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Today’s entry: You mentioned Florida’s Democrats have been as liberal as the hardest core lefties. I think you’re right, if it hadn’t been for DeSantis stopping lockdowns and fighting for schools to be open, we might still be locked down right now. My question is how do we prove it to others who don’t get it?
Bottom Line: To your point, there has been a train of thought in certain circles for about a year now, that Governor DeSantis has saved many local officials who’re inclined to overreach during this pandemic, from themselves. It was a year ago this week, September 25th, that Governor DeSantis took final measures to ban local governments from enforcing fines based on local emergency orders. Regarding schools, the state not only had to fight legal challenges brought primarily from the teachers’ unions, to get them open last year, but the state had to continue to fight those legal challenges to keep them open. The final legal victory to keep classroom education on track last year wasn’t resolved until January.
There’s no question that, had Governor DeSantis not taken broad measures to reign in local governments, the past year would have been vastly different in South Florida. DeSantis has proved to be the perfect foil for heavy-handed local officials in this regard. They can blame him for not allowing restrictive measures locally, pandering to a leftist base of voters, while having their communities rebound economically by benefiting from his policies, which they take credit for.
In terms of illustrating these points for others, the first way you can prove your point is to search for the policies in place in your community last September when DeSantis put an end to it. Subsequently, search for the names of local officials and find their comments regarding DeSantis’ policies and on the reopening of schools. There is no shortage of local officials on the wrong side of history regarding the reopening of schools last year. Just as there are just as many on the wrong side of it in real-time with the mask mandates for students without parental opt-outs despite the CDC stating "lower incidence in schools that required mask use among students was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional." This issue is another way to illustrate the point.
Local school board members who voted for the mandates, in violation of Florida law, have also ignored the facts in the name of mandates. Many city and county officials are also on the record about this issue, and you can search for their comments as well. There’s also another highly visible example taking place right now. Local governments embracing Biden’s vax or get fired mandate present another easy opportunity to illustrate a point. Forcing people to get the COVID-19 vaccine to keep their job is about as illustrative as it gets.
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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