Stephan: Florida is a classic example of the inferior governance of Republicans, if by good governance you mean fostering societal wellbeing. And yet, Floridians vote against their own self-interest again and again. Rick Scott is perhaps the archetypal example of what I mean. A grifter who should have gone to prison for the largest Medicare fraud in history, yet he became governor for not one but two terms, where he specialized in voter suppression and then moved on to become senator. Every time he won I wondered what were the people of Florida thinking? Then the people of Florida voted for a racist, Ron De Santis, who has handled the coronavirus pandemic about as badly as Trump. It will be interesting to see how Florida votes on 3 November. Will they continue to vote to destroy the quality of their own lives or finally awaken to what they have done.
Despite being a poster child for high-level corruption and incompetence, Rick Scott, a former governor who is now a U.S. senator, can’t stop winning elections in Florida.Credit: Jeff Mitchell/Getty
BESIDE A TRUMP-FLAGGED BOAT AT A DOCK IN FORT LAUDERDALE — It looms ever closer, like a poorly conceived sequel to a decades-old movie even most of its fans would like to forget. There’s a mostly new cast, many of them as old as the original players; a ton of money being invested in the production; and a lot of media effects that couldn’t be dreamed of when the first one came out. It’s a slow-moving catastrophe. It’s entirely predictable. It’s Bush v. Gore 2: The Actual Boogaloo. It’s going to suck. And of course, it’s set in Florida again.
Two decades after the 2000 election, which history may remember as the real beginning of the end of American election legitimacy, the fate of billions of sentient beings on earth may again turn on what happens here. The stakes are familiar: Florida’s considerable bucket of electoral votes has gone to the winner […]
