RON BE GONE, BOY

Fascism takes many twisted forms. Of course, the most obvious right now is Donald Trump and his Neanderthal MAGA movement. In turn, the GOP, for the most part, have decided that their spines are made of meringue and surrendered their souls completely to the snake-oil fraud. In doing so, a second wave of mini-me Trumps have emerged from underneath the rocks. They try their very best to out-do one another with increasingly bizarre and dangerous extremism in an effort to both curry favor with Trump and to capture the approval of the know-nothing MAGA millions. And probably the best known mini-me at present is Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

Having thrown his hood into the ring for the Republican presidential nomination, DeSantis has turbo-charged his campaign to even greater depths of bigotry – if that’s possible. His rabid anti-LGBTQ stance continues to become ever more repressive. He’s feuding with Disney (Disney – who does that?), pushing for book bans (that was tried in Nazi Germany and we all know how that worked out), and is relentlessly pushing his narrative in the “war on woke” (aka whatever prejudice Trump’s “base” deem to be un-American – again, whatever that is supposed to mean). And his pedigree of hatred doesn’t stop there. A closet bigot, he has droves of racists in both Florida and the country at large that support him. And as we know, you can measure the merit of the man by the company that he keeps.

Trump currently has a substantial lead in the GOP race for its 2024 presidential nomination. So as time ticks by, expect DeSantis’ rhetoric to become more and more extreme to the point of Trump style unhinged. His racism has ensured that Alpha Phi Alpha, Black America’s oldest fraternity, has opted to pull out of hosting it’s 2025 convention in Orlando.

The febrile Floridian toxic environment of intolerance and dog-whistle racism, perpetuated by DeSantis, has become too much for them. Their pulling out of Orlando is another milestone that DeSantis will cheerfully chalk up along the road to a fully fascist Florida. It should then come as no surprise that DeSantis has initiated a move to teach Florida’s schoolchildren that slavery in the US actually had benefits for the slaves. Go figure.

Incredibly, within a mere 80 years of the fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, leading American politicians are touting ideas that have more in common with Mein Kampf than they do with the Constitution. That is territory that DeSantis is not only comfortable in, but actively goes out of his way to find. As if there aren’t enough alarm bells ringing for Black Americans right now, we have DeSantis doing all he can to rally White nationalist America behind him. Consequently, our Black brothers and sisters, especially so in Florida, have another fight on their hands that they simply have to win.

Trump is more than likely going to be the GOP’s 2024 presidential candidate. However, that’s not stopping DeSantis from going full bore bigot. Far from it. Yet Black America has the weight of numbers to bring his presidential campaign to a stand-still. With fully mobilized Black Florida and America working in lock-step with one another, we have the clout to thwart DeSantis at every turn. So, we need to motivate, educate and mobilize with immediate effect.

On the million to one chance that DeSantis should secure the GOP nomination, we have the perfect antidote in Kamala Harris making her own run for the presidency. She would be an iconic lightning rod for action from Black and (genuinely) progressive America. Harris is a thousand times the states-person than DeSantis could ever dream of. Plus, she has the experience of the vice-presidency and, for example, standing up to the Russians and

Chinese and not, as DeSantis does, picking a fight with Mickey Mouse and libraries.

Time and again, Black America has to dig deep into its reserves of courage, decency and multi-front fight. As we do, we can take solace in knowing that long after DeSantis is a dim and distant memory, Black America will be stronger and more united than ever before. Even more so under a Harris administration. DeSantis can spew forth his hate 24 / 7, but we know that ultimately, him and his kind will never prevail. They are just more fascist junk to be disposed of in the American trash can of history. And rest assured, we here at TIP Nation will call out Ron and his klan every single time.

So yeah – Ron be gone, boy. We’ll make sure of that.