Ron DeSantis Wins the Best Impersonation of a George Orwell Novel Award

You won’t be seeing this sight this year.

Those who know Curmie personally know that one of his favorite mantras is “if you have to tell me, it ain’t so.”  This slight tweaking of “actions speak louder than words” or of the difference between commanding and demanding respect tends to be directed at those who claim to care, or sometimes at those who claim to be in control.  If you’re a teacher or a theatre director (two things Curmie knows something about) and you have to tell the students or the actors that you’re in charge, you’re not.

Curmie thought about using that line to address Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s “Freedom Summer” program, but unfortunately the reality is rather more sinister than that, even apart from the co-opting of the name from an actual 1964 civil rights initiative for an exercise in faux patriotic virtue-signaling.  Curmie is therefore pleased to present Governor DeSantis with the Best Impersonation of a George Orwell Novel Award.  You know:  “War Is Peace.  Freedom Is Slavery.  Ignorance Is Strength.”? 

As a key ingredient of the… erm… “freedom” being celebrated in Florida this summer is a directive that the only colors that are permissible to light the state’s bridges from Memorial Day through Labor Day are—you’re way ahead of me here, aren’t you, Gentle Reader?—red, white, and blue.  It is, of course, purely coincidental, as noted in Rex Huppke’s deliciously snarky commentary in USA Today, that this means no rainbow lights for Pride Month, or indeed any yellowish, greenish, or purplish colors for any reason.  And we’re not talking here just about things that would give heart palpitations to bigots conservatives like DeSantis, like orange for National Gun Violence Awareness Day or including green for Juneteenth, which is <checks notes> a national holiday explicitly celebrating actual, literal, freedom. 

But, if, for example, the baseball team from Florida State, Florida, or Miami were to win the College World Series, it’s within the realm of possibility that the folks in Tallahassee, Gainesville, or Coral Gables might want to celebrate by lighting up the local bridges in the school colors, the way New Yorkers light up the Empire State Building if one of the local teams wins the Big Game.  (Or the way people from around the world showed solidarity with Ukraine after the Russian invasion.)  Nope.  Not allowed.  Freedom!

What’s also interesting about this year is that DeSantis now seems eager to embrace his role as authoritarian enforcer of “freedom,” meaning, of course, that Floridians can do what they like as long as Little Ronnie approves.  About this time three years ago, he ran away with his tail between his legs when there was outrage at the Florida Department of Transportation’s decision to turn off the rainbow lights on a Jacksonville bridge.

Then, DeSantis sent forth one of his minions forth to proclaim that “The Governor was most definitely not involved in that decision, and it’s absurd to think otherwise.”  Curmie pauses here to mutter “if you have to tell me, it ain’t so” under his breath.  But although he is a disaster as both a governor and a human being, Ron DeSantis does have one skill: he’s particularly adept at plausible deniability.

Of course, although DeSantis is perhaps only 40% as smart as he thinks he is, he’s not an utter imbecile.  He knows full well that outlawing colored lights on bridges won’t have any appreciable affect.  People will use flags instead of lights, or they’ll light up city hall or the county courthouse.  He’s not going to lose any votes for this little stunt, as anyone who cares about what is represented by, say, rainbow lights for Pride Month wouldn’t have voted for him, anyway.  But he gets to strut for his base and maybe pull in some campaign contributions from wealthy homophobes.  He comes out smelling like a rose… a rose that has been well fertilized with bovine excrement, but a rose nevertheless.

Curmie acknowledges that many of the more ridiculous euphemisms that have degraded the English language over the past few decades have come from the left.  He remembers calling up some mid-level college administrator to ask what the hell “differently abled” was a euphemism for (she wasn’t all that certain, by the way); that was almost 40 years ago.  People who are in this country without the legal right to be here are not “migrants”; convicted felons are not “justice-impacted individuals”; people who are pregnant are still (biologically, at least) women. 

But whereas the Woke phraseology may be the third cousin twice removed from the reality of the situations which are (sort of) being described, at least you can find your way from one term to the other with a road map and a little patience.  Ron DeSantis’s concept of “freedom” is a complete inversion of the term, a misrepresentation on the scale of what used to be known as the “German Democratic Republic,” albeit with fewer and lesser consequences.

Still, for all his authoritarianism and double-speak, DeSantis continues to trail both Greg Abbott and Mitch McConnell in what is shaping up to be an epic struggle for the title of Hypocrite of the Month.  The GOP, of course, cares little if anything about actually solving problems or upholding individual rights (except their own, of course); it just wants to make sure that the country is ruled by those they consider to be the right people… you know, rich het white pseudo-Christian men.  (Actual Christians who want to feed the poor or welcome the stranger need not apply.)

They’d need a little assistance, though.  If Curmie might switch dystopian novels on you, Gentle Reader, the ideal minions would be the equivalent of Brave New World’s Betas: competent enough to serve the interests of the state, but not really capable of independent thought.  In other words, the Republican rank and file, who will continue to elect and re-elect imperious jackasses like Ron DeSantis.

If only the Democrats were much better…