Florida is hurting as it becomes where empathy, kindness and decency go to die!
https://www.rawstory.com/florida-2662281133/?recip_id=31440&list_id=1Younger Floridians are fleeing the state in record numbers and business dollars are drying up as the state is increasingly seen as the place “where empathy, decency and kindness go to die,” a columnist wrote Friday.
“Gov. Ron DeSantis and his obedient Republican legislature have made bullying and attacking the vulnerable the hallmarks of their goverance,” wrote Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post.
And it’s having a demonstrably negative impact.
Along with tax payer’s dollars being lost on the governor’s “right-wing stunts” frequently being defended – often unsuccessfully – in courts, Florida is losing business and is suffering a brain drain, she said.
The American Community Survey showed in June that 674,740 people left Florida for another state in 2021, Rubin said. More than any other state.
She wrote, “In February, USA Today reported, “Florida may be the most moved to state in the country, but not when it comes to Gen Z. They are the only generation that chose to exit Florida, with an outflux of 8,000 young adults."
Florida's universities and colleges have seen an increase in staff departures, with 1,087 resigning from the University of Florida alone in 2022, she wrote.
“Record numbers of faculty are not returning to University of Central Florida, Florida State University and the University of South Florida. This is hardly surprising, given DeSantis’s assault on academic independence and his suggestion that students go out of state if they want to study topics such as African American studies,” Rubin said.
And convention organizers – historically a huge business in Florida – are looking to be hosted elsewhere.
“There is little sign that the rest of the country is enamored of censorship, book bans or anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment. The question remains whether DeSantis’s act wears thin at home,” Rubin wrote.
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be getting pointers from Putin on how to stay in office ... perpetually. 
deSadist's Revenge Fascist MoRonic politics aren't working in the long run.
Good News for American Democracy
than alligators or giant pythons, but my fearful attention was distracted from them (briefly!) when I heard that a python was found to have eaten an alligator of my size. Whole of course.
FL, where morning walks are for thrill seekers. Not conservative folk.
Step down the expectation, or hope. Some of the open wishes that all Floridians drop dead, be ejected from the nation, etc, have been diminished by calling them out, but rotten attitude's not changed.
Given that Democrats are a minority in over half our states, where many despicable things are happening, but no other draws this flood of constant hostility, I've come to believe a huge component of resentful jealousy of Floridians specifically is involved.
Most really don't want to move to FL, of course, but the image is of leisurely lives of riding golf carts to lunch with friends and relaxing by the pool. While poor abused, exploited working people are scraping ice off their windshields and slaving for the patriarchy, whine, moan, etcetera, wash, rinse, repeat, presumably forever.
Reality is, as the first blizzards hit next fall, I will be sipping a mimosa and reading on the lawn overlooking the marsh or meeting friends for a long lunch by a marina. I know we own an ice scraper but haven't seen it in years.
perfect answers. Of course, every presidential campaign should be 50-state. Duh. If only everyone donated money and time to match their convictions. 2024's going to be more expensive than ever, and we won't have enough. Baked in.
I have a problem beyond doability with the other reason for the oversized popularity of this iconic theory -- some take it as more evidence Democrats really are just as bad as, or worse!, than the Republicans because we have always could stopped them by enabling all "the people" to vote as they assume they would. Whether we're stupider than corrupt or vice versa is the question for those who don't go straight to corrupt.
Oh, well. It is what it is.
So true about the stereotypical Floridian. Just heard the other favorite Kool-Aid twice in the past few days, though, that people move to Florida to die. The people we know are having a hell of a time pulling that off -- seemingly no one realized they'd never be in the mood.
Ummm -- just thought of potlucks on the patio. We're going to be back to normal this winter!
Last edited Sat Jul 15, 2023, 07:30 PM - Edit history (1)
of over 60 years of elections; that's how long we've had 50 states and how long we haven't been able to campaign equally to all the people in all 50 states. I agree it's an ideal we should always wish to meet, but then what liberal doesn't? We INVENTED liberal representative democracy.
A lot of people tend to behave badly when they're frightened, and social media where many come to take a snow shovel to kindness, decency and empathy.
It's not just behaving badly when frightened.
It's about walking away from red state voters of both parties and blaming them for systems they don't control, and that confound them by design. We all live in systems that we didn't make, have coped with, or adapted to, or resisted in order to change.
We're caught up in monied management run by oligarchic resource/data control wars, internet/coder control wars, and not just the media-covered lawyer wars or political battles.
Reminds me that I was just talking with someone else about deep-red WV. In 2016 we invested extremely heavily there, starting years before with in-depth studies and planning, offering a New Deal size program to lift the whole state and transition from coal jobs to various new good-paying industries, not just energy, with investments in jobs training, schools, healthcare, the whole package. For the most part, WV voters rejected it proudly and defiantly, including many Democrats.
Who knows? We might have done better if we'd just flown over and skipped the taking them to the top of the mountain and showing them a future in which their children would be able to stay and raise their own families in their beautiful and now prosperous state. They wanted the past back, even though they knew they couldn't have it, AND they emphatically rejected our, frankly awesome, progressive solutions.
Fwiw, I really think we need to have more respect for voters who disagree with us, stupid as we may think their choices are. They tend to think the very same thing about those who disagree with them too. And there are no guns to anyone's heads at the polls.
Happy Sunday.
If you can’t swim, it’s time to leave.
Something is incredibly fucked up in Florida right now. They are being governed by tyranny and I feel like it's going to get worse before it gets better. 
I asked my Husband what it would take to make him move to floriduh. He said, very thoughtful, "well, there's not enough money in floriduh to entice me. Hell, there's not enough money on this planet"! It's comforting that both of us want to stay in Oregon
people should look around their own and surrounding states. Across the nation, red zip codes are getting redder and blue bluer. Most conservatives moving long distance for ideological reasons, one scientist estimates this factor affecting @15%, are heading to the many red states and communities full of their kind of people. TX has gotten the most -- and FL was the biggest "contributor"!
Sure some are moving TO FL. We know a pair of gay guys who fled "socialist" California for the moral sanity of Florida. But most are moving there to live, for good jobs and beaches.
That influx tends to be young.
And, unlike some conservatives, especially those from white environments, those moving to FL tend to be undismayed that Florida's strikingly, visibly racially and ethnically diverse -- only half white. They're everywhere. Including people speaking other languages. (Gasp!)
