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There is a reason he was foremost in the summer of 2020. It is because Trump abandoned the perch.
Yes, you can point out rural states like South Dakota but I lived during covid. Florida was open early and faced heavy criticism for it. Georgia opened around a similar time (and hell I’d go to bay for Kemp as well) but Kemp didn’t go as hard in the paint to prevent local government from enacting certain policy (and you may recall Trump tried really hard to prevent Kemp from doing what he did).
Hell, I provided the receipts from Mulligran. Florida had schools open in person pretty much more than every other states (it is basically tied with Arkansas and Wyoming with a pretty big gap until Utah).
Also this whole “neoliberal” smear. Any guy that says “Coolidge” when favorite president isn’t your bog standard neo lib. Add to it his attacks on ESG and feud with Disney. He isn’t another GWB or Romney.
Finally, judging someone for a bad campaign is a poor way for how somehow would run the federal government. Instead I would say the way he handled covid in Florida (which despite your retcon was excellent) or the way he handled the hurricanes (which again were excellent). The guy is a great executive who is not a natural politician. I’d prefer the former to the latter.
He wasn't foremost in summer of 2020. Trump was always foremost throughout all of 2020. He wasn't even the foremost governor. Kemp was because he opened weeks ahead of Desantis, just not fully. Desantis only came out with reopening once Trump called for all states to reopen. Trump didn't "try really hard" to stop Kemp, he made some statements in response to questions from the media. That is nonsense. Trump criticized Kemp because Kemp was in front of Trump and Desantis. Desantis came to be the forefront governor because he engaged with the media and I was grateful for that.
I can point to more states than South Dakota. There were multiple governors who didn't lockdown at all (Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and more). There were over five governors who never issued stay-at-home orders. There were multiple other governors who opened quicker and with fewer restrictions (Texas, Georgia, and others). There were governors who cracked down on localities attempting lockdowns quicker than Desantis, who put out an order in like October and didn't enforce it with Floridians still getting tickets and summonses afterwards.
Desantis was not good on Covid. He was better than most, but that's not saying much, and he wasn't the best. He wasn't better than Trump on any issue during 2020. And he was worse than at least five+ other governors.
In addition, my anecdotal experience in both Florida and Texas in ~May-June was Texas was more open with fewer mask weirdos irrelevant of whatever was on the books or in press conferences.
Your memory of Desantis during COVID or his PR campaign to retcon his record, much like many of his other PR stunts, are rewriting history about what he actually did during Covid. Early Desantis was mister tough guy sending staties to arrest teenagers on beaches he closed. Let's stop lying about it or mischaracterizing the landscape of the Covid hysteria in 2020.
then you should look at Desantis's record and statements when he was a Congressmen before he rebranded himself to run for Governor let alone he has repeated multiple times his politician idol is George H.W. Bush
I was in this stuff day in and day out. It isn’t PR. Maybe you’ve been buying into the Trump nonsense (like Cuomo being better).
where? I don't remotely recognize you and I was pretty involved, including in lobbying governments and in multiple lawsuits and your comments make me think you came late to this like in 2021
you've let post-2020 behavior affect your memory of the timeline and specific behaviors of Desantis during 2020, the relevant time period where Trump was in office
you're participating in the retcon which is why instead of talking about specific behaviors of Desantis and their timeline during 2020 which I've pointed out, you want to use poor proxies like "% in-person schools available" in 2020 and 2021
in most states, schools and school policies are mostly controlled very locally; state governments can and do intervene but rarely did in 2020 (at least to open them), including in Florida which is why it's a goofy proxy for the point you're trying to make but it's pretty typical for the goofy PR derps desantis hired who helped him shred his political career in record time
Okay bro. I’m sure Bleep filed a lot of law suits.
Here is a WaPo article from mid 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/08/18/florida-education-chief-tells-districts-dont-rush-close-schools-when-covid-19-cases-appear/
And from the times https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/us/coronavirus-schools-florida-local-control.html
RDS used the power of the purse to keep schools open in mid 2020. So don’t give me your revisionist history nonsense.
so, you were nowhere to be found and engaged in your own retcon of what you did and when you did it
sorry bud, I don't believe you read those paywalled articles and I don't believe you read the order they're talking about, included waiver and subject to advice of local health boards, and it's clear you're not interested in genuine dialogue so I'll end here
Happy New Year
Get lost buddy.
Neither of you are behaving great here, but however annoying @Bleep's passive-aggressive "Happy New Year" might have been, you know if someone is pushing your buttons hard enough that you feel a need to respond like this, you should report the post if you have to, and then walk away.
Fair enough. I should’ve been better.
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