A demonstration in favor of women’s reproductive rights at the Collier County, Fla., Courthouse on Oct. 2, 2021. (Photo: Author)
April 10, 2024 by David Silverberg
Imagine, if you will, that it is a few minutes to midnight on Tuesday, April 30, 2024.
In Florida’s towns and cities crowds gather in the darkness on courthouse steps and town squares to mark the imminent implementation of the “Heartbeat Protection Act,” the state’s six-week abortion ban.
At each gathering, speakers address the crowds, many of the women in Handmaid costumes. As the clock nears midnight, the speaker raises a copy of the pamphlet containing the Roe versus Wade decision.
Then, at midnight, the speaker sparks a flame and sets the Supreme Court decision alight, marking the end of a woman’s right to choose in Florida.
A burning copy of the Roe v. Wade decision. (Photo illustration: Slate)
The pamphlet burns quickly. An assistant strikes a bell that mournfully tolls 12 times. The fire dies into darkness. The bell’s sound fades into a solemn moment of silence. It is one minute past midnight, May 1, 2024.
Then spotlights come up and focus on the unscrolling of large banner that has on it the words of Amendment 4:
“No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”
The crowd cheers and waves small flags bearing the words of the amendment that were earlier distributed. They chant: “My body, my choice, my vote, my voice.” And then they march.
The media visuals are spectacular and spread across the state, the nation and the world.
And the battle to pass Amendment 4 is formally joined.
Or perhaps that’s too dramatic and impractical. Maybe anti-choice towns and cities in Florida won’t provide a permit for a midnight gathering or it’s too much to organize on short notice.
Maybe a less complex form of observance is also an option.
Perhaps at midnight on April 30-May 1 supporters of Amendment 4 can open their windows or go outside on their porches, and decks and lanais and simply bang a pot or pan for five minutes to register their protest and alert the world that they are mobilized and ready to work to change Florida’s Constitution.
It’s a common form of protest in countries where people fear retaliation and punishment for their views. There’s even a name for it: “cacerolazo,” a Spanish word derived from “stew pot” (similar to the word “casserole”) and it’s a time honored type of dissent. In recent years it was mostly used in South America to demonstrate against everything from government repression to economic austerity.
Imagine a cacophony of banging pots rising from Florida’s midnight darkness; a protest—and a warning.
Whatever form it takes, the coming into force of Florida’s abortion ban should not go unmarked.
But this year the abortion fight has an interesting wrinkle and it’s one that pro-choice activists should use to the max.
A wrinkle of timing
When the Florida Supreme Court issued its abortion rulings on April 1 it set up an interesting political dynamic.
In one ruling it declared that the six-week abortion ban could go into effect in 30 days. That is scheduled to occur at midnight, May 1.
In another ruling it declared that Amendment 4 legalizing abortion could go on the ballot and be decided on Election Day, Nov. 5.
It is 188 days (6 months and 4 days) between those dates.
During that time Florida women will be stripped of a right to choose that they enjoyed for the previous 50 years under Roe v. Wade. They will feel what it is like to lose a fundamental right, to have a heavy hand descend on their lives and have no recourse or appeal. The media will carry stories like those in the past from Ohio and Indiana or Texas about Florida women who suffer because Florida has outlawed safe, legal abortion.
But that period also provides a powerful incentive for pro-choice advocates to make their case for passing Amendment 4 with the 60 percent majority they need to add it to the Florida Constitution.
It should not be allowed to slip away.
Reactions and implications
There has now been sufficient time to react to the Florida Supreme Court’s rulings and across the board, political analysts and pundits view it as a disaster for Florida Republicans both in the state and quite possibly nationally. A tsunami of commentary is already breaking and will gather force and volume as Election Day draws nearer. (Of note: Early voting begins Oct. 26.)
Still, some voices stand out.
President Joe Biden’s campaign is arguing that the abortion decisions make Florida winnable for Democrats.
“We definitely see Florida in play, and unlike Donald Trump, we have multiple pathways to 270 [Electoral College votes] that we’ve been able to keep open,” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, the campaign manager for the Biden-Harris reelection team, told reporters after the Supreme Court rulings.
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Florida Democratic candidate for Senate, called the rulings “a game-changer.”
“I think that millions of Floridians regardless of party, we know that this is not a partisan issue, are going to come out to the ballot box and make sure they protect their right to choose and their freedom,” she stated. She has used the rulings to hammer her opponent, Sen. Rick Scott, who supports a national abortion ban.
Florida pundit and Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson, who had a long career as a down and dirty Republican political operative, called the rulings “consequential” in a post titled, “Welcome To Ground Zero: Florida Puts Abortion On The Ballot.”
The amendments, he wrote, “will reshape the race in Florida — particularly down-ballot,” overturning Republican calculations. “This was the last thing they wanted,” he noted.
“Pissed-off women are dangerous women, and the six-week bans on abortion are having a massive political ripple effect in the country,” he wrote. “The Florida Democrats should focus on tightening the GOP’s current 800,000 registration advantage and ramping turnout with women voters.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who pushed for the six-week ban when he was running for president and signed it into law, struck back—feebly.
At a press conference in Davie, Fla., on April 4, DeSantis said that Florida voters would reject Amendment 4 and an amendment to legalize recreational marijuana as too radical and “very, very extreme.”
He also expressed a belief that many Florida voters are too ignorant to understand or vote for the amendments.
“I think Florida voters over the past four or five cycles have developed a skepticism on these amendments generally because they’re always written in ways that are confusing,” he said. “You don’t necessarily know what the intent’s going to be. So I think there’s a certain segment of voters, they default. Just vote ‘no’ on these things. Because they know that these things cost tens of millions of dollars to get on.”
Alleged vagueness in the wording was also the argument used by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and her allies when they argued against including Amendment 4 on the ballot before the Supreme Court.
But the Supreme Court rejected their arguments. “Here, there is no lack of candor or accuracy,” stated the Court’s opinion. “…the ballot language plainly informs voters that the material legal effects of the proposed amendment will be that the government will be unable to enact laws that ‘prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict’ previability abortions or abortions necessary to protect the mother’s health. It is undeniable that those are the main and material legal effects of the proposed amendment.”
(The entire ruling is available for download at the end of this article.)
The rulings also had the effect of forcing Donald Trump, Florida resident and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, to issue a statement to clarify his position on abortion, which he did in a video on April 8. In it he took credit for appointing the US Supreme Court judges who overthrew Roe v. Wade, said that abortion should be left to the states and then declined to either endorse a national ban, as anti-choice activists had hoped, or set a time limit when abortions should be legal.
One view of Trump’s abortion position. (Illustration: M. Wuerker/Politico)
His operative paragraph was: “My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint. The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state. Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be.”
Another cartoonist’s view of Trump’s abortion statement. (Illustration: Andy Marlette)
It was a statement that attempted to have it all ways and it satisfied no one. Today, Wednesday, April 10, while questioned on a tarmac in Atlanta, Ga., Trump said he would not sign a national abortion ban if elected president.
Analysis: A rare moment in time
The timing of both the ban and the amendment present Floridians with an extremely rare political opportunity. Like a slingshot propelling a stone, the ban will give force, momentum and impact to the amendment effort. With the experience of repression, people will know and understand what they’re trying to achieve by passing the amendment.
The momentum is not all on one side, of course. Opponents will know that they have to preserve a ban that’s already in place. But at the moment, there is little evidence of the enthusiasm and determination to match the pro-choice side. However, opponents can be expected to mobilize so the conflict will be intense.
Another positive indicator for amendment advocates is the success of pro-choice measures in previous elections, even in very conservative states.
Wilson noted this in his analysis.
“The Democrats should take lessons from the abortion ballot questions in Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio,” he wrote, referring to recent victories for abortion rights.
“This isn’t simply about abortion qua abortion.
“It’s about the heavy hand of government overreach. It’s about Ron DeSantis deciding when you should know if you’re pregnant. It’s about monitoring women. It’s about turning doctors into criminals.
“The winning formula is out there on this issue. Democrats would be wise to use it. The ads, messages, and strategies in successful models of this issue are more libertarian than you might expect…and draw a percentage of women Republicans and conservative-leaning independents across the line.”
In all, Florida—and other states, like Arizona—are poised for an epic battle over women’s abortion rights, one that will ripple down the ballot and shape the nation.
It’s a rare moment in history, as rare as a solar eclipse.
But unlike an eclipse, its outcome is in the hands of the people on the ground. And in this case, those people can ensure that the sun comes out to once again shine on the Sunshine State.
The solar eclipse of April 8, 2024. (Image: NASA)
Click on the button to download a copy of the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling onAmendment 4.
Collier County Supervisor of Elections Melissa Blazier at work. (Photo: Author)
April 2, 2024 by David Silverberg
The election for the Mayor and City Council of the City of Naples is now finalized, certified and complete—and holds some lessons for voters both in Southwest Florida and beyond.
On Friday, March 29, the Collier County Canvassing Board certified the results for the non-partisan election. The incumbent mayor, Teresa Heitmann, won her race by 22 votes over competitors Councilman Gary Price and Ted Blankenship. A race for a third seat on the city council was decided by 34 votes.
The final results of the Naples City election. (Chart: Supervisor)
Because the margins were so tight—in the initial, unofficial count on election night, Heitmann was leading by just 12 votes—both races were subject to recounts.
For those unfamiliar with it, the City of Naples, Florida is a small, incorporated municipality of roughly 19,000 people. It resides within Collier County, whose Supervisor of Elections oversees its elections. There were 16,726 eligible voters in this contest, according to the Elections Office and turnout ran about 51 percent.
On the one hand, the smallness of the sample and the specificity of the issues—chiefly, controlling development—in the race make the election results unique to the city.
But on the other hand, given the closeness of the races and the ideological intensity of some of the partisans and candidates, there are larger lessons to be learned.
Lesson 1: Competence won
First, despite the smallness of the electorate, this was not a simple election. Whenever an election is this close and the outcome this uncertain, the supervisor and team overseeing the election count have to be at the top of their game to ensure the accuracy, integrity and legality of the results.
Indeed, sometimes simply making a system function as it ought is a true test of competence and effectiveness. Elections have been under scrutiny and pressure ever since Donald Trump decided to reject the results of the 2020 ballot and lie about its outcome.
In this regard, the Collier County elections office, under the leadership of Supervisor Melissa Blazier, acquitted itself in exemplary fashion. It’s in such instances that the 17 years of experience she had in election management come into play and prove its value.
While there were rumors and accusations about the results, Blazier addressed them in an X posting around noon on the day of the recount.
“Hi! Us again to alert you to some misinformation regarding the City of Naples mayoral race. We get it – the City of Naples races were CLOSE! So close we did a machine recount for both the mayoral race and for city council. The recounts confirmed the results of both races.
“There are some rumors out there that provisional ballots could have changed the results of the mayoral contest, particularly provisional ballots that were cast due to party affiliation,” she wrote. She noted that Florida is a closed primary state where voters must be members of the party on the ballot to vote in the primary and that they had to change their party affiliation by Feb. 20 to vote in the Presidential Preference Primary, which was held the same day.
“On March 22, the canvassing board was presented with 18 provisional ballots due to voters disputing their political party affiliation and casting an illegal ballot which were all rejected by the canvassing board in accordance with Florida election law.”
She continued: “During the review of these 18 provisional ballots, the canvassing board and members of the public who observed the process were presented with the voters’ information and evidence as to why the provisional ballots should be rejected in accordance with Florida election law. This included where the voters live. All 18 of these provisional ballots were not located within the City of Naples which means that the ballot they were issued did not contain the mayor or city council race.”
To date, these conclusions have not been challenged.
In fact, Councilman Ted Blankenship, the third place finisher in the mayoral race, conceded defeat the night of the election, stating in a Facebook post:
“God Bless Naples!
“Thank you to each and every one of you for standing behind me. Together, we ran a race focused on the issues important to our community and our country.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t work out in our favor.
“It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve the people of Naples these last four years. I am disappointed in the results of tonight’s election, but my love for this community has not diminished in the slightest.
“Best wishes to those who were elected to serve our great town!”
Blankenship demonstrated civility and his concession was principled; unlike Trump, he didn’t call fraud or disparage the parties involved.
But his defeat provided its own lesson.
Lesson 2: MAGA doesn’t rule Naples
Alfie Oakes shakes hands with Ted Blankenship during a campaign meeting at his restaurant, Food & Thought 2. (Photo: Blankenship Campaign)
The city election was non-partisan in the sense that the candidates did not run under party labels. But that is not to say that parties and partisans weren’t involved.
Blankenship was the Make America Great Again (MAGA) candidate, endorsed by grocer and farmer Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III, an extreme Trumper and MAGA activist. Oakes’ Citizens Awake Now Political Action Committee contributed to his campaign. He was also endorsed by the Collier County Republican Executive Committee, where Oakes is a committeeman, and which contributed $20,000 and an advertisement worth $1,500.
The city results contrasted with the past results in Collier County, where in the 2022 election all the Oakes-endorsed candidates won their races for the county Board of Commissioners and School Board, giving him almost complete dominance of the county. In this he effectively mobilized his thousands of MAGA followers and his Seed to Table market as a political platform.
The resulting county dominance has resulted in passage of anti-federal ordinances, an anti-science inspired restrictive public health law and termination of fluoridation of the county’s water.
But the city election proved that Oakes’ sway stopped at the city line. This came despite the overwhelming Republican advantage in registered voters (10,526 Republicans to Democrats’ 2,523). The results prove that a majority of Naples Republicans are not MAGA/Oakes Republicans—essentially, they’re two separate parties.
Lesson 3: Every single vote counts
There is nothing like an election whose outcome is decided by 22 ballots to drive home the point that absolutely every single vote counts—and that the counting must be done honestly and accurately.
The City of Naples election will hardly rock the nation—but in the upcoming election that will determine the next president, whether women will have the right to choose and if marijuana will be legalized, every single ballot will be precious and prized.
That election will also determine whether Blazier will retain her position as Supervisor of Elections. In this she’s up against two opponents who have absolutely no previous experience in election management and whose chief motivations for running are the discredited conspiracy theories and Big Lie allegations lingering from the 2020 election.
Tim Guerrette in particular, is backed by Oakes and as of last November had received over $89,000 in cash and over $18,000 in in-kind contributions as compared to Blazier’s roughly $62,000 and nearly $9,000 in in-kind contributions.
Guerrette has nothing like the experience and knowledge that Blazier brings to the task. Oakes has attacked machine counting of ballots, which was crucial in ensuring the accuracy of the Naples results so Guerrette would presumably terminate that if he was able.
Ultimately, if a MAGA candidate won the Supervisor of Elections position in November, voters in Collier County would never again have the confidence that their votes were being accurately, competently and neutrally counted—and in a tight election like that of Naples, that would make a big difference.
While the City of Naples election may not have been a preview of the outcome of the August 20 primary election and the Nov. 5 general election, these are some of the important lessons it provided.
And it brought home again just how critical it is for every citizen to have the vote, to exercise it—and to preserve it by keeping America a democracy.
Former President Donald Trump with Rep. Byron Donalds (Photo: Office of Byron Donalds)
March 20, 2024 by David Silverberg
Last Saturday, March 16, Donald Trump, campaigning in Ohio, said: “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.” Given Trump’s past encouragement of violence and his past incitement of a mob attack on the US Capitol, the resulting furor might be understandable. However, Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republicans rushed to Trump’s defense, saying that he was only referring to the auto industry.
Republican candidate Donald Trump makes his “bloodbath” statement at a rally in Ohio. (Image: YouTube)
One of the MAGA loyalists vociferously defending Trump was Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), whose Southwest Florida district covers the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island.
“FAKE NEWS ALERT,” he posted on X the next day. “Yesterday, President Trump held a rally in OH. He spoke about how outsourcing the US auto industry would create an economic bloodbath. Now media is deliberately twisting his words in an attempt to dupe the American people. This ‘bloodbath’ hoax is SHAMEFUL.”
In and of itself Donalds’ reflexive defense of Trump was unsurprising. However, another statement was, in its way, even more extreme.
On March 7, Donalds was asked in an interview with the newssite Axios whether if he served as vice president in a Trump administration he would certify the Electoral College votes in the 2028 election.
Donalds said he wouldn’t do so automatically. “If you have state officials who are violating the election law in their states … then no, I would not,” he said, adding that “I already know” states did not follow election laws in 2020.
When asked if he agreed with then-Vice President Mike Pence’s certification of the results on Jan. 6, 2021, Donalds said “you can only ask that question of Mike Pence,” (which doesn’t answer the question, since Donalds was being asked for his opinion of Pence’s actions and had nothing to do with Pence’s opinion).
Donalds’ response raises the possibility—indeed, the likelihood—that if Trump won the presidency with Donalds as vice president, Donalds would enable a possible permanent, lifetime, unelected Trump presidency (really, a dictatorship) by tossing out Electoral votes in any election certification over which he presided.
Donalds is already on record voting to overturn the 2020 election, which he did on Jan. 6, 2021 before the Capitol was invaded by the Trump-incited mob that Donalds characterized that day as “lawless vigilantes” and “a bunch of lunatics.”
That day too, Pence certified the election results—for which action the mob attempted to lynch him.
Eyes on the rise
Donalds’ defense of a Trump “bloodbath” and his willingness to support a lifetime Trump presidency once again puts the spotlight on his longstanding quest to become Trump’s vice president.
Donalds himself has become coy about his aspirations. Last year when the idea apparently first occurred to him or he had some encouragement, he seemed especially eager. Last June he posted in a fundraising message: “…I haven’t heard nearly as much discussion about who the Republican nominee for Vice President should be. It’s critical that the nominee is another America First warrior who will stand up to the radical Left no matter what kind of witch hunts the radical Left and the Deep State throw at the ticket.” There was little doubt who he had in mind.
But in October last year when asked about a potential vice presidential slot at a Fort Myers town hall, according to a Naples Daily News article, he responded, “The speculation is out there. I’ve not talked to the president about it (but) if he goes, ‘All right, Byron, that’s what I want you to do,’ then yeah, all right let’s roll. Because you know it’s about the country.”
Nothing seems to have happened in the intervening time to indicate that Donalds is any closer to being tapped for vice president than was the case then. In fact, if anything, Donalds is further from the possibility.
But it’s worth asking, from Trump’s perspective: what would Donalds bring to a Trump ticket?
Assets
In a traditional political calculation, the vice presidential candidate is picked to balance the top of the ticket based on region, ideology, race, age or gender. Presumably, this “balance” attracts sufficient voters to make a winning majority.
Of course Donald Trump has tossed away all traditional calculations. There’s just no telling what his criteria would be for his vice presidential candidate—although the high likelihood is that it would be blind personal loyalty, subservience and a willingness to obey any command no matter how criminal, unconstitutional or even treasonous, especially given that he encouraged the attempted lynching of Pence when he refused to commit an unconstitutional act at Trump’s command.
But based on traditional calculations, the first and most obvious thing that Donalds would bring to a Trump ticket is just the fact that he is African American.
At its most basic, an African American on the ticket would shield Trump from charges of racism. It might attract the votes of a small sliver of other African Americans.
But Donalds is not the only African American willing to provide racial cover for Trump. He is competing with the much more prominent Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) who ran his own race for president, lost, and then very conspicuously endorsed the man who beat him.
The same applies to Ben Carson, who did the same thing in 2016. After his failed presidential bid he was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the administration. Carson has been actively serving as a Trump surrogate on the campaign trail.
So Donalds must stand out in some other way and the way he appears to have chosen is by ostentatiously trumpeting his total personal allegiance and loyalty to Trump on every media platform available. He has completely bought into every Trump policy and position, no matter how extreme. He has relentlessly attacked President Joe Biden and his administration, proclaimed his belief in the Big Lie of a stolen election in 2020 and was the first Florida Republican politician to endorse Trump when he announced his current run in November 2022.
The public can only guess why Trump continues to overlook and ignore Donalds. However, there are some liabilities that might be factors.
Liabilities
The first liability is that aside from a tiny fraction of the extremely conservative congressional Freedom Caucus, Donalds has no base of his own and what there is, is tenuous as well. It appears to consist mainly of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-3-Colo.), who appears about to lose her seat, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-14-Ga.), who was kicked out of the Freedom Caucus for being too extreme even for its members, and Rep. Chip Roy (R-21-Texas), who nominated Donalds for Speaker in January 2023.
Rep. Byron Donalds sits uncomfortably between Reps. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene while they both heckle President Joe Biden during his State of the Union speech in 2022. (Photo: Reuters)
His support from other members of Congress is small, judging from the few PACs that contributed to his campaign in 2023. These include House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-1-La.), whose Eye of the Tiger PAC contributed $5,000 to Donalds’ campaign in 2023 as well as Scalise for Congress, which contributed $2,000. Other members of Congress whose PACs have contributed include Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Reps. Jim Jordan (R-4-Ohio), Jason Smith (R-8-Mo.), Patrick McHenry (R-10-NC), John James (R-10-Mich.) and former Wisconsin congressman and current Fox News commentator Sean Duffy.
After two terms Donalds is relatively unknown to the public at large, although he’s been working hard to become more prominent. But he would bring no national following to the ticket. Voters, especially black voters, would be mystified by his presence and likely as not would recoil from what they discovered on closer examination.
Also, despite his clear and undisguised ambition, Donalds has lost every election that he’s entered among his fellow Republican members of Congress. He lost his bid to be Republican conference chair and two bids to become Speaker of the House.
He made these efforts despite having a record that did not qualify him for an office higher than the one he already occupies. He has no significant legislative successes to date, nor can he boast of any congressional achievements, either major or minor. He’s still just a sophomore lawmaker grasping for promotion to the junior class. He doesn’t stand out intellectually, influentially or politically. (It was his presumption in this regard that enraged TV host Joy Reid when she interviewed him following his first bid for the Speakership.)
There is some debate whether a vice president could come from the same state as the president but this has largely been dismissed by analysts, who believe it would be permissible. However, it would introduce a complicating factor and element of uncertainty into any campaign.
More significant would be the searing scrutiny Donalds would undergo as a vice presidential candidate—and which he might not survive. He has already admitted to a drug-related arrest as a young man but there have been previous allegations of wrongdoing that would be re-investigated with far more rigor than in the past.
His private life would become wide open, including all the circumstances of his first marriage, divorce and remarriage. Any other skeletons would tumble out of their closets as well.
In examining the totality of Donalds’ pronouncements, actions and legislation, the portrait that emerges is that of a professional politician, almost wildly driven to rise on the national stage in any venue he can find; it doesn’t matter if that’s as a vice presidential candidate, a gubernatorial candidate or a House Republican leader.
The steppingstone
For voters in the 19th Congressional District, these are abstract considerations over which they have no influence. But in practical, immediate terms, what does Donalds’ approach mean for voters in Southwest Florida, who will have to decide whether to renew his contract in November?
“We’re a stepping stone for him in his ‘illustrious’ career,” Kari Lerner, Donalds’ Democratic opponent, said in an interview with The Paradise Progressive earlier this month. “I think the people of Southwest Florida deserve more than to be a stepping stone. I think they deserve more than to be stepped upon.”
Donalds’ political rise is not going to be enabled by attending to the mundane needs of his Southwest Florida district. There, the ongoing concerns are water, development, population growth, algal blooms, the Everglades, conservation and the tourist economy with the occasional hurricane recovery thrown in—hardly sexy national issues that are springboards to higher office. As Lerner noted, for Donalds Southwest Florida is a steppingstone, not a destination.
So while he has done things like submitting earmarks for projects benefiting the district—after some intense prodding—and writing letters when his constituents were afflicted with industrial pollution, his legislative record regarding his district’s core concerns is barely existent. He has not used whatever leverage he has in the Republican House and with the Republican leadership to advance any meaningful measure improving the lives, health or prosperity of his constituents beyond simply introducing 59 bills that have almost all gone nowhere. (Only one, the FISHES Act, House Resolution 5103 has had a subcommittee hearing.)
Instead, he has pounded the media pavements at every opportunity to raise his profile, grasped at every possible opening for higher position and made sure to reaffirm his utterly blind and unquestioning loyalty to Donald Trump.
This does not rebound to the district’s benefit, especially with Gov. Ron DeSantis, on whom Donalds turned his back in favor of Trump. The governor is in a position to veto appropriations to the region or dispense any favors or assistance if needed and he’s known to keep score and retaliate.
Basically, Southwest Florida has an ambitious but distracted representative whose chief focus is on his next possible step up the political ladder rather than on the sands and substance of the district he calls home (and that just barely, since gerrymandering is the only reason his home address is in the district’s boundaries—a favor of the governor, by the way).
On Nov. 5, Donalds’ contract will be up for renewal. District voters should think long and hard whether they should vote to renew it. In a year when so many loyal, traditional, lifelong Republicans have been exiled from the Party by Donald Trump, do they really want to send back to Washington to act and speak on their behalf a fanatically subservient Trumper, a man who is willing to do whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump president for life? This might be the year they want to make a change.
Meanwhile, Donalds has pursued—and is likely to keep pursuing—offices for which he is unqualified by any record of achievement as measured by traditional political calculations and expectations. In each case he has failed to attain his goals when subjected to the judgment of his peers and political elders.
Of course, in this he is likely encouraged by the example of his idol and hero, who attained the highest office in the land despite a complete absence of qualifications, knowledge or fitness.
As he has throughout his political career in Southwest Florida, Donalds has had to square a very difficult circle: he’s an African American in an 85 percent white, heavily conservative MAGA district, where a significant strain of white racism could be expected to influence voting.
What is more, he is mightily laboring in service to a presidential candidate whose racism is blatant, undisguised and appears to extend to Donalds himself.
Donalds has overcome this contradiction by presenting himself as even more extremely Trumpist/MAGA than the most extreme MAGAs in his district and nationwide—with the possible exception of Donald Trump himself.
Clearly, Donalds’ calculation is that the purity of his belief and loyalty will be sufficient for his MAGA voters, his fellow congressional Republicans and Donald Trump himself to overcome any racial prejudice they may harbor. Put another way, they’ll accept him if he’s sufficiently useful to their cause.
The irony is that Donalds’ rise in electoral politics to this point and in this place would have been impossible without the civil rights, racial integration and African American political success of the past century, progress that Trump, MAGAs and white supremacists are trying to undo by making America “great” again.
And, of course, if Trump is elected and establishes a dictatorship, as Donalds has stated he is willing to enable, there won’t be any electoral politics any more for anyone to rise, much less African Americans of any ideological persuasion.
Joe Biden ran for president at age 76 in 2020 because he recognized that he was fighting for nothing less than the soul of America.
An unkind critic might liken Donalds’ defense of Trump’s bloodbath pronouncement and willingness to promote a Trump dictatorship to selling his own soul to gain worldly prominence and power.
The state of Donalds’ soul is up to Donalds himself, of course. But as he continues to commit his soul to Donald Trump, he might want to consider the words of Matthew 16:26 in the New Testament: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Tuesday, March 19, Republican voters will have the final opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice in Florida’s Presidential Preference Primary.
There’s hardly any point in doing so, though. The Republican nominee is known. All his competitors have dropped out and the Florida Republican Party has already endorsed him. There is no suspense here.
Early voting results in Lee and Collier counties are reflecting the inevitability of the outcome and the lack of enthusiasm. As of Sunday, March 17, in Lee County only about 20.25 percent of voters had participated by mail and in-person voting. In Collier County that was only 17.91 percent and in Charlotte County it was 17.17 percent.
The participation rates may go up when the final in-person voting occurs on Tuesday.
But not only is there little mystery about the primary outcome, there’s also little mystery about what a Trump presidency will mean should he accede to the presidency by electoral or other means. If there’s any doubt, people need look no further than the Republican National Committee (RNC) in Washington, DC.
On March 8, Ronna McDaniel (née Romney) stepped down as chair of the RNC. Despite being described as “unfailingly loyal to Trump” by The New York Times, all her past fundraising, hard work and promotion of Trump wasn’t enough. Among her many sins was her insistence on holding debates open to all the Republican candidates, none of which Trump attended.
“It is a little bit bittersweet to be with all of you here today as I step down as chair after seven years of working with you all,” she said in her parting remarks.
Taking her place was Michael Whatley, chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, and Lara Trump, wife of Trump’s son Eric, as co-chairs. Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump campaign advisor, was named the RNC’s chief operating officer. It put the RNC entirely in Trump’s hands.
Observers should regard the takeover of the RNC as a dress rehearsal for a Trump presidency. The way that Trump is treating the organization is the way he will treat the United States—and non-Trump Republicans, or as he calls them, Republicans In Name Only (RINOs)—if elected.
So what are the takeaways from the RNC takeover?
The purge
The first thing that Lara, Whatley and LaCivita did was fire 60 members of the RNC staff and cancel numerous existing contracts. Those who wished to reapply for their jobs could do so and be vetted on the basis of their loyalty to Trump rather than the Party.
The political professionals working at the RNC are hardly radicals, Marxists or Democrats; these are dedicated lifelong Republicans committed to the Party and its goals. The most senior of them had already weathered the Trump presidency, the Big Lie, the insurrection and the midterm elections.
But it wasn’t enough. As Charlie Kirk, head of Turning Point USA, the Trumpist youth organization, stated in a post on X on March 11, “Bloodbath at the RNC is underway. 60+ firings just today. This is excellent. The anti-Trump sleeper cells all have to go. The RNC is getting ready to win.”
Rick Wilson, a Florida-based veteran political operative, co-founder of the Lincoln Project and author of the book, Everything Trump Touches Dies had a very different take on the RNC purge. In a March 11 Substack post titled “The MAGA Mafia’s RNC Bust-Out,” Wilson wrote:
“The presumption that in 2024, nine years into Trump’s reign as the GOP’s dominant force, the RNC is stacked to the gills with secret RINO Fifth Column types is beyond ludicrous. Everyone in that building has survived the last few years by being as much of a Trump loyalist as can be imagined, but it does point to the Paranoid Style of MAGA politics. The Purity Posse is riding to the RNC, boys! Mount up!”
The war on competence
It is more than likely that the RNC staffers with institutional knowledge and professional competence will be replaced with people whose only qualification will be the depth of their fanaticism.
The same is likely to apply if Donald Trump attains the presidency. All of the proven knowledge, competence and capability of existing civil servants, diplomats and even—perhaps especially—law enforcement will be erased in favor of pure fanaticism in the service of Donald Trump. Unlike the clear qualifications that now govern government service, hiring will be done on the vague and subjective basis of personal loyalty and ideological purity. Even the military won’t be spared. The country and all Americans will suffer from the extreme loss of competence in running the nation’s affairs. The potential for corruption is immense and almost inevitable as has been proven repeatedly in Third World dictatorships.
This kind of behavior will leach down to the grassroots and it can already be seen in Southwest Florida with election challenges by ideologically driven, unqualified MAGA candidates to proven, veteran candidates for school boards, county commissions and election supervisors. The results have already resulted in School Board paralysis and in Collier County an extreme, MAGA-dominated Board of Commissioners that has passed anti-federal and anti-public health ordinances.
Nepotism and corruption
Like so many autocrats before him, Trump so needs personal loyalty from those around him that the only people he really trusts are family with blood or marriage ties. This was in evidence in his presidency when he entrusted a variety of sensitive tasks to his otherwise inexperienced and unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner and elevated his daughter Ivanka to senior advisor.
Now with Lara as RNC co-chair, he can be secure in the knowledge that she will impose his will on the Republican Party.
As Wilson put it: “Lara Trump is there as the eyes and ears of the Family. Chris LaCivita is there to bleed every last drop of revenue and resources to a) the Trump effort and b) his friends and allies. Everyone who gets the jobs and contracts canceled en masse this week will be a LaCivita ally or crony. Lara isn’t sophisticated enough to understand what happens when all this rolls forward, but it won’t matter much.”
The same will apply if he becomes president. Donald Trump can be expected to draw on a variety of family members to do his bidding at the highest levels of the American government. This will run counter to American law and practice of prohibiting this kind of incestuous inside dealing, which violates American principles of merit, competence and honesty in government, replacing it with cronyism, corruption and outright theft.
If president again Trump will undoubtedly treat the United States Treasury as his personal piggy bank and all the previous Republican pieties about stewardship of taxpayer dollars and constraining government spending will be rendered null and void.
From a Party standpoint the change means starving the entire down-ballot ecosystem of the funds it needs to run candidates and campaigns at the state and grassroots levels.
As Wilson put it: the new RNC leadership “will bleed the RNC to a desiccated husk. They will break it, kill off any institutional knowledge or expertise in their desire to root out what human-flounder hybrid Charlie Kirk called ‘RINO sleeper cells.’ They will merge the operations into Trumpworld, and everything in Trump World exists to serve only Trump.”
Grassroots mayhem
More than anything else, what this dress rehearsal means for grassroots-level, conservative Republicans—like the Midwestern Republicans who reside in Southwest Florida—is that a lifetime of party loyalty and adherence to principle is now a hindrance.
A Republican—in Southwest Florida or anywhere—now has to be a total Trumper to comfortably remain in the Party. As an example of the consequences of apostasy, last year state House Rep. Spencer Roach (R-76-DeSoto, Charlotte and north Lee counties) had a bullet fired into his home when he dared to challenge the MAGA takeover of the Lee County Republican Party. In a January 2022 op-ed in the newssite Florida Politics titled “No Coronation for Donald Trump in ’24,” he dared to say that while he wasn’t a never-Trumper he also wasn’t an only-Trumper.
There will now be no non-Trumper Republicans of any kind in Trump’s party. There is no diversity or free thought there. Party members must totally endorse any Trump pronouncement, delusion or crime that he commits. The choice is between being a total-Trumper or RINO.
If there was any question of this before, Trump’s actions at the RNC make it official.
Again, Wilson puts it best: “This wholesale slaughter in the RNC is one more sign that the MAGA GOP isn’t simply post-partisan; it’s post-organizational, post-rational, and just another opportunity to monetize Trumpism.”
He continues: “This case of institutional [everything Trump touches dies] means the end of the line for the old GOP. The state committeemen and committeewomen, the state organizations themselves, the major donors, the people who work their way up to get convention seats and tickets are all in for a crashing disappointment. The RNC’s work in voter registration, research, digital, communications, and turnout will wither and die before summer. All that will remain is the RNC’s ability to sluice money (minus a little handling fee and the vig) into Trump’s gaping maw.”
If Trump accedes to the presidency either by election or other means these practices and proclivities will go nationwide.
At the organizational level, Trump will undoubtedly carry out a similar purge of what he and former advisor Steve Bannon have called the “deep state;” i.e., all the experienced, professional civil servants who make the government run to serve the American people. Because their loyalty is to the nation and the Constitution and not to Trump personally, they will be purged, en masse and immediately. The functioning of the country will come to a halt.
Taking their place will be pure Trump loyalists, people who will carry out Trump’s orders no matter how illegal, unconstitutional or even insane.
The country’s needs and priorities will be ignored; the only needs and priorities that will count will be those of Donald Trump himself.
In a way, Trump’s takeover of the RNC is a good thing: it provides such a clear preview of what a Trump presidency will mean.
And that also gives loyal patriots of all party affiliations the time and incentive to organize, mobilize and defend America from what is obviously a clear and present danger from within.
President Joe Biden delivers the 2024 State of the Union address. (Image: CSPAN)
March 8, 2024 by David Silverberg
While President Joseph Biden’s State of the Union address to the nation last night, March 7, touched on the full spectrum of local and international issues facing the country, some items were of particular relevance to Florida—and seemed directly addressed to the state.
Seniors and Social Security
“Tonight, let’s all agree once again to stand up for seniors!” said Biden.
Senior issues Social Security and Medicare are particularly relevant to Florida.
With 20 percent (5.5 million) of its 20.8 million residents aged 60 and older, Florida is second only to California in numbers of seniors. It outnumbers the state senior populations of 20 other states combined, according to the Florida State Plan on Aging 2022-2025, which was based on 2021 figures.
What is more, a high proportion of the 900 people moving to Florida daily are seniors, according to the Plan.
“Florida’s future is linked to the financial security and physical health of its older population,” it states.
Given these demographics, Social Security and Medicare are key federal safety-net programs for the population.
“Many of my Republican friends want to put Social Security on the chopping block” said Biden, drawing catcalls and denials from Republican lawmakers in the chamber.
However, the record supports Biden on this and the main Republican attack on Social Security has come from Florida’s own junior Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).
On March 30, 2022 Scott unveiled an 11-point (later 12-point) “Rescue America” plan in collaboration with former President Donald Trump. Among its points: “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”
Biden called the plan “outrageous” at the time and pointed out that it would kill Social Security. Scott later denied that he had any intention of ending the program and even Trump denounced any intent to harm it. But there have been Republican rumblings of discontent with it ever since (indeed, there has been Republican opposition to it since 1935 when it was initiated).
In his State of the Union address Biden was firm in his defense of seniors and the key safety-net programs.
“If anyone here tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age I will stop them!” he declared. “Working people who built this country pay more into Social Security than millionaires and billionaires do. It’s not fair.”
He continued: “We have two ways to go on Social Security. Republicans will cut Social Security and give more tax cuts to the wealthy. I will protect and strengthen Social Security and make the wealthy pay their fair share!”
Biden’s defense of senior programs was echoed by Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who is running against Scott for Florida’s Senate seat.
“It has never been clearer that Social Security and Medicare are at stake this November – and in order to protect these essential programs, we have to beat Rick Scott, the architect who single-handedly wrote the plan to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block,” she wrote in a statement to The Paradise Progressive. “Our Florida seniors – including my mom – have been paying into Social Security for their whole lives, expecting it would be there to support them in their well-earned retirement. Unlike Rick Scott, I will never allow our parents’ and grandparents’ Social Security and Medicare to be threatened in the Senate or anywhere else.”
Biden also touted his efforts to bring down drug costs by empowering Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies.
“This year Medicare is negotiating lower prices for some of the costliest drugs on the market that treat everything from heart disease to arthritis,” he said. “Now it’s time to go further and give Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for 500 drugs over the next decade.”
He also stated that he wanted cap to prescription drug costs at $2,000 a year “for everyone!”
Women’s health and choice
Biden called on Congress to guarantee the right to use in vitro fertilization and restore women’s right to choose.
Last year Florida enacted a law banning abortions after six weeks.
“Like most Americans, I believe Roe v. Wade got it right,” he said, crediting Vice President Kamala Harris for her work defending reproductive rights.
He blasted Trump, “my predecessor,” for being instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade and boasting about it.
“There are state laws banning the right to choose, criminalizing doctors, and forcing survivors of rape and incest to leave their states as well to get the care they need,” he noted.
“Many of you in this Chamber and my predecessor are promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom,” he said. “My God, what freedoms will you take away next?”
He announced: “If Americans send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you, I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again!”
He also noted that medical research into women’s health issues has always been underfunded and he intended to change that, in part with an initiative on women’s health research led by First Lady Jill Biden.
However, he challenged Congress: “Pass my plan for $12 billion to transform women’s health research and benefit millions of lives across America!”
Book bans, history and education
Given the prevalence of book banning in Florida and legislative rules dictating the history taught in the state’s schools, Biden’s comments on the subject seemed aimed directly at Tallahassee.
After denouncing efforts to suppress voting and calling for passage of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, bills to protect the franchise, Biden addressed a wider issue.
“…Stop denying another core value of America—our diversity across American life,” he said. “Banning books. It’s wrong! Instead of erasing history, let’s make history!”
In the course of calling for increasing Pell Grants for working and middle class students to attend college and reducing the burden of student debt, he added “While we’re at it I want to give public school teachers a raise!”
Florida is currently ranked the 48th state in the nation for teacher pay at $47,500. A bill passed in the current state legislative session would raise teachers’ base pay to $65,000 and may go into effect if approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). However, the state is seeing an exodus of teachers due to legislated curriculum restrictions, ideological pressures, attacks on teachers’ unions, book bans and opposition to personnel diversity and inclusion.
Analysis: Florida, the world and the future
Although broadly addressed to the nation and the world, the program presented by Biden will have significant impacts in Florida if enacted.
But his proposals are unlikely—to put it mildly—to be advanced in the current Republican-dominated House of Representatives, which can barely keep the government functioning and whose leadership is subservient to the whims and prejudices of Biden’s predecessor.
Nonetheless, the vigorously delivered, directly confrontational speech seems to have energized Democrats and may have won over significant numbers of anti-Trump Republicans and independents.
That may just translate into votes on the ground in Florida. The challenge for Democrats will be to sustain the momentum and widen their coalition into November.
As Biden put it: “My fellow Americans the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are it’s how old our ideas are? Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are among the oldest of ideas. But you can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back.”
He laid out his vision: “I see a future where we defend democracy not diminish it. I see a future where we restore the right to choose and protect other freedoms not take them away. I see a future where the middle class finally has a fair shot and the wealthy finally have to pay their fair share in taxes. I see a future where we save the planet from the climate crisis and our country from gun violence.
“Above all, I see a future for all Americans!” he insisted. “Let’s remember who we are! We are the United States of America. There is nothing beyond our capacity when we act together!”
The crowd gathered at the “Reduce the Rancor” event at the Naples United Church of Christ. (Photo: Author)
Feb. 19, 2024 by David Silverberg
On Feb. 7 over 700 people gathered for a “Reduce the Rancor” forum at the Naples United church of Christ, to calmly, rationally discuss handling political differences and bridge them in respectful, civil ways.
A week later, on Feb. 13, the Collier County Board of Commissioners, following three hours of public comment, chose to take a step backward in time, ignore scientific evidence, and end fluoridation of Collier County’s water. Fluoride had been added to Collier County’s drinking water since 1985 in an effort to reduce teeth cavities and improve overall dental health, in keeping with recommendations from a wide variety of organizations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to the American Dental Association and the American Medical Association among many others.
The two events may seem unrelated; one a polite conversation by the county’s leading citizens, the other a formal, governmental function considering a chemical process. However, each displayed the differences playing out in this county and in the country as a whole between rationality and emotion, expertise and suspicion.
There was another difference: the forum provided a common ground for a theoretical discussion of behavior; the Board made a decision that will actually affect people’s health.
The forum
Panelists at the “Reduce the Rancor” event. From left to right: Andy Solis, Francis Rooney, Mike Love, Nick Penniman, Dick Gephardt and Sharon Harris-Ewin. (Photo: June Fletcher)
While political partisans have rallies to fire up crowds and mobilize the faithful, the “Reduce the Rancor” forum was a kind of rally for people who want to restore some sort of calm and civility to public dialogue.
It featured six speakers, all accomplished local residents, from all political sides. Andrew “Andy” Solis, a Republican, was a former Collier County commissioner from District 2. Francis Rooney, also a Republican, represented the 19th Congressional District from 2017 to 2021, after a term as US ambassador to the Holy See. Richard “Dick” Gephardt, a Naples resident, was twice a Democratic candidate for president and served 28 years in the House of Representatives. A media perspective was provided by Nick Penniman, retired publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and lead director of NewsGuard, a company that evaluates accuracy in media, and Tim Love, a veteran advertising executive and author of Discovering Truth, a book on media accuracy. Rev. Sharon Harris-Ewing, a leader of the Interfaith Alliance of Southwest Florida, rounded out the presentations by focusing on values beyond just politics.
“Civil discourse requires some specific shared values,” she noted, observing that some of the values and skills that enable that discourse comes from faith and “an open mind and an open heart,” as well as humility and respect for others, a sentiment that was echoed by other panelists.
The forum was moderated by Mike Kiniry, the producer of the “Gulf Coast Life” program from WGCU-FM. But it was introduced by its organizer, Gunther Winkler, president of Greater Naples Leadership and a native of Austria.
In introducing the program Winkler recalled growing up in a war-shattered Austria, where people wondered how their misfortune had come about. “It was divisiveness,” he said, recounting the violent Nazi takeover of the country. Today, he said, he is seeing the same demand for picking sides and calls for violence that occurred then. However, today “we have the power to reverse this”—hence, his work in creating the forum.
The speakers attempted to get at the causes of the political rancor being experienced in Collier County and in the country generally. It was blamed on the political climate, social media, a mainstream media playing up the extremes and on the personalization of politics.
Only one panelist, Rooney, took aim squarely at an individual as the cause of rancor in the public square. Asked who was chiefly responsible for the current discord and told that he did not need to mention names, he said: “You know who, and it starts with a T”—a striking statement given that Rooney in his first term was an adamant and outspoken defender of Trump.
“There are individuals who fire this thing up and the biggest one of all, I think, is Donald Trump,” he said. “He exerts a magnetic influence over an awful lot of Republicans—not the ones like me who are financing Nikki Haley, by the way.”
Solis, who served District 2 from 2016 to 2023, during the worst of the COVID pandemic, faced sometimes bitter and vituperative attacks for trying to protect Collier County residents from the worst of the disease.
He blamed personalization of issues and the use of threats and insults against elected officials as a prime cause of the national mood of rancor and distrust.
During his time in office, he said, “at least once a week I’d have to say, ‘You know, insulting someone that you’re trying to get to see things your way is an interesting strategy because it’s not working.’ As soon as something becomes personal it takes it out of a discussion about the issues and makes it a personal thing and that gets in the way of having a good discussion about what the issues really are.”
Beth Sherman at the Collier County Board of Commissioners meeting on Feb. 13. (Image: CCBC)
One of the people who has done that accusing in the past was Collier County anti-vaccine activist Beth Sherman. In 2021, during discussion of an anti-federal ordinance, she angrily accused Solis of supporting mandatory vaccinations, a charge he vehemently denied. At the time she also denounced COVID vaccinations in general, the Naples Community Hospital for denying patients hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, and called the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection a false-flag operation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She then demanded commissioners pass the ordinance or resign.
That was a bitter and contentious discussion, full of passion and accusations, the very thing that the people at the “Reduce the Rancor” forum were trying to mitigate.
But this time, when Sherman stood before the Board of Commissioners again on Feb. 13 as they considered removing fluoride from Collier County’s water, she didn’t have to make threats or accusations. The Board was firmly in anti-fluoride hands and everyone knew it.
She just read her argument that fluoride deleteriously affected people’s brains, thyroid and bones and infringed on a citizen’s right to opt out of treatments. Fluoridization, she said, also violated a Collier County ordinance passed in April that, among other measures, prohibits implementing directives from the World Health Organization, which favors fluoridization. Among other charges, she alleged that the US Department of Defense was censoring information on the deleterious effects of fluoride.
At the meeting civility and order were sternly enforced by Commissioner Chris Hall (R-District 2), the chair, who warned participants against displays of emotion or outbursts, in stark contrast to previous proceedings. Commissioner Rick LoCastro (R-District 1) was absent following a warrant for his arrest on battery charges against his girlfriend, a medical emergency and a subsequent arrest, incarceration and bonding. He joined the proceedings remotely.
But while the demeanor of the commissioners and the speakers was restrained and polite and there was no vitriol or personal attacks, the substance of the testimony reflected the same passions, fear and even paranoia that governed the opposition to COVID vaccinations.
This was given most dramatic expression by Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III, the farmer, grocer and political activist who fought vaccine mandates during the pandemic. He and his Citizens Awake Now Political Action Committee endorsed and funded two of the commissioners, Hall and Dan Kowal (R-District 4).
(The full, verbatim, text of Oakes’ speech follows this article.)
It was Kowal who introduced the motion to end fluoridation, arguing that it was a health treatment being administered without recipients’ consent. It violated the April 2023 ordinance, he said, there was no legal requirement that it be maintained and the county would save about $200,000 per year by ending it.
While there were some defenders of fluoridation, the vast majority of speakers, already alerted and mobilized for the discussion, opposed it. Commissioner Burt Saunders (R-District 3) expressed skepticism but ultimately chose to support it and in the end the Board voted unanimously to end fluoridation.
The “Reduce the Rancor” forum with its surprisingly high turnout demonstrated that there is a large constituency in Collier County for the rule of reason. It was a kind of rally for people who want to restore some sort of calm and civility to public dialogue.
The fluoridation vote, though, demonstrated that these are not the people in charge of the county’s government right now. While the discussion before the Board was civil, the logic underlying the opposition showed evidence of the kind of anti-science, anti-expertise, anti-government, suspicious conspiracy theorizing that characterized the anti-vaccine movement during the COVID pandemic.
Once the anti-fluoridation motion passed, dentists and oral hygienists in the county began expressing their opposition, mostly in letters to the editor of the Naples Daily News but by then, of course, it was too late.
Collier County has now taken two votes against mainstream public health measures. This comes at a time when COVID is resurging. According to data from the Florida Department of Health, there have been more than 98,000 cases of COVID-19 in the state since the start of the year. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a JN.1 variant causing 92 percent of cases across the country.
While this is not the deadly and novel COVID virus that struck the world in 2020 it nonetheless shows that public health risks remain. Whether they will be met with a measured, rational, scientific response in Collier County remains to be seen in light of votes taken by the Board of Commissioners to weaken public health measures.
So perhaps the common lesson of the “Reduce the Rancor” forum and the Board of Commissioners vote is this: It is fine to support civil dialogue and reasoned, logical disagreement but unless there’s a willingness to act on behalf of reason, unreason will triumph—and then no amount of openness, or dialogue and respect, will make any difference at all.
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Alfie Oakes addresses the Collier County Board of Commissioners on Feb. 13. (Image: CCBC)
The speech by farmer and political activist Alfie Oakes to the Collier County Board of Commissioners merits quotation in full.
This is a verbatim transcript of his remarks. Additions for clarity are marked in brackets [ ] and incomplete thoughts are marked with ellipses (…). Otherwise, it is unedited.
“So, thank you for hearing me today. As you know this is somewhat personal to me, my father that passed away back in 2013, a couple years before his passing was up here fighting with the commission to get the fluoride out of the water. It was something he was very passionate about. I had the privilege of my father, while he never made a lot of money, he drove a 300-dollar car, when I was at the age of 11 and he spent 900 dollars for a reverse osmosis system for our house because that was more important to him than the car that he drove but he didn’t want to damage mostly us kids but the whole family with the fluoride when he found out that the only way to get fluoride out of the water was with reverse osmosis. So, he was way ahead of the curve on a lot of things and I have, except for one time, when I was in like third or fourth grade there was a fluoride supplement that they made us take it and my father found out about it and lost his mind. That’s the only time that these teeth have ever seen fluoride. They don’t look like they have too many cavities, do they?
“So, I’d also like to talk about…we find out a lot about who is on the right side of things by…who, what I call our enemies are and when I see something that’s reported or that’s encouraged by the World Health Organization or by [Adm.] Rachel Levine [US Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services] and even the World Economic Forum and promotes this fluoride and you have to ask yourself ‘Why?’
“I was lucky enough to attend an event over in Mexico this past summer and it was the first time that I’d ever heard – and I heard this gentleman say it again today – the first time I ever heard that fluoride actually calcifies the pineal gland, it’s that element that calcifies your pineal gland.
“So, I’ve been lucky in that my pineal gland hasn’t been calcified. Maybe it’s why I have eternal energy. I get up at four o’clock in the morning and go until 10 o’clock at night. I have…the pineal gland is represented in ancient history as the third eye, our connection into our spirituality. It’s also what I consider a driving force. When I hear that the IQ has been lowered of all these reports of these kids that are taking tested, their IQs are directly proportional to how much fluoride that’s in the water, it’s stunning but when I think about that in a logical sense it makes sense because I don’t believe that, like some of these doctors here, who, their vessel is filled with knowledge from the university, I think that real learning comes from the lighting of a fire and the lighting of the fire is that pineal gland. That’s our fire that connects us to our spirituality, it gives us drive.
“I got a high school education. I’ve done pretty well because I got the fire burning. And, and this is intentional – if you don’t think this is intentional, to dumb us down, to keep control of the people in this country, then I don’t think that you’re paying attention.
“The fluoride…unfortunately, I’m going to take a few minutes – because there’s a hundred different things said that I was going to bring up today but the fluoride is not the only problem. So, as we know, that the fluoride that they’re putting in the water is not naturally occurring fluoride. It’s man-made substance, it’s toxic to us. When they found out how well that worked to poison us and dumb us down back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, in 1977 they just decided they were going to put folic acid in the bread. Folic acid in all the bread, 99.9 percent of all the bread in this country has folic acid in it. It’s, again, another man-made substance. It’s poisoning us. And, you know, I don’t think…thank God we’re not putting the folic acid in the water or we’re getting that out but I might be back here asking everyone to put poison labels on all bread in Collier County that has folic acid in it because it’s just another sham from the same people that are trying to bring us down.
“And, you know, the difference between right now and when my Dad was here 13, 14 years ago whenever it was, fighting against the fluoride is, we don’t trust the white coats any more. They got up here and put on the same show. I just listened to them, they – you say not to say the same things over again? – almost every one of their talking points from the university are exactly the same talking points and they’ve been using it over and over again, it’s the same thing when I sat here with my father 14 years ago that they used. As a matter of fact, the gentleman got up, Johnny Johnson [President of the American Fluoridation Society and a former pediatric dentist], he goes around the whole state doing this, I don’t know whether he’s paid or not. It doesn’t matter to me but you have to wonder what is driving it. What’s the driving force? Why are they trying to do this? Why are they trying to put a neuro-toxin in our water that’s poisoning us?
“You know, I never had to take a shower where my skin was absorbing, a hot shower where it opens up your pores and have a neuro-toxin pour into your skin. Thank God I wasn’t! But everybody else in this county has been subjected to it and it’s certainly time that we, like Mark Twain said, it’s hard sometimes to realize when you’ve been duped, it’s hard to admit it but I think we need to, you know, time for us to be responsible. We have a great group of commissioners up here so that I think is going to make the right decision. I’ve never felt more blessed to live in this great county, Collier County. Thank you.”
An examination of the nature of dictatorships, democracy and possible futures, nationally and locally
Soldiers line the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during protests in June 2020. (Photo: Martha Raddatz via Twitter)
Feb. 4, 2024 by David Silverberg
As he has so many times in the past, Donald Trump is facing utter ruin.
This week is expected to be especially brutal. He’s facing a potentially devastating fine in his New York fraud case. He could be denied immunity from prosecution in another case. The US Supreme Court could agree with the Colorado Supreme Court and keep him off the ballot for violating the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment and make him ineligible for election. Oral arguments in that case are scheduled for this coming Thursday, Feb. 8.
But Trump has faced seeming doom before. In August 2016 Time magazine declared his campaign in a complete meltdown. His Access Hollywood remarks seemed to put him outside the realm of redemption. His defeat seemed almost inevitable—and then he came back and won.
Time magazine covers from Aug. 22 and Oct. 24, 2016. (Image: Time)
So as dark as the moment may seem for Donald Trump—both in the public view and likely by his own reckoning—it does not mean he is down and out. If the word “resilient” seems too praiseful, perhaps his sheer stubbornness, his endurance born of pure rage and ego is a better description of his ability to survive odds against him.
But if he does weather these storms and goes on to win the Republican nomination as he seems on course to do, it is worthwhile to ask: What would America be like if he went on to win? More particularly, what would life for Americans be like?
It’s worth asking the question because it puts the stakes of this election into perspective.
It can be said with confidence that the results of a Trump accession to power—whether electoral or through other means—would not result in a presidency. It would result in a dictatorship.
If past is any prologue, an American dictatorship would mean the end of individual “inalienable” rights, the end of democracy, the end of the Constitution, the end of a free press, the end of independent courts, the end of elections, the end of representative government, the end of security for individual persons and property.
Does all this sound too alarmist? Overblown? Unlikely?
It may be alarmist but the alarm is merited—and history provides a guide.
In the daily life of Americans a Trump dictatorship would mean a media diet of all-Trump all the time. It would mean an attempt to stamp out any objective reality and its replacement with a world conjured by the mind of Donald Trump; a combination of delusion, wishful thinking and pure lying that has been called “Trumpality.”
It would be a world based on this one man’s whims and caprices, where rationality and law would be discarded in favor of his appetites and urges, whether those were for power, wealth or sex, and where he would have absolute immunity from any restraint or consequence for any action, no matter how murderous or extreme.
It would mean an effort to stamp out individual will and independent thought outside the bubble of Trump-thought.
And it’s worth remembering that past loyalty is no guarantee of future reward. No expression of allegiance, of fealty, of complete subservience would ever be enough. Trump has turned on people who were otherwise slavishly loyal when it suited him or when suspicion crept into his mind.
The same would apply to cities, counties and states and their officials and representatives. Would Southwest Florida be spared? Certainly not. No matter how Trumpist and Make America Great Again (MAGA) it already is, it would be under the Trump heel just as much as any other place in the country.
What is more, this dictatorship and its oppression would not be driven just by Trump. It would be propelled by an army of enablers and sycophants pursuing their own ambitions. They would be competing to push the most radical, extreme measures and their measures would be ever more intrusive and petty. As it is, the fervor of his followers has grown with every obstacle he encounters. He has become their version of virility, their model of behavior, someone to be worshipped, not just supported; in short, their god.
Women would especially feel the heavy hand of a Trump dictatorship. His contempt for women is exhaustively documented and even led to an $83.3 million civil judgment against him. Not only would women’s right to abortion be terminated everywhere, their right to participate in society, even their right to vote, would be in jeopardy as all other rights in the Constitution were threatened.
As Trump and his worshippers demonstrated on Jan. 6, 2021, he and they are willing to go outside the law and use violence to get their way. They may not even wait for the verdict of the 2024 election before they attempt to impose their will. And in states like Texas and Florida—and in places like Collier County and Marco Island, Fla.—there are moves to break away from the “commanding hand” of federal law and the Constitution and leave its protections and lawful restraints behind.
Can all this dread be justified? Do all these warnings have any merit?
A look at history, the nature of dictatorships and Trump’s own past behaviors and statements provide ample cause, not just for concern, but for a vision of a dark, dreadful future that would follow a Trump victory.
But it also needs to be emphasized: This is not the way things must be, just the way they could be. And every voting citizen has it within his or her power to determine how things will be.
The nature of dictatorships
Adolf Hitler addresses the German Reichstag. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Dictators don’t lack for support. All past dictators have provided benefits to some element of the population they ruled. They were put in place by people who wanted that dictator in power, often enthusiastically. Those who opposed and dissented were crushed, killed or repressed.
Dictatorships are also governed by an internal logic of power, which can provide some indication of their future actions.
Americans have seen other dictatorships abroad but have never experienced one on their own soil. They have not been ruled by an authoritarian power since they overthrew the rule of King George III in the American Revolution. They have not had one imposed by military coup. They have certainly never chosen to be governed by a dictator who came to power in a free election.
So today there is little experience or appreciation in America of what a dictatorship means and how it manifests itself in everyday life.
Because this would be Trump’s second effort to hold power, it would be different from the chaotic and amateurish first administration. Now there are elaborate MAGA plans in place to overhaul the government to concentrate executive authority. The kinds of guardrails and institutional checks that hindered Trump’s worst instincts last time would likely be swept away.
An example of the direction that dictatorships take occurred on April 26, 1942. It’s not a date emblazoned in anyone’s memory but it should live in infamy.
It was significant because on that day Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany, asked for and was granted more power than any other human being has ever wielded.
In a very long, rambling speech to the Germany Reichstag, Hitler reviewed the world situation. But toward the end he got to the point.
The only thing that was important was victory, he said. “Nobody at this stage can insist on his vested rights and all must know that today there are only duties to be fulfilled.” (Emphasis ours.)
All the rights that Germans had enjoyed under constitutional parliamentary government—and there were quite a few—were now irrelevant, he was saying. Those rights had been abused and weakened ever since he took power in 1933 but now he was asking that they be formally swept away altogether.
“Therefore, I ask all the German Reichstag the definite assurance that I possess the legal authority to see to it that every individual performs his duty and that I may condemn such cases which in my opinion do not fulfill their duties to be imprisoned or to be deprived of their office and position no matter who they be or what rights they may have acquired and especially because there are only very few exceptions among millions of decent people.”
In other words, Hitler was asking—and was granted—the sole, unchecked, unrestrained power of life and death over every German and every human being under German control. No one any longer had any inherent, “vested” rights, including the right to live.
He and he alone would decide their fate. What was the basis for making his judgments? As he said: “my opinion.” If he thought someone needed to be out of the way he now had the legal authority to eliminate that individual in any way he saw fit.
It was as great and absolute an authority as any single individual has ever held—and it was the logical outcome of the Nazi dictatorship.
This is the ultimate end goal of all dictatorships and it would be the logical end point of a Trump dictatorship.
In contrast, in the American Declaration of Independence, the Founders stated: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
The idea that people have “inalienable” rights is the cornerstone, the absolute, fundamental bedrock of the United States. In fact, American rights are so fundamental they’re embodied in a Bill of Rights that was immediately amended to the US Constitution.
Democracies respect and protect human rights. Dictatorships crush them. A Trump dictatorship—like any dictatorship—would attempt to crush those fundamental rights.
Why? Because the animating principle of a dictatorship is the will of the dictator and subservience to that will, not the will and rights of the people. People’s inalienable rights get in the way of dictatorial rule, so dictators can’t abide them.
Trump’s whole life and his past administration was an effort to bend the American people and the world to his will and his will alone.
This was tellingly revealed on June 1, 2020 in a telephone call Trump held with the nation’s governors in the midst of the George Floyd protests.
“You have to dominate,” he told the governors. “If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time. They’re going to run over you. You’re going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate.”
American presidents don’t “dominate.” They lead, govern, preside, inspire, convince, sometimes cajole. The language of domination had not been used in American political discourse before. It’s not democratic language, especially from a president working under a system of checks and balances and serving the people. It’s the language of a tyrant.
It’s also worth remembering that total domination by one person means total submission by all others.
To date, that has not been the American way.
So it’s worth remembering just what rights Americans currently have that will be put in jeopardy by a Trump dictatorship.
The end of freedom
Right now Americans are free people. They can think what they like, say what they want, and protest if they feel the need. They can assemble without hindrance and petition government for a redress of grievances. If dissatisfied with a decision or policy they can appeal it through the courts.
All those rights, which people simply assume they have now, would be gone in a Trump dictatorship.
In dictatorships free thinking is prohibited. People are expected to think the way the dictator wants them to think and any deviation is punished. No expression of any other viewpoint is allowed.
Nowhere on earth is this more rigidly enforced than in North Korea, a country for which Trump has expressed admiration. “I may be wrong, but I believe that Chairman Kim has a great and beautiful vision for his country, and only the United States, with me as president, can make that vision come true,” he said in 2019.
Nor has Trump respected freedom of assembly and the right to protest and petition government. On the same day he called for domination, Trump had non-violent demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd forcefully cleared from Lafayette Square outside the White House so that he could be photographed holding a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church. The incident was widely condemned as a violation of the First Amendment. It would only be a foretaste if he got in power again.
The end of press freedom
Trump has been at war with the media from the time he descended the escalator in Trump Tower to declare his candidacy on June 16, 2015.
Right now that kind of retaliation against the media for coverage he doesn’t like is purely rhetorical and theoretical. But in a Trump dictatorship it would be imposed with the power of the state.
One of the fundamental causes of the American Revolution was British repression of the American press. It’s one reason that freedom of the press was written into the First Amendment.
As his Jan. 16 remarks make clear, under a Trump dictatorship there would be no freedom of the press—for anyone, including media that’s now considered sympathetic to Trump. It would all be under his control. There would no longer be coverage of an objective truth; the only “truth” would be the “truth” that Trump allowed. To see what that would be like, one has only to read his Truth Social postings.
Reporters, editors, broadcasters—anyone involved in professionally communicating with the public and especially journalists covering the presidential campaign—have to be aware that anything they do to advance the candidacy of Donald Trump will ultimately result in their repression, possible imprisonment and loss of freedom if he wins.
The first Trump administration is close enough in time that people can remember what life was like while he was President; there was a constant, non-stop stream of news about Trump. If it wasn’t his latest tweet, it was his latest outrage, his latest gaffe, his latest pronouncement. He dominated the airwaves, the news pages, the Internet, the morning breakfast table.
Even in exile he was constantly in the news.
Now, imagine him in power again and dominating the media using state authority. The media would no longer provide coverage; it would only uncritically propagate whatever he wanted delivered. It would be all Trump all the time. He would literally be like Big Brother, a constant, inescapable, overwhelming presence. There would no longer be news, there wouldn’t even be conversation any more, there would only be Trump. He would even insert himself into peoples’ dreams.
The reason for government
Since human beings have inalienable rights, states the Declaration of Independence, “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
A dictatorship doesn’t exist to secure people’s rights nor do people consent to provide its “just powers.” It has no “just” powers, only power. A dictatorship exists solely to assert and implement the will of the dictator.
In the United States, the people’s consent to be governed is expressed through elections where they make their will known. For democracy to function, all parties have to accept the will of the majority as expressed through the election results.
Donald Trump most spectacularly rejected the election results of 2020 expressing the will of the majority of the American people that Joseph Biden be their president. He lied about the legitimacy of the election, he tried to use every stratagem he could to overturn the results (for which he is facing trial in Georgia), he explored the idea of using the military to seize voting machines and cancel the ballots, he attempted to have fake electors invalidate the results, and when all that failed, he incited a mob to stop the certification of his opponent and even murder Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump’s refusal to accede to the will of the people was made clear in a conversation that Jenna Ellis, one of Trump’s lawyers, recalled to Georgia prosecutors.
A few weeks after the 2020 election, she said that Dan Scavino, one of Trump’s advisors, told her that “under no circumstances will the boss be leaving,” in reference to Trump. “We’ll just stay in power.”
She replied, “Well, it doesn’t quite work that way, you know that.”
Scavino responded, “We don’t care.”
Trump was ultimately forced to leave office. However, if he is elected in 2024 it is unlikely that he will ever voluntarily leave office again no matter what the election results—even if there are any elections again during his lifetime.
Truly, it will be the end of American democracy, as Biden has pointed out.
His people and his movement
A Trump-incited mob attacks the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Tyler Merbler)
Dictators don’t come to power in a vacuum; it takes an army of enablers, enforcers and encouragers to put them in power and keep them there.
If Donald Trump proved anything to the world it was the unfortunate truth that there is no bottom to the barrel he can scrape for willing sycophants, miscreants and grifters to do his will.
If elected, Trump will bring back all the incompetents and parasites who served him in the first term as well as an even more mendacious and malicious cast of new characters. Indeed, applications are already being taken.
He will likely pardon all the criminals who have been justly imprisoned since January 6th and put them in charge of the nation’s business.
Former general and Englewood, Fla., resident Michael Flynn is one example. After losing his position as national security advisor and being convicted of lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Flynn was pardoned and participated in the infamous Dec. 18, 2020 Oval Office meeting where he argued for seizing voting machines, declaring martial law and overturning the election results.
Once a dictatorship is established it develops a momentum of its own. Those who put the dictator in place have a vested interest in keeping him in power. A dictatorship builds a machine of repression that keeps chugging just to keep itself in existence.
There is a story from Africa that in 2008 when 83-year-old President Robert Mugabe, a dictator by all measures, lost the parliamentary and presidential elections in his native Zimbabwe—an election he expected to reliably keep him in power—he was ready to leave.
An army general sat him down and told him: “It’s not your decision.” Mugabe had to stay in power even if he was tired and ready to retire, said the general, because all the forces vested in his dictatorship needed him in place and could not allow him to leave. So Mugabe and his allies overrode the elected will of the Zimbabwean people using violence and fraud and his disastrous presidency continued for nine more years—only then was he was overthrown by the army.
It’s the same with all dictatorships. They need to be self-perpetuating. As Winston Churchill once put it: “Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount.”
Even if the charismatic figure is no longer at the helm, autocratic governments don’t automatically revert to democracy. Instead there’s a scramble at the top to replace the old dictator with a new dictator and since disputes in a dictatorship aren’t settled with elections, it opens the nation up to political strife, palace intrigue and even civil war.
Feeling the evil
So how would citizens feel a Trump dictatorship in their everyday lives, in Southwest Florida and everywhere else?
Aside from an all-Trump-all-the-time media, they wouldn’t be able to speak freely, think freely or feel protected by law.
It would be like living in an abusive relationship with a deranged, mercurial and unpredictable spouse, someone given to sudden rages, temper tantrums, and violence but with absolute power over your life.
You would have to self-censor, worry who was listening when you spoke, suspect that you were committing some unintended sin, and fear authorities who would not be there to protect you but to protect him—from you. Like so many people oppressed in so many places around the world you would have to build a secret life just to stay sane and determine reality and you would never know who could be trusted.
In 2020 the American people emerged after four years of an abusive relationship with their president. However, they had the comfort of having been protected by a Constitution and Bill of Rights, institutional checks and balances, a Congress that impeached him twice, and a tradition of democracy. Most of all they were protected by patriots in government who courageously worked hard to do what was right.
But Trump, his MAGA mob and the eviscerated Republican Party are determined to do away with all that in a second administration. If it comes to pass there will be no guardrails, no protections, no restraint, certainly no checks or balances and “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” as Trump stated in 2022.
That means there would be no recourse to courts or the legal system in the event of disputes or grievances or simply to seek justice. With the judicial branch neutered, corrupted or perverted, as it always is in a dictatorship, there would be no remedy, appeal, or relief for everyday people.
Moreover, with the state revolving around a single personality there wouldn’t be any way to rationally consider a decision, whether in government or personal life.
Why? Because in a law-ordered society, behavior is built on rational rules and logical laws. A person can base his or her decisionmaking on reasoned considerations and expect society to respond with equally rational reactions. Of course, there are people who violate laws but then they face rationally formulated penalties and they know it. (As the saying goes: “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”)
But in a personality-based society, rewards and punishments are based on the whim and capriciousness of the dictator and no one can reasonably anticipate his responses.
There was an interesting example of this in Congress last October when Rep. Tom Emmer (R-6-Minn.) looked like he was going to get the Speaker’s gavel in the House of Representatives.
Although Emmer had not previously supported Trump, Trump told the world that Emmer had changed because Emmer had told Trump he was his “biggest fan.” Then, when Emmer, seeking support for his speakership, posted a video of Trump saying that, Trump was infuriated. He thought it sounded like they were too close. He instantly turned on Emmer, worked the phones, disparaged him as “totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters” and a “Globalist RINO” (Republican In Name Only) and Emmer’s candidacy immediately sank.
It was a perfect illustration of a tyrant turning on a follower for irrational reasons. There was no way Emmer could have known in advance that posting his video would offend Trump. No sensible calculation could have warned him or induced caution on his part. No thinking being could have anticipated Trump’s purely emotional response.
Emmer only suffered a blow to his ambitions. In a full-on dictatorship people suffer far greater punishments for far smaller offenses.
Nor is there any protection for those who believe themselves to be loyal. Indeed, the closer a person is to a dictator, the more precarious the person’s position and the more drastic the punishment at the dictator’s whim. As the careers and reputations littering the road to and from Trump’s White House attest, no one has proven this to be true more than Trump.
So all those Republican politicians who think they’ve made their careers and solidified their positions by endorsing Trump or who think they can publicly pander to the MAGA base while expecting he won’t win, or are actively working to make this man president, should think again.
In Southwest Florida that means its congressional delegation of Reps. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.) and lately and belatedly Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.), all of whom have bent the knee or are aggressively promoting his candidacy. They will be as vulnerable and defenseless against Trump’s wrath as any other citizen if he wins and takes office again, perhaps even more than most. Furthermore, they will have the special onus of knowing that their endorsement helped put him in position to destroy them if he chooses.
A better way
The Statue of Liberty. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
These are only a few of the potential consequences of a Trump victory in 2024.
This essay doesn’t even go into the probable effects on the civil service, the economy, which would be thrown into chaos, the likely roundup of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, the institutionalized racism and the catastrophic effects on America’s place in the world. (As The Washington Post’s Max Boot pointed out, a Trump victory “could be the end of the Pax Americana. We would then enter a chaotic post-American world where rogue states committed aggression with impunity, democracies cowered and trade ties frayed. Sea lanes turning into shooting galleries would become the norm, not the exception, with the US economy paying the price.”)
Some people have been awake to the threat of a Trump dictatorship from the moment in 2022 when he declared his candidacy again. More and more traditional Republicans who voted for him in 2016 are publicly repudiating him now. A parade of his past officials, the people who worked most closely with him and know him best, have come forward to warn of the danger he presents.
And Biden has clearly and explicitly explained the choice before the American people.
“Trump’s assault on democracy isn’t just part of his past. It’s what he’s promising for the future. He’s being straightforward. He’s not hiding the ball,” he said in a speech on the third anniversary of January 6th.
Despite this, Trump retains his grip on the Republican Party. Republican elected officials at all levels are falling into line behind him. Locally, the Florida Republican Party as a whole is expected to take a formal vote to endorse Trump at a meeting in Wesley Chapel, a town near Tampa, this coming Saturday, Feb. 10.
Nationally, Trump retains the power to block badly needed legislation like border and immigration reform and aid to Ukraine and Israel. He is already imposing his will on right-wing media.
There’s no guarantee that the overt threat to the Constitution and American democracy will wait until Election Day to play out. Some kind of action could occur sooner, especially if his candidacy is invalidated in court.
But for everyday, law-abiding citizens the defense lies in the ballot and if all goes as planned the balloting will be completed on Nov. 5, 2024.
Americans, including conservative Southwest Floridians, have to understand and fully appreciate that this election is not “normal.” This is not politics as usual. This is history, it is epochal and the alternatives are stark: this is a choice between freedom or tyranny, darkness or light, good or evil, democracy or dictatorship.
It is not enough to simply vote. Americans who want to preserve their democracy need to get active in every possible legal, civilly-responsible way to achieve the outcome that keeps darkness at bay.
Right now Americans have the power and freedom to choose their own destiny. They can work and vote to keep their power and freedom or give it all to a would-be despot.
As Biden put it in his January 6th speech: “This is the first national election since the January 6th insurrection placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy. We all know who Donald Trump is. The question we have to answer is: Who are we? That’s what’s at stake. Who are we?”
On one thing and one thing alone, those who would defend democracy should heed Donald Trump’s words.
On Jan. 6, 2021 he said in his speech on the Ellipse: “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
He’s right. Unless Americans fight Trump like hell for their country and their democracy this year they’ll lose it all.
A sign warns of red tide at the entrance to Delnor-Wiggins State Park in Naples during the 2018 Big Bloom. (Photo: Author)
Jan. 22, 2024 by David Silverberg
While a new study puts a price tag on the cost of harmful algal blooms (HABs) in Southwest Florida, two bills meant to help protect the region’s clean water are languishing in the US House of Representatives, ignored and forgotten by the member of Congress who sponsored them: Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.).
One bill is the Harmful Algal Bloom Essential Forecasting Act (House Resolution (HR) 325). It would ensure that federal agencies monitor potentially HABs even if there’s a government shutdown. The other is the Combat Harmful Algal Blooms Act (HR 1008), which would make a slight change to existing legislation so that HABs are treated like other natural disasters and victims receive federal benefits.
Last year the organizations commissioned the outside consulting firm Greene Economics LLC, Ridgefield, Wash., to do an extensive and thorough analysis of the precise value of clean water to Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties.
The study found that the value of clean water is massive: it provides $18 billion in value to the coastal economy of the three counties.
The study found that of all the threats to that water like hurricanes, saltwater intrusion, and wastewater pollution, the most costly and dangerous were HABs like red tide and blue-green algae. A major HAB has the potential to cost Southwest Florida $5.2 billion in coastal economic losses, $17.8 billion in property value losses, and $460 million in commercial and recreational fishing losses. It might take out 43,000 jobs in the coastal economy, according to the study.
In 2018 an extensive and persistent HAB (what The Paradise Progressive dubbed “the Big Bloom”) of both red tide in the Gulf of Mexico and blue-green algae in the Caloosahatchee River and along the interior shoreline, tormented Southwest Florida.
The Big Bloom led to a variety of measures meant to cope with future blooms. Then-Rep. Francis Rooney, who represented the 19th Congressional District, the coastal area from Cape Coral to Marco Island, from 2017 to 2021, brought together all the federal agencies and local governments dealing with HABs to fashion a coordinated response.
During Rooney’s tenure, the bills never made it out of committee.
When Rooney’s successor, Byron Donalds, took office in 2021, the Harmful Algal Bloom Essential Forecasting Act was the first bill he introduced, on March 17 of that year. The Combat Harmful Algal Blooms Act followed on the 24th.
However, like all other legislation he has introduced, Donalds did nothing to advance his own bills. The bills did not move past the introductory phase in the 117th Congress.
Following his re-election in 2022, Donalds reintroduced the bills in the 118th Congress. However, as before, Donalds did nothing to advance them and to date they have not even received subcommittee consideration, the first step toward passage.
Instead, Donalds has concentrated his efforts on out of state political campaigning for former President Donald Trump, attacking the current administration and pursuing his own political ambitions. According to the official congressional database, Congress.gov, Donalds has introduced 63 bills in the current Congress and advanced none of them.
Analysis: The importance of clean water
Water is essential to human existence in the otherwise swampy and hostile tropical environment of Southwest Florida—but not just any water. It must be clean water, consumable by humans, beneficial to animals and nourishing to plants.
Legislation cannot stop HABs but these two pieces of legislation are at least steps that will help Southwest Florida monitor potential blooms and then, when they occur, help businesses and individuals get the same kind of relief and support they would receive in the event of a disaster like a hurricane.
HR 325, the Harmful Algal Bloom Essential Forecasting Act, is especially important given the continuing threat of government shutdowns. Once a rare and very damaging occurrence due to partisan brinksmanship, the US federal government now faces a shutdown every other month as Make America Great Again (MAGA) representatives refuse to vote for essential appropriations.
Ironically, Donalds, a member of the extreme MAGA House Freedom Caucus, has consistently voted for shutdowns by vocally opposing critical appropriations. Of all the members of Congress he should be actively pushing this measure to protect Southwest Florida from the consequences of his own votes.
The need to deal with them transcends political party or region. In the United States this is attested to by the fact that HR 325’s only co-sponsor in this Congress, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, (D-7-Mich.), is from Michigan, another state dealing with persistent HABs. Slotkin’s district is centered in the city of Lansing and Lake Lansing has suffered from HABs.
Slotkin is a co-sponsor of another bill, the Protecting Local Communities from Harmful Algal Blooms Act (HR 132) that does the same thing as HR 1008. This bill, introduced by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-16-Fla.) on Jan. 9, 2023, has six cosponsors; one other Republican, Rep. Mike Kelly, (R-16-Pa.), and five Democrats, three of them Floridians: Reps. Darren Soto, (D-9-Fla.), Kathy Castor (D-14-Fla.) and Frederica Wilson (D-24-Fla.). (The other Democratic co-sponsor is Rep. Hillary Scholten, (D-3-Mich.)).
Interestingly enough, Donalds is not a HR 132 co-sponsor. (The Paradise Progressive reached out to Donalds’ office by e-mail with a question and a request for comment on his bills but received no reply or acknowledgment as of post time.)
Commentary: Paying attention at home
Legislation that helps Florida cope with HABs is vital to the state and region. The Impact report makes clear the specific dollar cost of these events to the region’s economy, industry, quality of life and jobs.
Passage of these measures would benefit the region, at least ensuring that people get some advance warning of developing HABs despite even a government shutdown. If a HAB occurs, people would be entitled to the same government benefits they would get if struck by a hurricane.
But for Southwest Florida to get the aid of this legislation these bills have to be nurtured, advanced and developed by the congressman who introduced them. They have to be pushed through the subcommittee and committee process and then presented to the entire House. That takes work, attention, effort and, most of all, concern for the district and its people.
So far that hasn’t been shown by Donalds on these matters.
Perhaps it’s time for Donalds to worry a little less about New Hampshire, Hunter Biden and Donald Trump and a little bit more about Lee and Collier counties and show that he can actually do the job he was elected to do.
Gov. Ron DeSantis tries to navigate the snows of Iowa. (Photo: AP)
Jan. 14, 2024 by David Silverberg
Tomorrow is the day of the long-awaited—or long-dreaded, depending on your perspective—Iowa caucuses.
As this is written the Hawkeye State is being battered by a brutal blizzard and plummeting temperatures. Because caucus-goers must make their preferences known in person (they don’t actually fill out a ballot but submit slips of paper) attendance—or lack thereof—will greatly affect the outcome.
The general expectation is that former President Donald Trump will win in a blowout. That’s the way the polling has been going. But given Mother Nature’s intervention there could be a surprise, or surprises. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) might beat Trump or do much better than expected. Former South Carolina Gov. Nimarata Nikki Randhawa Haley could get “smoked” as former New Jersey governor Chris Christie predicted—or she could smoke DeSantis or even Trump.
The state of Florida is going to be affected by the outcome, given that there are two Florida men running against each other. That impact will extend beyond the question of who will be the Republican presidential nominee; Floridians may feel the effect of this distant contest in their everyday lives.
So it makes sense to go beyond just the presidential horserace aspects of the contest and weigh the impact of possible outcomes on the Sunshine State.
The respective standings of the Republican presidential candidates in Iowa as of today, based on aggregations of polls by ABC/FiveThirtyEight.com. The chart shows Trump at 51.3%, Haley at 17.3%, DeSantis at 16.1% and Ramaswamy at 5.7%. (Chart: 538)
Florida Man 1: The White House or the jail house
Despite his high-profile residence in the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Donald Trump has had surprisingly little impact on his adopted state. He rarely weighs in on state politics or policies except to insult and denigrate its governor whom sees as an ungrateful traitor.
Trump is preoccupied with his presidential bid, staying out of jail and keeping his financial empire intact. If he wins Iowa he simply goes on to the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23 and then follows the trail to the nomination at the Party convention on July 15 in Milwaukee, Wis. Other than little bumps along the road for trials, appeals and potential disqualification for insurrection, it’s a pretty straightforward progression as long as he stays out of jail.
This should not have a direct impact on Florida or its legislative session now under way. If Trump becomes president he will establish himself as dictator and presumably favor Florida in his decisionmaking, although this is never to be taken for granted with Trump.
However, one area that should concern Floridians, especially in the Southwest, is his pledge to “drill, drill, drill” starting on day one. While oil platforms are unlikely in the waters immediately off of Mar-a-Lago (after all, he wouldn’t want to spoil the view), they could be permitted in the eastern Gulf off Southwest Florida, something that Floridians have fought for years. If Trump decided to allow them, there they would be—and in a dictatorship, Southwest Floridians would have no recourse or appeal. That’s life under a tyrant.
There is another Florida possibility that’s unconnected to either Iowa or the presidential campaign. It’s been raised by Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, and that is that Trump could lose Mar-a-Lago in a court judgment. If that happened, he might cease to be a Florida man and take up residence in a federal prison or abroad.
If he left Florida one way or the other, it seems unlikely that Floridians would feel any impact of his departure or absence in their daily lives—although traffic might improve around Mar-a-Lago.
Florida Man 2: The fate of DeSantistan
Far more significant for Floridians is the fate of the state’s governor. Here, the impact of the Iowa caucus outcome is likely to be felt at street level.
It needs to be remembered that at stake in Iowa is not just the future of DeSantis, his presidential ambitions and his political campaign. Rather, the Iowa results will be the first step in telling the world whether America wants to be Florida, or more specifically, DeSantis’ Florida—what has been called DeSantistan (with thanks to Diane Roberts of Florida Phoenix for the term).
It’s not just DeSantis being judged in Iowa; it’s everything that DeSantistan has come to mean: the book-banning, vaccine-denying, woke-stopping, gun-toting, immigrant-hating, teacher-bashing, college-crushing, abortion-ending, vote-restricting, media-taunting, Disney-destroying, Trumplike tropical culture that defines this peculiar peninsula right now.
If DeSantis wins in Iowa he’ll be able to claim validation for his cultural crusade. It will be a triumph all the sweeter for the long odds and unexpected outcome. He’ll be able to argue that the DeSantian model is attractive to the American public at large (even if it’s endorsed by just a handful of frostbitten Iowans) and he will take it to the next stop in New Hampshire. He will pursue his cultural agenda, touting it as a model for the entire country. He will strive to make America DeSantistan.
Within the confines of the Sunshine State, the state legislature, with its Republican supermajority, is likely to remain cowed and subservient in the face of a possible DeSantis presidency. After all, a President DeSantis would bring many potential benefits and rewards, both for the state and for the legislators personally—and also nasty, petty penalties for defiance or apostasy.
As they did last year, the legislators will likely “stay the course,” as DeSantis called on them to do in his State of the State address last Tuesday, Jan. 9. They will probably continue to enact his priorities while each one jockeys to prove him or herself more DeSantian than the others. It will mean a continued race to the right and into further depths of abortion prohibiting, educational inquisition, voter suppression, science denial and cultural crusading. Bills to these effects are already under consideration.
However, if DeSantis is defeated in Iowa that could all change—and the bigger the defeat, the bigger the change.
The definition of “defeat” is variable: a loss to Trump would not be surprising but a loss to Haley, especially a big loss, would be crushing and personally humiliating. Imagine, losing to a girl!
A decisive defeat could end his presidential campaign altogether. Numerous observers, including the wickedly wise Karl Rove, have pointed out that Iowa is a “do or die” moment for DeSantis. If he loses he will still likely limp to the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary, where there is an actual vote. But a loss in Iowa will send him to the Granite State wounded and crippled.
Back at home DeSantis would still be governor of Florida for the next two years but his standing in the state would be vastly diminished. He would no longer be the face of the future with the potential to provide great rewards or significant punishments.
Indeed, this year the Florida legislature is showing some signs that the extreme DeSantis-Make America Great Again (MAGA) fever is beginning to break.
For example, a bill to ban abortion in virtually all instances (House Bill 1519) is getting the cold shoulder from Senate President Sen. Kathleen Passidomo (R-28-Naples) and House Speaker Rep. Paul Renner (R-19-Flagler and St. Johns counties), the top lawmakers in both houses. Similarly, a bill to virtually end mail-in balloting and require more hand counts of ballots (Senate Bill 1752)—pet peeves of Trump and 2020 election deniers—received a similarly cold reception from Passidomo.
The cooling of ideological ardor, combined with the governor’s prolonged absence from the state while campaigning elsewhere, has apparently loosened DeSantis’ hold on the minds of state lawmakers. A decisive defeat in Iowa could actually awaken them from their cultic thrall and evolve a spine in some of them, despite party demands for complete submission.
After a beating in Iowa and the end of his campaign, DeSantis would likely return to Tallahassee, lick his wounds and govern for the next two years but without the presidential urgency and drive that has propelled him so far. As he stated in his State of the State speech, he would stay the course and continue with existing policies, likely without the bombast and drama that has marked him to date.
However, he would also be governing in the looming shadow of a possible Trump presidency and while Trump may be forgetful of land values and real estate appraisals he never forgets an enemy or a perceived turncoat. If Trump wins, DeSantis would likely be targeted for arrest and imprisonment on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of a Trump dictatorship. (Trump probably wouldn’t wait for the following day to order DeSantis’ arrest but would have him seized on some pretext after taking the inaugural oath at noon.)
In the event that President Joe Biden is re-elected there would be none of the truly dire consequences for DeSantis and the state. The governor would continue denouncing Biden from the safety of the Governor’s Mansion for two years and then play baseball, cogitate in a think-tank or practice law while awaiting his next presidential chance in 2028, secure in the expectation that there would be another chance because the election would be held as planned.
Grassroots Floridians will likely feel the impact of a DeSantis defeat in a more moderate legislature and less draconian laws, somewhat freer democracy (or at least less restrictive balloting), and less hatred, prejudice and rage against citizens who fall outside the governor’s political base.
By contrast, a DeSantis win in Iowa will likely see more efforts by Florida Republicans to force political unity on the Florida population to guarantee solid backing for his continued quest for the nomination and general election. The totalitarian impulse is strong in the Sunshine State. After all, last year there were calls to officially make Florida a single-party state. Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-11-Citrus, Hernando and Sumter counties) introduced a bill to outlaw the Democratic Party based on its 1860 support for slavery (conveniently overlooking Republican support for keeping slavery in the states where it already existed). Republican Party Chair Christian Ziegler announced that the Party’s “work is not done until there are no more Democrats in Florida.”
Today Florida is still a multiparty state, there are still Democrats voting in it and Christian Ziegler has been expelled from the Party chairmanship. Now the fate of Florida’s political culture rests in the frozen mittens of Iowa Republicans.
As for Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Floridians are unlikely to feel any shock waves if these candidates somehow emerge from Iowa’s icy grip. They have not had an impact on Florida to date and unless one of them succeeds to the presidency, it’s hard to see any state impacts from either of them.
Of caucuses and confusion
In 2020, six Democratic candidates entered the Iowa caucuses to jockey for the presidential nomination. In a surprise, Peter Buttegieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, received the largest proportion of votes and the most delegates after a confusing, delayed result that took several days to sort out. In the end it didn’t matter because Joe Biden became the nominee and the 46th President of the United States.
The results of the Republican Iowa caucuses this year could be similarly confused. We all may not know for days who won or in the end the results may be inconclusive. Ultimately, they may not matter at all.
There’s also one other possible outcome: if he somehow loses, Trump will no doubt declare that he actually won, the caucuses were rigged and the results are invalid. He’ll blame the weather, illegal migrants, and George Soros.
It could happen. After all, this scenario has occurred before. And his MAGA cultists will no doubt believe him.
Sidebar: A caucus mystery solved?
In American political parlance, “to caucus” means to “gather” or “confer” and “a caucus” means a gathering or conclave.
The origins of the term “caucus” are obscure. When this author was researching his book Congress for Dummies in 2002, he discovered there was no definitive etymology for the term. Some observers thought it was originally a Native American term. That seemed unlikely because the word sounded Latinate. Other sources believe it derived from colonial drinking clubs or from shipbuilding caulkers “caucusing” together.
On a visit to Scotland last summer, this author became aware of a Scottish drinking cup called a Quaich (pronounced “quake”). According to Scottish sources, the word is Gaelic and means a cup of friendship or comradeship. It was a Celtic variation of a low-class Latin word for cup, which happened to be “caucus.”
So the American political term “caucus” may derive from the time of Roman Britain and Latin’s influence on language throughout the isles. As people gathered to drink and share cups, they also shared thoughts and concerns. Perhaps Scottish settlers brought their quaiches and the even older term for cup to the New World. In the centuries since, the word has evolved to its current political meaning.
This is a theory, of course. Someday, perhaps some sharp linguistic graduate student will definitively nail down the sources and proofs. But it makes sense and it’s pleasant to think of a caucus as a group of friends gathering together to share a common cup of spirits, conversation and good cheer. It’s a warm image particularly appropriate to the frozen fields of Iowa.
At any rate that’s the explanation this author most enjoys, so he’s sticking with it. Slàinte Mhath!
A group of Collier County residents huddle in prayer prior to a Board of Commissioners meeting in the Commission chamber on March 28, 2023. (Photo: Author)
Jan. 3, 2024 by David Silverberg
What will be the shape of Collier County, Florida’s next century? This year’s election has the potential to significantly mold its future well beyond just the next year.
As the United States as a whole faces a stark election choice between democracy and dictatorship in 2024, so Collier County voters face important choices between candidates who represent radically different approaches to governing, educating and most importantly, counting ballots.
It is important to note that August 20—not the general election date of Nov. 5—is the operative election date for some of these races, which will be decided in the Republican Party primary. (This is also not to be confused with the Florida Presidential Preference Primary, which is scheduled for March 19.)
In keeping with the dominant political complexion of the county, all the candidates are Republicans by name and party affiliation, except for the School Board, whose elections are non-partisan.
In fact, however, some of the governing philosophies at issue are so radically different that some candidates could be said to be Republicans, while others belong to what is a separate de facto Make America Great Again (MAGA) party.
Another issue that is very important for the future of Collier County is the role of religion in public affairs. There is a vocal and active Christian nationalist political movement in the county seeking to impose its religious views. One commissioner, Chris Hall (R-District 2) openly stated that “there is no separation of church and state.” School Board member Jerry Rutherford (District 1) maintains the same and has tried to insert religion into school board meetings.
Will the wall of separation between church and state be demolished in Collier County? The election will go a long way toward making this determination.
Collier County Board of Commissioners
Of the five seats on the Collier County Board of Commissioners, three are up for election: Districts 1, 3 and 5.
Because all candidates are Republicans, this race will be decided in the Republican primary election on Aug. 20.
As of Nov. 5, 2023, two of these offices were uncontested. In District 1 Commissioner Rick LoCastro had no opponent. The same was true for William McDaniel in District 5.
But District 3 is an entirely different story.
The district is a broad swath of largely rural land that goes from the county line in the north, along Route 75 on the west and south and Wilson Blvd. on the east. It includes communities like Golden Gate, the Vineyards, and Island Walk.
Collier County Commission District 3. (Map: CCBC)
The sitting commissioner is Burt Saunders, 75, Republican, a lawyer by profession and an experienced official. Originally from Hampton, Va., he moved to Florida in 1978 to attend graduate school. He received his law degree from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., and his master of laws degree from the University of Miami. He first served as the Collier County attorney before being elected to the Commission in 1986. He was then elected to the state House of Representatives in 1994 and the state Senate in 1998 where he served until 2008 before returning to the Board of Commissioners in 2016. As of Nov. 5 he had raised $7,500 for his campaign.
District 3 Commissioner Burt Saunders. (Image: CCBC)
Saunders is facing three Republican challengers for his seat.
Floyd “Tag” Yarnell, 53, is a litigation lawyer who calls himself a “Constitutional Conservative” and states he “will make decisions based on his faith and reverence to America’s founding principles.” As of Nov. 5 he had raised $22,450 for his race, the most of any of the candidates. The contributions came from a variety of individuals, many of them fellow lawyers.
John Johnson, 80, originally from Chicago, is a Collier County resident who held a wide variety of jobs including heavy equipment operator, farmer, motel owner, construction company owner and painting contractor, before retiring in 2020. As of Nov. 5 he had raised $4,220 for his campaign.
Frank Roberts, 34, is a tax attorney and former US Air Force Judge Advocate, who received his law degree from Ave Maria School of Law. As he puts it in his campaign biography: “He resides in Golden Gate Estates just outside Naples with his beautiful wife of 11 years, Kaitlyn, and three daughters where they happily raise chickens free from HOAs [homeowners associations] and with minimal government interference.” As of Nov. 5 he had not raised any money for his campaign.
Saunders’ seat is under threat because he has consistently been a voice for moderation and reasonable governance in the face of radical MAGA efforts. In August he was the lone vote against the Collier County anti-federal “Bill of Rights Sanctuary” ordinance, which asserted a county right to nullify federal law. He objected to its vagueness and unenforceability.
During the Aug. 22, 2023 Commission discussion on passage of that ordinance, prominent MAGA farmer and grocer Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III, after denouncing the “tyrannical” federal government, took direct aim at Saunders: “I understand, Burt, that you might not want to vote yes on this but you know, we as the electorate also have the choice not to vote for you when it comes up again.”
Saunders ignored the threat and voted against it anyway.
Similarly, in April he opposed an extreme anti-public health ordinance and resolution, which also passed over his lone dissenting vote.
During the COVID pandemic, Saunders voted in the majority to impose mandatory public health protection measures to protect county residents, incurring the wrath of those who opposed vaccinations and dismissed COVID as a hoax.
In the 2022 election, Oakes targeted two commissioners who had voted for COVID protections, Andy Solis (District 2), who declined to run for another term, and Penny Taylor (District 4). The candidates he backed, Hall and Dan Kowal (R-District 4), won.
“A year and half ago we said we’d get rid of them and here we are,” Oakes boasted during a post-election celebration at his market, Seed to Table. “Look, Bill McDaniel up here! Conservatives, America First, own Collier County now, praise the Lord!”
Supervisor of Elections
This year Collier County will face a contested race for the position of Supervisor of Elections.
Like the County Commission, this race will likely be decided in the Republican primary on Aug. 20.
Until now, local elections have been judged clean and results were accepted by all parties in Collier County. The office has never had a scandal or a challenge to its vote counting.
Collier County was created as a separate governing entity in 1923. It was served by a Supervisor of Registration of Electors before the office was changed to Supervisor of Elections in 1965. After serving four years as registrar, Edna Cribb Santa became the first Supervisor in 1965 and held the post for 16 years until 1981. She was followed by Mary Morgan, who served 19 years until 2000.
The most recent supervisor was Jennifer Edwards, who held the office for 23 years and retired in April 2023.
Edwards nominated her deputy, Melissa Blazier, 45, as her replacement.
“Melissa’s 17+ years of experience in the Supervisor of Elections office, vast knowledge of Florida’s election laws and rules, and her comprehension of the complexities of conducting elections would allow for a seamless transition as we head into the 2024 Presidential Election Cycle,” Edwards wrote in her March 31 retirement letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). “Melissa is unquestionably the most qualified person for this position and is prepared and ready to continue Collier County’s tradition of conducting excellent elections.”
Blazier has also been active in a variety of civic and political organizations including membership in the League of Women Voters, Men’s Republican Club of Collier County, Naples Republican Club, Republican Club of South Collier County, Republican Women of Southwest Florida Federated, and the Women’s Republican Club.
Melissa Blazier. (Photo: Author)
DeSantis followed Edwards’ recommendation and appointed Blazier as supervisor.
This year, Blazier is facing two challengers.
David Schaffel, 63, provides no background on his profession or career on his campaign website, except to call himself a “successful businessman and IT entrepreneur.” He says in a campaign video that he is a “rock-solid conservative and America First patriot.” He questions whether the 2020 election was stolen and says that as supervisor, his focus “will be on securing and restoring trust in our elections.” As of Nov. 5, he had not reported any donations to his campaign or spent any money on it.
The more serious challenger is Timothy Guerrette, 56, a former chief of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, from which he retired in 2021 after 31 years of service. He has also worked as a real estate broker and since retirement has hosted an “Uncensored 239” podcast. He has experience in police operations and management. He’s running on a platform of “safe, secure, ethical” elections and says in a campaign video that he will bring “competence and integrity back into the voting process.”
As of Nov. 5, Guerrette had raised $78,262 for his campaign. Many of the donations came from active and former law enforcement officers, including $1,000 from the Friends of Carmine Marceno Political Action Committee. Marceno is the sheriff in neighboring Lee County.
By contrast, as of Nov. 5, Blazier had raised $56,468 for her campaign, mostly from individuals, including her predecessor, including $25,000 she loaned her own campaign.
The opposition to Blazier appears to be less about her as an individual and more about distrust of the whole election process by disappointed MAGAs. This in turn seems largely based on former President Donald Trump’s disproven charges of 2020 election fraud and his attempt to overthrow the election’s outcome.
Despite Collier County’s record of election stability and accuracy, Oakes has alleged that mechanical vote counting was suspect.
“I will be challenging the Superintendent of Elections to clean up and do away with computer calculations for voting,” Oakes told The Paradise Progressive in an interview on Dec. 14, 2022. “We should have hand counts. In Europe they don’t take three weeks,” to reach a conclusion, he noted, referring to other elections around the United States that took long times to tabulate. While he said he liked Edwards, he called her “a little bit naïve and if you put her hand on the Bible, she would swear there is nothing corrupt going on there. I don’t think that’s true.”
Hand counting ballots has become a MAGA rallying cry even though it flies in the face of state law. As Blazier put it in a June 28, 2023 interview with The Paradise Progressive, changing away from machine counts “would have to be changed in law. That’s not something we can decide to do. And certainly not, given the deadlines we have to certify an election, it’s not possible to hand count—and I’m talking about one race. When you think about the general election ballot, we have over 30 contests on that ballot, with over a hundred different ballot styles that we would potentially have to hand count. I know that no one likes to hear this, but machines are more accurate than human beings are.”
School Board
Like all school boards in Florida, Collier County’s is a non-partisan race. If any candidate receives 50 percent plus one in the primary election, that person is elected. Otherwise, its makeup will be decided in the general election on Nov. 5.
Two school districts are up for election this year: District 2, currently represented by Vice Chair Stephanie Lucarelli, and District 4, represented by Erick Carter.
Stephanie Lucarelli. (Image: CCPS)
Lucarelli, 49, has served on the Board since 2016. She previously worked as a teacher in New Jersey, where she received her teaching certificate from Rutgers University.
Erick Carter. (Image: CCPS)
Erick Carter, 53, also took a seat on the Board in 2016. Originally from South Carolina, Carter was an instructor with a national ballroom dancing company when he discovered Southwest Florida in 1992, met his wife Anita and settled in Naples, where today they run Salon Zenergy, a hair and cosmetology salon.
Lucarelli and Carter have provided a moderate, secular approach to education and school board decisions since taking office in 2020.
With Chair Kelly Lichter (District 3) providing the swing vote, both voted in the majority to approve the appointment of Superintendent Leslie Ricciardelli despite a less experienced MAGA contender for the position backed by Oakes. They also rejected mixing religion into School Board proceedings with an invocation prior to Board meetings.
As of this writing it is not certain that Lucarelli and Carter will run again since they have not declared their candidacies.
The only declared School Board candidate is a Collier County resident running in District 2 named Pamela Shanouda Cunningham, 49, whose campaign website and video declares her to be an “unapologetic conservative.” She claims that Collier County children’s futures are “being sold out to big government bureaucrats who want to indoctrinate, not educate; career politicians who want to teach them what to think, not how to think.” She wants to put “parents in classrooms, not the liberal elite” and “restore greatness to the American classroom.”
Cunningham provides no biographic material on her website although she titles herself “Dr.,” and provides no academic credentials. She has never run for public office. The Collier County Citizens Values Political Action Committee lists her as Republican.
She did not respond to an e-mail or phone call from The Paradise Progressive seeking further information.
Analysis: The war on competence
In 2024 Collier County voters face a choice whether to uphold a secular, constitutional, effective local government or to veer off in a radical, extreme, religious direction.
The MAGA candidates running represent a continuation of the Trumpist war against expertise, experience and competence.
When he was president and especially during the COVID pandemic, Trump waged war on experts and the value of experience. He lacked experts’ knowledge and education, so he denigrated and dismissed them as “deep state” or “liberal elite” and belittled their knowledge. Then, when he lost the election, he deliberately promoted a Big Lie to overturn the results and questioned the integrity and neutrality of election officials who counted the votes.
The echoes of that anti-expertise, anti-competence, election-denying attitude continue to resonate and can be seen in the choices before Collier County.
In Burt Saunders Collier County has a seasoned, prudent commissioner with extensive experience in law and government at the state and local levels that is unmatched by his challengers.
In Melissa Blazier the county has a veteran, knowledgeable Supervisor of Elections with extensive experience. In addition to having helped oversee elections for the past 17 years, she is certified as an Elections/Registration Administrator by the National Association of Election Officials’ Election Center and is a Master Florida Certified Elections Professional through the Florida Supervisors of Elections.
In Stephanie Luccarelli and Erick Carter the county has experienced school board members with an abiding interest in education and the welfare of students, teachers and parents.
The people seeking to replace these veteran officials are running based on old suspicions, distrust of expertise and conspiracy theories.
The Supervisor of Elections position is a case in point.
This is an extremely important position because it’s the foundation for all other governance and elections. The public has to have confidence in its outcomes and especially in its absolute neutrality and integrity.
It’s worth remembering that the Supervisor of Elections oversees not only general elections but party primaries as well. For example, if candidates from two different Republican Party factions vie for a seat, everyone has to be confident that the Supervisor will not favor one faction or another in any way and that the intra-party vote count will be fair, unbiased and accurate.
The complaints about the election process appear to come from the 2020 outcome that Trump supporters didn’t like. But the Supervisor job is much broader than that.
There seems to be little understanding of the true complexity and nature of the job by its critics or challengers. As Blazier pointed out, a Supervisor may be overseeing over 30 different ballots on everything from constitutional amendments to judicial elections to the Collier County Mosquito Control District (which has two seats open this year), the Soil and Water Conservation District (four seats) and various fire control and rescue districts, not to mention mayor and council seats in Everglades City, Marco Island and Naples.
More than anything else, the Supervisor job is an accounting job; it’s all about numbers, vote counts, meeting deadlines and adhering to all applicable laws and getting everything out the door promptly, whether that means mail-in ballots or election results. A law enforcement or business background may include aspects related to the Supervisor’s job but nothing compares to over 17 years of on-the-job training and experience like that held by Blazier.
By contrast, her challengers have nothing in their backgrounds indicating any familiarity—or even previous interest—in election management. They have never been involved in administering elections or even served as poll workers.
Additionally, Blazier comes from an unbroken tradition of election excellence and integrity that stretches back to the founding of Collier County. Overthrowing all that knowledge and expertise, especially by an ideologically-driven MAGA opponent, would call into question the integrity and accuracy of all future election results including those for intra-party contests.
Another case in point is the Collier County School Board where Rutherford and Moshier, the two MAGA school board members, have consistently failed or proven unable to do the hard, necessary work of budgeting—and they campaigned on cutting that budget. When confronted with a real spreadsheet, they froze. Rutherford, with Moshier’s support, introduced time-consuming and irrelevant distractions like the controversy over an invocation. They have shown next to no interest in the actual nuts and bolts of providing educational excellence for students.
When ideological loyalty trumps competence the results are eroded services, misguided management and ineffective operations, not to mention poor decisionmaking in budgeting, administration and conservation. In the current case, if Collier County voters reject competence for fanaticism this year they’ll start to feel the effects in 2025, when novice officials take office and start bungling operations and mishandling their responsibilities.
Of course, all these considerations will be moot if Donald Trump is elected and overthrows American democracy. All these offices and the procedures for selecting their officeholders are based on democratic, legal procedures, consent of the governed and the supremacy of law and the Constitution. In a dictatorship the dictator simply appoints his own loyalists based on the blindness of their fealty. Competence is no longer a consideration and public consent is dismissed.
So going into 2024, Collier County voters are faced with seasoned candidates with experience, knowledge and proven competence in their fields or unseasoned MAGA amateurs running on grievances, conspiracies and blind belief.
One course will result in a county that is run on behalf of its residents with effectiveness, efficiency and integrity. The other will lead to ignorance, intolerance and most of all, incompetence.
That would not be a great way to start Collier County’s second century.
The Paradise Progressive 