Professional politicians today know that getting elected at almost any level (local, state, national) is often termed a “blood sport,” and for a good reason. But few professional politicians take this as seriously as MAGA Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
To live up to the idea that politics today is a “blood sport,” DeSantis has used formal state policies and made decisions that have cost the lives of thousands who succumbed to COVID and COVID-related illnesses. His lethal and pathetic leadership cost the lives of many Floridians, just so he could gain some political points.
He did this to score political points with his followers who thought that COVID was nothing more severe than the flu, a temporary, seasonal event, or that his followers would have “natural immunity” and would never show any COVID symptoms.
To add fuel to the fire, the DeSantis-Trump clique attacked the National Institute of Health; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director. They worked to suppress any scientific-medical evidence that showed COVID was both contagious and preventable with the proper vaccinations, masks, and limiting interpersonal contact.
Floridians Died While DeSantis Campaigned
While DeSantis was pushing his anti-COVID-Q-Anon-inspired messages, 34,557 Floridians died of COVID in 2021. By 2023, over two years after the COVID death rate peaked in the U.S., (December 2020 to January 2021), the Becker Hospital Review found that Florida ranked third in the nation, behind New York and California, with the most significant number of average daily deaths per 100,000 people. (The data was last updated on March 23, 2023.)
But to keep DeSantis’ deceptive COVID political message alive, his administration intentionally misrepresented statewide COVID infection and death rate data. This led to an investigation by the Florida Department of Health into the state’s reporting of COVID-19 deaths. The investigation began after DeSantis said the official reports “overstate the number of deaths,” according to a report by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
DeSantis’ Anti-Science Messages Caused Unnecessary Deaths
Since April 1, 2021, Florida has “by far the highest COVID death rate among the country’s six most populated states — California, Texas, New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania rounding out the half dozen,” the Tampa Bay Times discovered.
One main possible contributor was Florida’s vehement attacks on COVID vaccinations, despite scientific proof of their efficacy. The Tampa Bay Times found that Florida “lags in nearly every age group when it comes to getting a first booster, let alone a second.”
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Florida ranked 46th in the percentage of 12- to 17-year-olds 9who received) a first booster, 44th in 18- to 64-year-olds and 46th for the 65 and older group. The DeSantis administration’s attacks on vaccines, masks, Dr. Fauci, and the scientific evidence are major reasons for the low booster rate.
What does DeSantis gain from the high COVID death rate?
A significant attribute of the MAGA Republicans is that they are above contracting COVID. It’s part of their “special status,” which includes being physically more robust than the rest of the population, especially older adults and minorities. Their special status also relies on getting “better” information about the activities of the Deep State (whatever that is). They turn to propagandists who feed them news to bolster their fantasy of elevated status.
To keep things simple for the MAGA flowers, DeSantis’s clique has pushed the “Don’t say COVID,” along with the “Don’t say gay” and the anti-WOKE nonsense, while at the same time taking Disney, one of the world’s top attractions, to court to attack its internal corporate business policies.
DeSantis Also Hates the Veterans
As a Navy officer, DeSantis also has Trump’s disdain for the military. DeSantis is defending Trump’s gross mishandling of top secret documents, even as he surely realizes that if a foreign power reads these documents, they could discover who and how sensitive information was stolen.
He also knows that anyone who took the secrets and passed them on to foreign enemies would face a certain death.
Sacrificing Lives for Political Gain is Not New to Republicans
The morbid ploy used by DeSantis and Trump to sacrifice the lives of their constituents is not unique to them. Former presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon did the same thing during the Iran hostage crisis and during the Viet Nam war respectively.
Reagan Endangers Lives to Win An Election
Reagan stalled the release of 52 Americans during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1981. At that time, President Jimmy Carter had successfully negotiated the release of the Americans, but the next election was approaching and Reagan was running against Carter. To create the illusion that Carter was “weak,” Reagan and his henchmen told the Iranians to delay the release of the hostages until after Reagan was elected. The American hostages became political pawns to the Republicans. To show that Reagan was a tough guy, he told the Iranians to release the hostages the day he was inaugurated. In short, the lives of the 52 Americans were unnecessarily jeopardized so that Republicans could gain political points.
Nixon Extends the War to Win an Election
A more lethal example of Republican political opportunism at the expense of Americans happened During the Viet Nam War. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson negotiated terms for the South Vietnamese to end the war, but that would give too much credit to the Democrats and Johnson. The insecure Nixon didn’t want the war to end, so he used secret emissaries to tell the South Vietnamese that if he was elected, they would get more favorable surrender terms. The South Vietnamese reneged on their deal with Johnson and the war continued.
In an upset election, the Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humprey lost to Nixon won by 1% of the popular vote. “Once in office, he (Nixon) escalated the war into Laos and Cambodia, with the loss of an additional 22,000 American lives, before finally settling for a peace agreement in 1973 that was within grasp in 1968,” the BBC said in a report.
A researcher, Ken Hughes, at the Miller Center of the University of Virginia, said Nixon’s interference in the negotiation process showed that“Nixon committed a crime to win the presidential election.”
DeSantis is Just Another Republican Sociopath
If all this sounds familiar, it should: Republicans disdain average citizens who die of COVID, as well as the military who fight unnecessary wars. In both cases, the deaths of innocent people bolster the Republicans’ chances of winning the election so they can push their cultural agenda. In the end, thousands of innocent people die so MAGA Republicans can sue Disney, deny voters the right to vote, and harass gay people.
DeSantis knows this but doesn’t care. To get some votes, he would readily sacrifice thousands of servicepeople, many based in Florida, and overseas intelligence sources.
If Desantis’ opportunistic inaction cause more people to die, so what?
It’s all part of his version of getting elected. To DeSantis, politics is a literal blood sport.
