Make America Florida, Again? How About "No."

Trump has picked so many Floridians for top positions, several of them well-known in the state. Here's some of the latest picks.

Dan Newlin is a personal injury lawyer and former police officer.

Florida has turned from a swing state to a fascist red state. This year, laws came out willy-nilly. I checked every day to see what the next baseless law was. It happened slowly. I fought, peacefully, against it the whole time. But what do you do when a so-called representative ignores you cordial letter, sends you a boilerplate reply, and does what they were going to do, anyway?

We have a state militia now.

Many of us--Latinx, LGBTQIA, women--have advocated this whole time. Some on the left, unfortunately, became just as radicalized as the right.

I have been a lawful activist since high school. People know me. They love me, they hate me.

But here's how Florida got to the top: Elected officials flouted democracy once in office. They acted as though they were not representatives elected to serve the people and carry out our will but as if they had a mandate to do, pardon my language, what-the-fuck-ever-they-wanted-to.

Petitions and mass letters expressing the will of the people? Totally ignored.

When I moved to Florida, we had a democratic governor, who I knew. Now, we have Ron De Santis, who has been cozy with Trump, despite arguing on the campaign trail.

Leftists here? Many of them became corrupt, too, justifying their anger, and sometimes becoming violent, almost like the person who recently killed the CEO of United Healthcare.

As far as I can tell, people on the right got political tactics from places like China, and considered domestic politics to be warfare, while Russia struck the nation with divide-and-conquer. People on the left became more and more angry. There was public debate about their anger around the time of Black Lives Matter riots. They justified their anger and violence.

Now, we are fast becoming a shithole country. Fascism is associated with mass poverty, slums, poor health. Except, of course, for the rulers. I posted a meme at the beginning of the 2024 election that America had "99 Problems But A King Ain't One." I worked the entire election with every free moment I had to save what is politically good--democracy, reasonable pluralism, reasonable disagreement, just laws. Tons of people saw me.

I'm no fatalist, though. The moment you read this, you may have changed the course of history. Sometimes any hope is "radical hope."

I flew the flag upside down years ago to symbolize distress in the United States.

Let's flip it upright, shall we? We can do this.

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