While the left has taken leave of its senses, Florida’s leaders have shown common sense

Ienjoyed a moment of amusement recently in reading a news analysis suggesting that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a “master of messaging,” had been “outmaneuvered by the threeword catchphrase ‘Don’t say gay’.”

DeSants was outmaneuvered with that phrase in the same way that the captain of the Titanic outmaneuvered that iceberg.

Clearly, the phrase doesn’t reflect the reality of the legislation. It’s not “Don’t say gay.” It’s “Don’t Go Dr. Ruth on Five-YearOlds.”

And anyone with any semblance of prudence can easily grasp that instructing kindergartners to third-graders on sex is not only a huge, unfair burden on teachers, but also deprives parents of a fundamental prerogative.

That “anyone” includes Floridians, who favored the bill by sizable margins in two recent polls. But it doesn’t include leaders on the left. Simply put, they are out of touch with reality.

Unlike history’s most infamous helmsman, the left is pretending not to notice their political ship taking on water — because its leaders, taking leave of what the Governor’s press secretary termed “common sense,” don’t realize that in-your-face chants of radical slogans are not an electoral lifesaver.

The lack of common sense doesn’t just involve indoctrinating toddlers, but marks the left’s approach to most issues. But when you argue with reality, you lose 100% of the time, and most voters now realizing that the left is not accurately in touch with reality — purposefully or not.

Take the left’s denial of plainas-the-nose-on-your-face explanations for the encore of 1970s-style stagflation. The denial of the harsh impacts of higher gas prices and the increasing cost of groceries. This is a hidden regressive tax, placing greater burdens on those less fortunate.

As top economist Stephen Moore underscored in a recent sit-down with me, the Biden administration first claimed that there was no inflation, people were “just making it up.”

Then it was “transitory.” Then pent-up pandemic demand. Then supply-chain bottlenecks. And most recently, skyrocketing energy bills driving outlandish costs rises for everything from eggs to autos result from the “Putin price hike.”

But once again, as Moore, the Heritage Foundation’s former chief economist, points out,

“most Americans” know exactly what’s really causing record producer price hikes and generational CPI highs. “Inflation is pretty simple: It’s when you pour more money into the economy,” he says.

Moore adds, “We’ve added $3 [trillion] to $4 trillion of debt just since the Biden administration came to power … and the Fed is printing more money to pay for it.” Even everyday people “understand that you can’t just keep borrowing and borrowing. You can’t just keep running up your credit card and hoping that the story has a happy ending.”

“This is what Third World countries do when they get into a debt crisis,” he says.

The real truth: The current situation reflects a claim made by then-candidate Biden in May 2020 at the height of COVID. “We don’t have a food shortage problem — we have a leadership problem.”

A leadership problem plaguing blue states and cities — with unemployment, for example, at a whopping 7.6% in New York City compared to 3.3% in the Sunshine State.

Contrast the expert navigation of the turbulent waters of the past two years by Florida leadership. They insisted on smart COVID approaches that included maximizing protection of the most vulnerable and freedom for others, most important preserving entrepreneurs’ right to run a business and employees’ right to work. There’s a reason Florida now accounts for nearly 17% of all new U.S. business starts. It’s because DeSantis realizes that citizens succeed most when they — and their families—are freer.

Leaders in Florida have refused to usurp parental control when it comes to the education of our children. Seeing no race, or socioeconomic difference, all parents matter, and they alone are in the best position to decide what’s best for their children.

Common-sense policies have led Florida to economic prosperity and greater personal liberty. Catch-phases aside, freedom matters, both in education and in our economic well-being.

We can proudly watch our state continue to rise in every measure of quality of life, economic strength — and just plain common sense, something that appears to be mostly lacking in the left’s leaders across the board.

Edward J. Pozzuoli is the president of the law firm Tripp Scott, based in Fort Lauderdale.