Florida politicians mislead citizens with fake controversies

Floridians have come to appreciate the despair of MacBeth, suffering too many tales “told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Lately, we’ve been getting plenty of nothing.

We live in a place where real-life problems have been systematically obscured by inflammatory blather, full of irrelevant issues and counterfeit crises and gobs of incendiary misinformation.

Certain elected officials have larded their twitter feeds, legislative agendas and (especially) Fox News interviews, with commentary about issues that figure little, or not at all, in the lives of actual Floridians.

But diversionary tactics allow the gang in Tallahassee to ignore real life issues. Up that way, the inept cower behind the inapt.

Gov. DeSantis and his ilk sure as hell don’t want to discuss global warming, gun violence, homelessness, pollution, toxic green algae choking inland waters, toxic red algae fouling beaches. They avoid, as if it would be blasphemy, mentioning Florida’s 62,542 COVID deaths or a startling new surge of infections in a state where only 63.6% of residents are fully vaccinated. Sure wouldn’t want to offend anti-vaxxers by recognizing the miraculous efficacy of vaccines.

Better to divert our collective attention by conjuring up faux outrages.

Instead of toxic algae, talk about the supposed horrors of critical race theory, one of Gov. DeSantis’ peculiar obsessions, though the academic examination of the lasting effects of slavery and segregation has never been taught in Florida public schools.

The governor, determined to mine white racial resentment for votes, proposed legislation last month that would not only bar CRT from the classrooms that don’t actually teach CRT, but also prohibit private companies from adopting their own version for in-house employee training. Of course, a law regulating speech within a private corporation would be of dubious constitutionality, but that’s not the point. Instead of taking on dreary real-life problems, DeSantis can appear on Fox and brag about protecting white children from learning about Florida’s horrific legacy of Jim Crow justice.

Better to avoid talking about the epidemic of gun violence killing Florida children. Instead, rouse the mob by describing the purported unfairness posed by transgender athletes. Never mind that during last year’s legislative hearings, proponents of barring transgender athletes from participating in school sports with their self-identified gender were unable to cite a single instance in Florida that justified such bigotry.

Why deal with the escalating effects of global warming in Florida? Better to rail against social media companies that suspend politicians and conspiracy theorists who disseminate lies about public health and Trump’s 2020 defeat.

DeSantis signed a bill last year that would force social media companies to stop kicking lying pols off their platforms. The Harvard Law grad surely knew that the blatantly unconstitutional law would be eviscerated by the federal judiciary. But he wasn’t concerned with legal niceties. Rather, this was about generating MAGA outrage. And pleasing Tucker Carlson.

Why acknowledge failed social service agencies or a decrepit prison system when you can complain about take-a-knee athletes or Dr. Fauci’s reluctance to embrace unproven COVID therapies, like hydroxychloroquine? (Remember when Dr. Trump prescribed hydroxychloroquine?)

Instead, spend $1.6 million of Florida taxpayer money to send a contingent of state troopers, FDLE agents and wildlife officers to the Texas-Mexico border — an ineffectual gesture meant to shift our attention from local problems to another faraway state’s illegal border crossings.

Admittedly, it wasn’t an imaginary ploy when DeSantis decided to grant unemployment compensation to vaccine refuseniks fired by their COVID-minded bosses. Of course, Florida’s stingy, byzantine and notoriously buggy unemployment compensation system may persuade even the looniest anti-vaxxers to opt for vaccination.

Talking about toxic algae won’t excite the state’s Trumpsters, so just rave about “widespread election fraud.” Of course, “widespread” has a rather narrow definition in Florida, where, so far, investigations into the 2020 election have yielded the arrests of three Republican voters and an independent, all from The Villages, for casting more than one ballot. And a former Republican state senator has been charged with paying a sham candidate with the same last name as the Democrat incumbent to run in a state Senate race. The fraudulent tactic unseated the Democrat.

Last week, both DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott raised yet another oh-so-critical issue, vital to the health and happiness of all Floridians. They found time on their schedules to mock New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (another Republican obsession) who was seen dining at an outdoor restaurant in Miami Beach on New Year’s Eve.

She responded, “Ya creepy weirdos.” Yeah, maybe, but creepy weirdos like Rick and Ron are a lot more comfortable disparaging AOC than, say, confronting discomfiting issues Florida pols would rather avoid.