Is the bloom off the hibiscus for Florida’s Ron DeSantis?
Congress needs to follow the example and end its love affair with Trump
By Mike Sorrell
Is Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis still down in Florida? Is he still governor?
Has he gone on Fox to praise President Donald Trump’s unilateral and quite dumb decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America?
Does he still wear boots?
The last we heard DeSantis was at the Army-Navy football game on December 14 at the invitation of president-elect Trump, which prompted speculation Trump might nominate DeSantis as his secretary of defense. He didn’t. Trump stuck with his first pick, Fox weekend anchor Pete Hegseth.
Fight the Fire, wondering about DeSantis's whereabouts, checked a few Florida news sites.
We found that DeSantis is still governor. He has two years to go before he must find another government position, get a real job or retire early and bask in the sun beside the sparkling waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
We also found that Florida’s Republican legislators are tired of his ego-driven style of leadership, his punishment of anyone who disagrees with him, his use of conservative media to hound legislators who cross him, and his unwillingness to accept the fact that he is a lame duck governor who will soon be gone.
DeSantis is a mini-Trump. Each of those negative points sound like what people say (or at least think) about Trump.
Someday soon – today would be timely — Republicans in the U.S. Senate and House will summon the courage to grab the wheel from Trump before he drives the nation off a cliff.
Don’t count on it, though, unless people from across the country rise up and demand that the legislative branch of the federal government stops the outrageous trashing of institutions like the FBI and Justice Department, quells the racist undercurrent running through everything Trump touches, demands policies that lower the cost of living rather than raise it and immediately stop an overhaul of foreign policy that threatens to drag the country into war.
Peggy Noonan, an eloquent writer and generally clear thinker who for several decades has offered her sound judgment to the Republican Party, wrote a few days ago in the Wall Street Journal that Republicans in Congress are “anxious” about the tumultuous first couple of weeks of the second Trump administration. Of course they are. Trump breaks the law, ignores the Constitution and is in the process of destroying institutions as well as ordinary federal employees just trying to do their jobs.
Anxiety is not a sufficient reaction to the world of Trump and his gang of billionaires, especially the unelected-to-anything co-President Elon Musk, who without authority busts into government offices to take whatever he puts his hands on, including personal date of Americans who believed the right to privacy was a fundamental tenet of conservatism.
For what it’ worth, though, Ron DeSantis’s fall offers at least a glimmer of hope that Republican legislators in Washington will rise and STOP Trump.
Let’s resume our report on what’s happening in the Sunshine State.
First, a depressing fact is that the down-with-DeSantis legislators are still fervent Trumpers.
DeSantis claims he is, too. However, in addition to his failings of character, DeSantis made the mistake of running for the Republican presidential nomination against Trump. The stain is part of his problem, according to reporter Kirby Wilson of the Tampa Bay Times. Wilson also outlined the other problems above facing DeSantis.
“The relationship between Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican leaders of the Florida Legislature has devolved into open hostility,” Wilson wrote. The two legislative leaders “say, essentially, that DeSantis is a control freak.”
The two leaders are Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Daniel Perez.
Referring to immigration, Albritton said last week, “Sometimes leadership isn’t about being out front of an issue. It’s about following the leader you trust.” He said he trusts Trump, not DeSantis, according to reporter Romy Ellenbogen of the Miami Herald. The legislature is ignoring DeSantis and has passed a TRUMP (Tracking and Reforming Unlawful Migration) Act, which aims to help Trump carry out his immigration policies.
The act designates Agriculture Secretary Willard Simpson as the state’s chief immigration officer. He will handle the millions of dollars appropriated under the TRUMP Act. Reporters note that, as agriculture secretary, Simpson is close to Florida’s farmers, many of whom have relied on undocumented immigrants to raise and harvest crops. It is not clear how that dilemma will get handled in Florida.
The Florida legislature was in Tallahassee, the state capital last Monday, Jan. 27, because DeSantis had called a special session that day to deal with immigration.
“Florida legislative leaders quickly gaveled out a special session called by Gov. Ron DeSantis Monday morning just moments after it opened, announcing they would be gaveling in their own later that day,” reported Tristan Wood of WFSU Radio.
The legislature figuratively tossed DeSantis’s proposals into Lake Okeechobee and opened its own special session and passed its own plan, the TRUMP Act.
DeSantis, for whom immigration remains his main policy focus, says he intends to call another special session and veto the TRUMP Act. Over the past few days, he has turned to social media and conservative news outlets, including Fox News, to badmouth Florida legislators.
Like boys who sit a sandbox on a pre-school playground and punch on each other's arms, the tussle doesn’t amount to much. Both sides like Trump and focus so much on immigration that they aren’t dealing with other issues important to Floridians, including homeowner insurance reform and climate change
Meanwhile, DeSantis is even more hot to trot with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency now that Trump plans to round up 100,000 alleged criminals and process them through the infamous federal Guantanamo Bay, Cuba prison facility before each is dropped off somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere.
DeSantis could give Trump a tour of Guantanamo. As a Navy lawyer, he served at Guantanamo overseeing the interrogation of alleged terrorists from the Middle East. Speaking of lawyers, there will be a need for them at Guantanamo because the ICE dragnet will likely capture many innocent people. The fact that the Trump administration is putting a huge prison camp on an isolated island does not bode well for immigrants seeking due process or for a nation that expects the humane treatment of everyone.
DeSantis persists in his effort to remain governor in more than name only. Several days ago, he issued a memo that calls for more cooperation between the State Highway Patrol and ICE. The memo does not call for more money, according to the Miami Herald. William Smith, a spokesman for highway patrol officers said, “We’re going to be the tip of the spear with no additional funding.” Smith said the Highway Patrol has around 150 vacancies.
Word out of Florida is that speeders routinely go 85 to 90 miles an hour on interstate highways without worrying about enforcement by overworked highway patrol officers. Immigrants might be less of a threat to public safety than speeders and reckless drivers.