DeSantis and Florida
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Miami Herald Warns That Christian Rhetoric Could 'Mobilize Fringe Mobs'
I know. You’re not really shocked or appalled, but this information came as news to the Miami Herald’s Ana Ceballos, particularly when it comes to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who Ceballos’ article says is “playing with fire.”
The reporter goes all the way back to February to cite a speech DeSantis made at Hillsdale College to make her point.
“Put on the full armor of God. Stand firm against the left’s schemes. You will face flaming arrows, but if you have the shield of faith, you will overcome them, and in Florida we walk the line here,” DeSantis said in his speech. “And I can tell you this, I have only begun to fight.”
Now, I wince a little bit at DeSantis using “the left” where the apostle Paul talks about the devil in Ephesians 6:10-18, but I get his point. The left is engaging in a hard push for policies that violate Judeo-Christian morality in many ways, and believers need to engage many of the same weapons of spiritual warfare — prayer, faith, devotion to God’s Word — to aid in combatting these assaults.
But, as Ceballo points out, this is problematic because there’s a slim chance that an extremely small fringe of people might take the spiritual warfare talk literally.
“[DeSantis] and other Republicans on the campaign trail are blending elements of Christianity with being American and portraying their battle against their political opponents as one between good and evil,” Ceballos states. “Those dynamics have some political observers and religious leaders worrying that such rhetoric could become dangerous, as it could mobilize fringe groups who could be prone to violence in an attempt to have the government recognize their beliefs.”
This, in Ceballos’ eyes, is Christian nationalism, which, she claims, “for many conservatives has become a political identity.” The problem with that assertion is that she’s dead wrong.
Christian nationalism is a phenomenon, but it’s a minuscule movement of people who believe that the U.S. is a strictly Christian nation and that the only people who can be Americans must be a particular type of Christian. The vast majority of conservative, Bible-believing Christians don’t subscribe to this notion.
That doesn’t stop leftists from slapping the “Christian nationalist” label on Republican politicians. But Ceballos had to go 1,349 miles to find a pastor who was willing to play her game. She quotes Brian Kaylor, a pastor in Jefferson City, Mo., whose specialty is the intersection of faith and politics. A quick perusal of Kaylor’s Twitter account shows that he has major issues with politicians using scripture — when those politicians are Republicans.
“I think, at best, DeSantis is playing with fire,” Kaylor declared in the article. “If asked, I’m sure he would tell you he is not telling people to literally go and fight. But this rhetoric in this political environment is dangerous.”
Kaylor, a Baptist pastor, for crying out loud, accuses DeSantis of being exclusive of non-Christians in the piece.
“If there is any privileging of one faith’s tradition, then you don’t have true religious liberty for everyone,” he claims. “If you don’t believe in religious liberty for all, then you don’t believe in religious liberty at all.”
Ceballos also quotes Yale sociologist Philip Gorski, who wrote a totally unbiased book entitled The Flag and the Cross: White Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy.
“The full armor of God passage is a favorite amongst certain types of Pentecostals who really do see the world in terms of spiritual warfare,” Gorski informs readers.
Another professor tells Ceballos that DeSantis is using “God talk” and “Christian nationalist talking points” to gain votes.
NY Times Paints Gov. DeSantis As Right-Wing Strongman, ‘Crush[ing] Adversaries’
Flegenhmer made DeSantis’s fight with Disney, the left’s new favorite corporate behemoth, sound unfair, characterizing it as “executive vengeance-seeking” against Disney’s public stand against the Parental Rights in Education Act, which banned teaching on sexual orientation and gender identity in the early grades.
Inevitably the discussion turned to Florida’s Covid response, and Flegenheimer came off constrained, forced to admit DeSantis emerged looking good:
Yet somehow, the governor of Florida, a state which as of mid-September 2022 sits right at the national average of vaccination, according to the Times' own figures, is responsible for deaths for being a “vaccine skeptic,” while dismissing the vital issue of children’s education in a five-word sentence.
Did you get all that? You see, Donald Trump is a bully, but he’s also soft around the edges (huh?) and is able to tame his ego by telling jokes or something. Meanwhile, DeSantis is worse because he’s more competent in using the levers of power but doesn’t have the ability to temper his “cruelty.”
I’m reading this and just thinking how nonsensical it is. One, DeSantis is likable, which is why he has some of the highest favorable ratings among major politicians (namely, those who have demanded a national stage in the last year). Two, Trump is not just some clown that doesn’t follow through. His administration was ripe with tangible actions that enraged the left on a policy level.
Ron DeSantis Is Now Worse Than Donald Trump
DeSantis blasts Biden for ‘scrambling’ to respond to Martha’s Vineyard – brutally exposes what POTUS ignored
“I also was a little bit perplexed when I heard that the president is scrambling to get his Cabinet together to try to address the fact that you have governors who are helping to relocate illegal aliens to sanctuary cities,” America’s governor said to cheering and applause before unleashing a volley of Biden’s resounding failures on the border crisis.
“Now, he didn’t scramble to get his Cabinet together when we had millions of people illegally pouring across the southern border,” DeSantis said of the president. “He didn’t scramble to get his Cabinet together when you had 43, 53 migrants die in some trailer in Texas because they were neglected by the federal government.”
“You didn’t see him scramble to get his Cabinet together when we had Americans that were victimized by criminal aliens that he let across the border,” the governor continued.
This is gut-busting stuff. It’s so stupid that it’s hard to believe it’s not satire, but here we are, with people who illegally crossed the border now suing a governor for giving them a free ride to a sanctuary city they knew they were going to, including signing a release form.
My first big question here is how in the world there’s any standing here. In order to sue for damages, you typically need to have been damaged. How were these illegal immigrants damaged financially by no longer living under an overpass and instead flying to Martha’s Vineyard? And given it was technically the State of Florida who transported the illegal immigrants, what standing exists to sue DeSantis personally?
Then there are the supposed merits of the lawsuit. In what way was what Florida did 1) illegal, 2) fraudulent, and 3) financially advantageous? The state did not make any money on the deal. Rather, they spent money that was put in the last budget. As to political benefit, that is completely subjective. Some would say the move hurt DeSantis and the state politically. How do you even quantify that?
Everything about this lawsuit is farcical and nonsensical. Any judge worth their salt will throw this thing out immediately. There’s obviously no standing to sue DeSantis, and nothing laid out in the fact pattern is backed by real evidence. What crimes are even been alleged to have occurred to back up the assertion that the flights were “illegal?” It’s just laughable.
But this is what always happens when a Republican is effective and starts winning. Lawfare is standard fare for the left, as we’ve seen with how Donald Trump has been targeted. I suspect DeSantis is prepared for this, though, and that he’ll once again come out on top when all is said and done. The left hate the Florida man because they fear the Florida man.
My first big question here is how in the world there’s any standing here. In order to sue for damages, you typically need to have been damaged. How were these illegal immigrants damaged financially by no longer living under an overpass and instead flying to Martha’s Vineyard? And given it was technically the State of Florida who transported the illegal immigrants, what standing exists to sue DeSantis personally?
Then there are the supposed merits of the lawsuit. In what way was what Florida did 1) illegal, 2) fraudulent, and 3) financially advantageous? The state did not make any money on the deal. Rather, they spent money that was put in the last budget. As to political benefit, that is completely subjective. Some would say the move hurt DeSantis and the state politically. How do you even quantify that?
Everything about this lawsuit is farcical and nonsensical. Any judge worth their salt will throw this thing out immediately. There’s obviously no standing to sue DeSantis, and nothing laid out in the fact pattern is backed by real evidence. What crimes are even been alleged to have occurred to back up the assertion that the flights were “illegal?” It’s just laughable.
But this is what always happens when a Republican is effective and starts winning. Lawfare is standard fare for the left, as we’ve seen with how Donald Trump has been targeted. I suspect DeSantis is prepared for this, though, and that he’ll once again come out on top when all is said and done. The left hate the Florida man because they fear the Florida man.
How can there be a criminal investigation when the sheriff has no evidence crimes were committed? I ask that rhetorically given that we currently live in the year of our Lord 2022 where lawfare and witch hunts are standard fare. One look at how the DOJ and FBI operate is proof enough of that.
DeSantis didn’t take things lying down, though. His team shot back at the Bexar County Sheriff, noting that in June, 53 illegal aliens died in the back of an abandoned box truck on his watch. It was one of the more horrific incidents stemming from the current border crisis.
It’s fun to watch a guy who is always one step ahead of his opponents. DeSantis doesn’t just own the libs. He owns the libs, predicts exactly how they’ll react, prepares for it, and then promptly owns them again. It’s an evolution of what Donald Trump started, and a necessary one given that the left is only getting more organized and vicious in pushing their ideology and policies.
This sheriff has enough problems in his county. With drug cartels running wild and real human trafficking happening every day, the last thing he needs to be spending time on is going after the Governor of Florida for giving free rides to illegal aliens who wanted them. The federal government is dumping these people in the streets. They are living under overpasses in shanty towns. Objectively, what DeSantis did was a humanitarian good.
It comes down to this. As long as Biden refuses to secure the border for political reasons, the load must be shared by non-border states, specifically blue states in the North that proclaim themselves sanctuary jurisdictions. Texas does not have unlimited resources, and the Biden administration is non-cooperative in helping to stem the flow. Border towns should not be expected to take care of millions of illegal aliens while virtue-signaling places like Chicago and DC say one thing for the cameras and do another.
Ron DeSantis vents at 'opportunistic activists' engaging in 'political theater' as lawsuit claims he 'exploited' migrants with Martha's Vineyard flight: Florida Gov. shares consent form given out before trip
- Ron DeSantis has hit back at 'opportunistic activists' who claimed in a lawsuit he 'exploited' a group of migrants by flowing them to Martha's Vineyard
- His office claims each of the migrants were required to sign consent forms before they boarded a chartered plane to the island
- Spokeswoman Taryn Fenske also said that the trip was done on a 'voluntary' basis to a sanctuary state
- Plaintiffs allege the governor's office trapped them in a 'premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme'
- They said the plan 'centered on exploiting [the migrants] for advancing their own personal, financial and political interests'
- Migrants claim that those working on DeSantis' scheme trolled outside of an immigration shelter in San Antonio, Texas and offered McDonald's gift cards
- They promised the migrants they would 'receive employment, housing, educational opportunities' and falsely told them they were flying to DC or Boston
Did you get all that? You see, Donald Trump is a bully, but he’s also soft around the edges (huh?) and is able to tame his ego by telling jokes or something. Meanwhile, DeSantis is worse because he’s more competent in using the levers of power but doesn’t have the ability to temper his “cruelty.”
I’m reading this and just thinking how nonsensical it is. One, DeSantis is likable, which is why he has some of the highest favorable ratings among major politicians (namely, those who have demanded a national stage in the last year). Two, Trump is not just some clown that doesn’t follow through. His administration was ripe with tangible actions that enraged the left on a policy level.
Ron DeSantis Is Now Worse Than Donald Trump
redstate.com
So when does the liberal media get around to including Abbott .
