DeSantis Disaster
Less than 3 weeks after DeSantis began selling “Don’t Fauci My Florida” merchandise, Florida breaks record for new Covid cases
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‘Jaws’ had a sequel. Turns out ‘Pandumbic’ does, too.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to work, or school, or a restaurant, Republican Governors led by Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, ably assisted by Facebook and Fox News, are making many of our worst fears about vaccine resistance and anti-mask stupidity come true.
And it didn’t have to happen.
Back in March, when Biden warned of the dangers of “Neanderthal Thinking,” I wrote here on Substack:
The pace of vaccinations has accelerated to more than two million a day—and the only thing that could definitely fuck things up for everyone is more Trumplike GOP stupidity.
As Republicans (many of whom had been called far worse by Dear Leader himself) were clutching their pearls about Biden’s choice of the word “Neanderthal,” I added:
The real concern, of course, is that more spread of the disease—and more mutations of the virus—could result in a deadlier and more contagious variant, one that the current vaccines can’t counter.
The rapid spread of the Delta Variant (now also known as the “DeSantis Variant”, aka the “Murdoch Variant”) is sickening thousands, sending more and more children to the hospital, and upending return-to-work plans at many companies. As I tweeted this week, even Facebook will require all U.S. employees to be vaccinated before allowing them back into the office to spread misinformation.
As Things Got Worse, Republicans Got Dumber
Biden’s “Neanderthal Thinking” remark came in response to Greg Abbott’s incredibly stupid decision to lift Covid restrictions in Texas at a time when the state led the nation in new cases while ranking 48th in vaccination rates.
Not to be outdone, Florida Man Ron DeSantis attempted to burnish his 2024 Presidential credentials by doubling down on his already-disastrous approach to the pandemic.
The results were predictably catastrophic:
May: DeSantis suspended all local COVID emergency mandates.
June: Florida became the Number 1 state in America for new Covid cases and new Covid deaths.
July: DeSantis began selling anti-Fauci merchandise on campaign website.
August: Florida is hitting new pandemic highs in daily Covid-19 cases.
On Saturday July 31, Florida reported 21,683 new Covid cases, a leap from the previous day’s total of 17,000.
As Trump proved last year, you can’t defeat a virus with stupidity. But like Trump, Ron DeSantis is both too dumb and too focused on his own political future to be an effective leader during this deadly pandemic.
Thankfully, even as Neanderthal DeSantis is failing bigly, local officials in Florida—and even Disney World—are putting public health first and reimposing mask and vaccine requirements in defiance of the Governor’s anti-mandate orders.
Because if we want to survive ‘Pandumbic 2,’ one thing is clear: we’re going to need a bigger brain.
UPDATE: “A day after it recorded the most new daily cases since the start of the pandemic, Florida on Sunday (August 1, 2021) broke a previous record for current hospitalizations, as the number of patients in hospitals because of COVID-19 once again broke through the 10,000-person threshold,” reports AP.
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