go back and forth between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, two offensively and objectionably horrible men who revel in the pain of other people. These two sadists should not be allowed to step within a thousand miles of the White House.
Of course, I want Joe Biden to face the weaker of the two for the presidency in November 2024. Though trailing Biden in the national surveys, swing state polling indicates that DeSantis could provide a stiff challenge to Biden next year. Luckily, DeSantis has proven to be an inept punching bag for Donald Trump and the D.C. press. The more America gets to know him, the less we like him.
Still, DeSantis scares me a lot more than Trump does. He is thirty years younger than Trump, ambitious, and full of venomous hate for the less protected class of American citizens. He has vowed to bring his style of governing Florida to the White House if elected, promising to make America the next Florida. This dystopic vision for America elicits chills from millions of Americans, including myself, who know that DeSantis’s potential elevation to the White House poses an existential threat.
Ron DeSantis is a dangerous individual, a fascist true believer who is beholden to the extreme right-wing revanchists. He is a fascist and a homophobe, a sociopathic pursuer of power, and actively emulates authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin in Russia and Viktor Orban in Hungary. His presidency would usher in a disaster for this country, ripping it in two, which is why we can never allow him to become our next leader.
[END]
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