Florida’s GOP indulged Trump’s whims and enabled DC riot. Let’s clean house
Yes, invoke the 25th Amendment and remove President Donald Trump from office.
But this punitive action, essential to begin repairing the wounds embedded in America’s soul — and the nation’s tattered reputation as a beacon of democracy — won’t end the political rot that led to a day of anguish and infamy we will never forget.
The assault on the Capitol by white supremacists was kindled in swaths of the Disunited States of America like Florida, where Republican politicians indulged Trump’s whims, adopted his hate speech, abandoned bipartisanship and signed on to MAGA- branded racist policy.
They, too, must pay a political price for the seditious riot.
These pols closed ranks and, like a mob, radicalized supporters with disinformation shouted out at rallies, scripted in legislation and disseminated in right- wing media that spanned from mighty Fox News to television shows, online forums and a racist tabloid in Miami.
With words and deeds, they indulged and enabled Trump’s delusions of omnipotence and grandeur, turning Florida into the perfect state to make a rabid populist feel at home.
These pols and their minions are still at it, spreading falsehoods and fanning the flames of violent discontent as I write these words, triggered by Vice President Mike Pence’s dignified handling of the election certification in the aftermath of chaos.
A formality, made all the more poignant by his affirmation of his own loss and the historic election of Kamala Harris, the first woman — a woman of color — to serve as vice president.
No, the domestic terrorists did not win, but they woke up this morning with a new line of fire.
“Some misled you,” tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio, who disabled the response button to his tweet so that only people he follows could respond, an effort to whitewash his participation in the making of King Trump that went as far as praising violent MAGA tactics at a Trump rally in Miami- Dade.
I will not pass on his effort to obfuscate by fully quoting him here.
Florida also added another stain to its shameful political history when Republican Sen. Rick Scott voted to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters and two of South Florida’s Republicans in the House of Representatives, Carlos Gimenez and Mario Diaz- Balart, voted in favor of decertifying Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s electors.
Racism and change
The violent insurrection, with its unequivocal supremacist symbols and rhetoric, was pushback on a national reckoning with racial inequity that propelled unprecedented Black and Latino voter turnout in this election, but has yet to deliver equal respect for Black and Latino lives and humanity.
It also was about demographic changes in states shaping a new, more progressive and multi- hued America.
The ease, comfort and entitlement with which rioters broke through Capitol police and desecrated the building — some taking selfies with law enforcement — said it best.
This would have never occurred had the throngs gathered — encouraged by the sitting president, who, even after the mayhem caused four deaths, called the crowd of white men and women “good people” — been Black or Latino or Indigenous.
The cavalry would have been ready and poised to strike, as happened here during BLM protests. Even for small protests, police officers turned out in riot gear for BLM, yet officers in regular uniform took selfies with participants in aggressive MAGA ones.
They were disciplined, but from some postings I saw on social media during this dark, unprecedented moment in American history, some in law enforcement have learned nothing.
Even when a chorus of Republican voices, including Pence, finally rose to call rioters “thugs” who committed sedition, even after they admitted the violence was incited by the president himself, some were justifying what went down and comparing terrorist action to peaceful BLM protests.
And, of course, they were spreading rumors that the work of MAGA nation was antifa in disguise, quickly debunked with photos, video and credible reporting.
Yes, in Florida, deeply rooted historic racism like the one fueling the Capitol siege — with rioters breaking into sacred spaces to erect the Confederate flag, symbol of Black oppression — transcends Trump.
But Trump and the Florida GOP breathed new life into its core audience.
Leading the pack were the dog- whistle language and actions of leaders such as Gov. Ron DeSantis, unconditional disciple and Trump servant pushing legislation to turn Florida into a fascist state that suppresses dissent.
Although DeSantis may now claim he’s trying to prevent the type of violence seen at the Capitol, it was the Black Lives Matter movement that inspired the crackdown. That’s what he wanted to shut down, not the divisive MAGA rallies he encouraged and attended maskless in the middle of a deadly pandemic.
It was he, then state House Speaker Jose Oliva and the Republican- dominated Legislature who left no legal stone unturned to disenfranchise, in time for the 2020 election, Black and Latino ex- felons, for whom two- thirds of voters in 2018 restored voting rights.
The ease and comfort with which they legislated against minorities is why the Proud Boys — a violent neo- fascist, maleonly political organization led by Enrique Tarrio, a mixed- race Afro- Cuban American from Miami arrested in Washington ahead of protests — found a prominent role among the rank- and- file and leadership of Miami- Dade County’s Republican Party.
‘ Caudillismo’ thrives in Florida
Mix ingrained racism with the cult- worshiping, raging populists, and it’s a heady mix in Florida, which won’t enjoy a respite from Trumpism with the adored caudillo as a permanent resident.
Among Hispanics, a group Trump disparaged from day one of his candidacy and that, inconceivably, voted in record numbers for him, defending his inflammatory rhetoric, the embrace of a strongman — as exhibited when the Stars and Stripes flying at the Capitol were tossed to the ground and replaced with a Trump flag — also transcends the sitting president refusing to acknowledge that he lost an election.
We will never make any real progress in this country, and certainly not in the state of Florida, until we acknowledge the ingrained racism and the fanatical embrace of an undemocratic, indecent president who tested and almost killed American democracy.
Elected leaders in battleground Florida gave Trump the wings he needed to implode the country. They must now work to convince the fired- up masses, from the popular ventanita of Versailles to the Florida state Capitol, that democracy prevailed. Words from the top matter.
Turn them into truthful, forthright healing words — and clean house, GOP.