In the end, it wasn’t culture war feuding over restricting LGBTQ+ rights, thwarting Black voters or vilifying immigrants that finally broke Republicans’ DeSantis fever in Florida.
Nor was it his rightwing takeover of higher education, the banning of books from school libraries, his restriction of drag shows, or passive assent of neo-Nazis parading outside Disney World waving flags bearing the extremist governor’s name that caused them to finally stand up to him.
It was, instead, a love of vulnerable Florida scrub jays; a passion to preserve threatened gopher tortoises; and above all a unanimous desire to speak up for nature in defiance of Ron DeSantis’s mind-boggling plan to pave over thousands of unspoiled acres at nine state parks and erect 350-room hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts.
The outcry when DeSantis’s department of environmental protection (DEP) unveiled its absurdly named Great Outdoors Initiative last week was immediate, overwhelming and unprecedented. The Republican Florida senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott penned a joint letter slamming an “absolutely ridiculous” proposal to build a golf course at Jonathan Dickinson state park in Martin county. The Republican congressman Brian Mast, usually a reliable DeSantis ally, said it would happen “over my dead body”.
The one thing that just about anybody inside or outside the U.S. can agree on is that we have the best national parks, and the most unspoiled natural beauty across entire swathes of land. This doesn’t happen by accident. A love of nature transcends political affiliations. If anything I would say despite the social stigma of Democrats being “tree-huggers”, it’s actually conservatives and Republicans who have a vested interest in preserving and maintaining national parks and nature conservatories. Hunting and fishing in particular are big pass times in red states, so it makes sense that Republicans care deeply about the environment.
Climate change denialism only takes root in conservative circles because it’s abstract enough to not be directly observable and is at direct odds with things like fossil fuels production that are major economic drivers in predominantly Republican controlled states. Although I think conservatives are finally waking up to that fact and are refusing to be spoon fed bullshit anymore. Hopefully not too late to reverse course.
Second-largest country on the planet checking in, with 90% untouched wilderness so deep that people routinely get lost for days a 10-minute drive from town.