adplus-dvertising
Connect with us

Politics

Is Ron DeSantis just Trump 2.0, or something else entirely? Republicans are anxious to find out

Published

 on

Ron DeSantis celebrates amid confetti this past Nov. 8, the night of elections that returned him to the Florida governorship – and boosted his support for a possible run at the GOP presidential nomination.Scott McIntyre/The New York Times

By some measures, Ron DeSantis is Donald Trump’s carbon copy. The Florida Governor achieved a national profile by rejecting social distancing, masking and vaccination mandates during the pandemic. He launched a culture war in his state, cracking down on discussions of racism and LGBTQ issues in schools. And he has shown a penchant for using the power of his office to punish those who defy him, from corporations to sports teams to government employees.

In other ways, Mr. DeSantis is the former president’s opposite. Those who have crossed his path, both allies and opponents, describe him as well-prepared, with a detailed understanding of legislation and a scripted communications style. In social situations, he eschews glad-handing, typically coming across as wooden and awkward. He has also occasionally flirted with policy moderation, pouring money into restoring the Everglades.

After Mr. DeSantis’s blowout re-election victory in November – and the defeat of Mr. Trump’s highest-profile chosen candidates in the midterms – the Florida Governor is rapidly building support to challenge his former benefactor for the 2024 Republican presidential nod. The idea is that he can do nationally what he did in both men’s home state: craft a hybrid between the sharpest aspects of Trumpism and a more disciplined political style.

“Folks who were with Trump had already started to migrate to DeSantis over the last couple of years, but the midterms accelerated that migration dramatically,” said Nick Iarossi, a 44-year-old lobbyist who has worked as a fundraiser for Mr. DeSantis, at his office near the Florida state capitol in Tallahassee.

300x250x1

“It’s not that they dislike Trump. They are just doubting his ability to win a general election. Republicans are tired of losing.”

Donald Trump, then the U.S. president, stands behind Mr. DeSantis at a 2018 rally in Pensacola, Fla.Butch Dill/The Associated Press

A Florida native and Harvard-educated lawyer, Mr. DeSantis served as a prosecutor and legal adviser in the U.S. military before his election to Congress in 2012. In 2018, he leveraged an endorsement from Mr. Trump to narrowly win the governorship.

At first, Mr. DeSantis’s signature policies were anything but Trumpian. He launched a US$3.3-billion project to protect the Everglades, his state’s iconic and shrinking wetlands. He increased teacher salaries.

Then, during the pandemic, something shifted. After initially issuing a stay-at-home order, Mr. DeSantis quickly moved to reopen the state, getting businesses running and children back in schools. He refused to implement both mask and vaccination requirements.

Next came the culture wars. Mr. DeSantis backed the Parental Rights in Education Act, labelled “Don’t Say Gay” by opponents, which restricts talk of sexual orientation and gender identity at school, including a complete ban on the topics up to Grade 3. Another law, which Mr. DeSantis nicknamed Stop Woke, bars schools, universities and companies from teaching about structural racism.

“COVID created this perfect storm. People took notice of their lack of personal freedoms, and also the type of content and education their kids were seeing on TV and receiving at school,” Mr. Iarossi said. “It created this big snapback to the right.”

Protesters for LGBTQ rights rally against Mr. DeSantis at the Alico Arena in Fort Myers, Fla., on Nov. 6, during the governor’s ‘Don’t Tread on Florida’ tour.GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images

In April, Mr. DeSantis signed the so-called ‘Stop Woke’ bill at a school in Hialeah Gardens, Fla., surrounded by people holding signs opposing critical race theory.

Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald via AP

A DeSantis supporter in a Mickey Mouse costume stands outside Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., last April to support the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law.

Octavio Jones/Reuters

C.J. Walden, who led protests against Mr. DeSantis’s anti-LGBTQ law last year, said the Governor’s policies forced teachers at his Boca Raton high school to stop offering support for LGBTQ youth for fear of getting in trouble with the state. The teacher who sponsored Mr. Walden’s gay-straight alliance could no longer actively participate during meetings.

“When students were talking about it in class, teachers would say, ‘Everyone, we need to stop having this conversation right now,’” he recalled.

The rise of the law also gave licence to bigots to step up their hateful rhetoric, he said, accusing schools of “turning our kids gay” and equating LGBTQ people with pedophiles. It made many of his friends afraid to come out publicly and prompted others to try to conceal their sexual orientation.

“I still see people being scared of being who they are, being openly gay, because his governance has stoked hatred,” Mr. Walden, 18, said.

Mr. DeSantis has pursued a string of other similar wedge issues.

In protest over President Joe Biden’s handling of the Mexican border, he had 48 Venezuelan asylum seekers rounded up in Texas and dropped on Martha’s Vineyard, a wealthy liberal island in Massachusetts. After the George Floyd protests, he passed a law making it easier for police to arrest demonstrators. He has pledged to loosen gun restrictions to allow people to carry firearms without a permit.

‘Don’t attack our democracy,’ reads a poster of Mr. DeSantis at a rally this past September against his immigration policies.Rebecca Blackwell/The Associated Press

The Governor has repeatedly taken reprisals against those who oppose him.

He stripped Disney of a special tax status because the company spoke out against the anti-LGBTQ law. He blocked funding for the Tampa Bay Rays after the team announced its support for tougher gun control. He threatened to fine the Special Olympics until they dropped a vaccine mandate. When Andrew Warren, a Tampa prosecutor, said he would not pursue charges related to abortion or providing gender-affirming care for transgender people, Mr. DeSantis had him suspended.

Lucia Baez-Geller, a member of Miami-Dade’s school board, says this behaviour has cast a chill over her colleagues.

Last school year, when Ms. Baez-Geller moved a motion for the school system to recognize LGBTQ history month, it passed seven votes to one. This past September, the same motion, voted on by the same board members, failed, with only Ms. Baez-Geller supporting it.

Her colleagues were cowed by Mr. DeSantis’s willingness to mete out punishment and fear of being targeted by the far right, she said. During the meeting, protesters drove around the building with a billboard truck bearing a picture of her face captioned “ok, groomer.”

“The culture wars have caused much fear among the people I have been serving with – they went against something that, just a year ago, they agreed with,” Ms. Baez-Geller, a 39-year-old former high-school English teacher, recounted on a coffee-shop patio in her Miami Beach neighbourhood.

DeSantis supporters cheer on gubernatorial election night in Tampa as they watch the returns showing his re-election.GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images

All of this has made Mr. DeSantis wildly popular with Mr. Trump’s base. He has nonetheless been careful in his courtship of them. The Governor has refused to say, for instance, whether he believes Mr. Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen and has been cagey about everything from his own vaccination status to U.S. military aid for Ukraine. Such ambiguity allowed Mr. DeSantis to keep his MAGA bona fides while giving conventional Republicans permission to support him.

Over the past four years, Republicans have built a structural advantage in the state. In 2018, registered Democratic voters outnumbered Republicans by 300,000. Now, Republicans hold an edge of 500,000. This success is partly a function of people moving to Florida during the pandemic to escape restrictions in other states. The party has also made inroads among Hispanic voters, with Mr. DeSantis the first Republican in a generation to win the popular vote in Miami-Dade.

“A lot of residents of the State of Florida are happy with his administration, Democrats and Republicans,” said Victor Medel, 74, a Cuban-American Republican organizer in Miami Springs. “A lot of voters transferred from other states, mainly from states that are high in taxes, have leftist policies, strict situations and wasteful budgets.”

One little-discussed factor is the rise in Miami’s Spanish-language media of far-right radio hosts and often-conspiratorial political advertising. Such messaging tends to equate Democrats with authoritarian communists and, sometimes, pedophiles.

Florida’s economy last year had the country’s sixth-highest growth rate and Mr. DeSantis’s administration posted a nearly US$22-billion budget surplus.

Some metrics, however, suggest the state is far from achieving the potential its size would indicate. Per-student education spending is sixth lowest in the country, behind much poorer places such as Alabama. Average teacher pay in 2021 was third lowest, even after Mr. DeSantis’s much-touted raises. GDP per capita is a modest 34th nationwide. Freedom during COVID was purchased at a price: Florida has logged more than 83,000 deaths, a per capita toll that is 14th in the country.

Cuban flags wave alongside pro-DeSantis banners at the Nov. 8 rally in Tampa.GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images

It remains an open question whether the factors that led to Mr. DeSantis’s victory can be replicated on a larger scale. For one, Hispanic voters in Florida are largely Cuban-American, already more receptive to the Republicans than other Latino communities over the party’s staunch opposition to the dictatorship in Havana. And on a national stage, the Governor’s choreographed style may falter. In election debates, he sometimes seems to have trouble improvising.

“He’s a squat, square, dour-looking man who always appears on the edge of anger,” said Mac Stipanovich, 74, who spent nearly four decades as a Florida Republican strategist. “Some politicians are artists, they read their audience, they have charisma. Donald Trump is an artist. Ron DeSantis is an accountant.”

A former Democratic political staffer in Tallahassee recalled that Mr. DeSantis always appeared to hate working the room during events. Instead, he would repeat a handful of rehearsed comments and try to get back to his office as quickly as possible. Still, the ex-official said, Mr. DeSantis came across as smart and organized in a way that Mr. Trump does not.

Mr. Iarossi, the DeSantis fundraiser, said the Governor simply refuses to be an “inauthentically jovial political type” and “doesn’t consider it his job to put on a charm offensive.” His focus, instead, is on his goals. “He asks tough questions. If you talk to him about an issue, you better be really well-prepared, because he will be. His retention level is very high. He reads non-stop,” Mr. Iarossi said.

In contrast with Mr. Trump’s wild personal life, Mr. Iarossi characterized Mr. DeSantis’s as sedate. Outside work, he spends his time at home with his wife, Casey, and their three children. His primary interests are talking sports and playing golf.

Mr. DeSantis has clearly rattled the denizen of Mar-a-Lago. The former president has given his rival a belittling nickname, “Ron DeSanctimonious.” In one lengthy, aggrieved statement, Mr. Trump took full credit for Mr. DeSantis’s political success and accused him of lacking “loyalty and class.”

A DeSantis supporter records a speech in Hialeah, Fla.EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/AFP via Getty Images

To some observers, Mr. DeSantis’s pitch – a figure who can rally Mr. Trump’s base, but without Mr. Trump’s erratic style – is the wrong way around. Rather, they see Mr. DeSantis as someone with the downsides of Mr. Trump’s incendiary policies without the former president’s stage presence.

Mr. Stipanovich, a moderate conservative, is skeptical voters in the Philadelphia or Detroit suburbs like the idea of, say, dropping asylum seekers on an island. He sees both men on the same political continuum of autocratic populism.

“DeSantis is not dumb as a box of rocks like Donald Trump, but he has many of the same tendencies. The propensity to be a bully that slaps people around when they’re not sufficiently deferential,” Mr. Stipanovich said. “He is a demagogue and he is an authoritarian.”

Whatever the criticisms, Mr. DeSantis is charging ahead with his brand, which he distilled most succinctly in his election-night victory speech. It was a culture-war credo by way of written-for-TV sound bite.

“We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations,” he thundered. “We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob.”

 

728x90x4

Source link

Politics

Larry David shares how he feels about Trump – CNN

Published

 on


Larry David shares how he feels about Trump

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David shares how he feels about former President Donald Trump and the 2020 election. Watch the full episode of “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace,” streaming March 29 on Max.


03:21

– Source:
CNN

Adblock test (Why?)

300x250x1

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Trump's claims on crime rates clash with police data – NBC News

Published

 on


Surging crime levels, out-of-control Democratic cities and “migrant crime.”

Former President Donald Trump regularly cites all three at his campaign rallies, in news releases and on Truth Social, often saying President Joe Biden and Democrats are to blame.

But the crime picture Trump paints contrasts sharply with years of police and government data at both the local and national levels.

300x250x1

FBI statistics released this year suggested a steep drop in crime across the country last year. It’s a similar story across major cities, with violent crime down year over year in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.

NBC News analyzed crime data to evaluate Trump’s assertions about the topic.

U.S. and big city crime rates

Trump’s campaign often refers to crime levels, regularly pointing the finger at Biden.

“On Joe Biden’s watch, violent crime has skyrocketed in virtually every American city,” the campaign said in a news release published this month on its site.

Trump himself has made similar remarks.

“Four years ago, I told you that if crooked Joe Biden got to the White House, our borders would be abolished, our middle class would be decimated and our communities would be plagued by bloodshed, chaos and violent crime,” Trump said in a speech last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “We were right about everything.”

Government figures don’t support that characterization.

Reported violent crime dropped 6% across the board when comparing the last three months of 2022 to the same period in 2023, the FBI reported.

The reported drops were especially pronounced in the big cities that Trump often assails, many of which have Democratic mayors. Violent crime dropped by 11% in cities with populations of 1 million or more, according to FBI data, while murders dropped by 20%, rape was down 16%, and aggravated assault fell by 11%.

Reached for comment, the Trump campaign pointed to other reports indicating that certain types of crimes increased in specific cities.

At the national level, the reported rate of violent crime in 2022, the most recent full year with comprehensive FBI data, was 380.7 offenses per 100,000 people. That’s lower than the overall reported violent crime rate from 2020 — the last full year Trump was in office — when the figure was at 398.5.

The lowest reported violent crime rate of Trump’s presidency was in 2019, when the metric was at 380.8 — in line with the 2022 rate.

The FBI said it will release more comprehensive 2023 crime data in October, just before the election.

The Trump campaign, reached for comment, cited certain categories of violent crime, such as motor vehicle theft, as having increased during the Biden administration, according to FBI figures.

“Joe Biden is trying to convince Americans not to believe their own eyes,” campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, adding that “Democrats have turned great American cities into cesspools of bloodshed and crime.”

New York City crime

Trump, who was born and raised in New York but now lives in Florida, often rails against what he portrays as an increasing crime rate in his former hometown.

Those references to soaring violence have only increased as he faces criminal charges in New York accusing him of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump, who has pleaded not guilty in that case, must also post a $175 million bond to prevent state Attorney General Letitia James from collecting the judgment from a New York civil fraud case.

“I did nothing wrong, and New York should never be put in a position like this again,” Trump posted on Truth Social about the civil judgment in all capital letters. “Businesses are fleeing, violent crime is flourishing, and it is very important that this be resolved in its totality as soon as possible.”

In a separate post, he claimed that “murders & violent crime hit unimaginable records” in the city.

However, major crimes in New York City are down this year by 2.3%, according to police department data comparing year-to-date figures to the same period in 2023.

Those figures for last year were also far below the highs from recent decades. In 1990, more than 527,000 major crimes were reported, compared to more than 126,000 last year, according to New York police data — a drop of more than 75%.

In 2001, more than 162,000 major crimes were reported in New York. The figure dropped by more than 20% over the next two decades.

At the same time, New York City data indicates that the number of major crimes increased in the past few years, though reported violent crimes like murder and rape were down last year from previous years.

‘Migrant crime’

Trump’s dehumanizing language about migrants has become a mainstay of his political speeches since he first sought office in 2015.

In a news release this month, his campaign said the “border Crisis has created a tragic surge in violent crime against innocent American citizens at the hands of some of the world’s most violent criminals.”

Trump has also focused his energy on high-profile cases such as the death of Laken Riley, who was killed in Georgia while jogging. The suspect is a Venezuelan citizen who entered the U.S. illegally in 2022.

“Every day, innocent citizens are being killed, stabbed, shot, raped and murdered because of Biden migrant crime,” Trump said in a video posted to his campaign’s X account last week.

However, there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave in the U.S., according to local police department data.

Crime reports have decreased in several major cities targeted by Texas’ Operation Lone Star, a program backed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that flies or buses migrants from the state to Democratic-run cities across the U.S.

Several of those cities — New York, Chicago, Washington and Philadelphia — have had decreases in year-to-date reported crime totals compared to the same period last year.


Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Federal government promising a 'renters' bill of rights' in upcoming budget – CBC.ca

Published

 on


Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government will introduce new measures — including a new “bill of rights” — that he says will help protect those who rent their homes as part of the upcoming budget.

Trudeau said the new measures are specifically geared toward younger people, who are renting more than previous generations.

“It’s about changing the rules of the game in a way that meets young people where they are,” he said on Wednesday.

300x250x1

Ottawa will work with provinces and territories to develop a “renters’ bill of rights” that would introduce a national standard lease agreement and implement requirements for landlords to disclose an apartment’s pricing history to allow tenants to negotiate their rent.

The new measures will also include a $15-million fund for provincial legal aid organizations that help tenants fight against “renovictions” and landlord abuse.

The Liberals are also proposing to change federal rules so that making rental payments on time will count toward someone’s credit scores, something Trudeau said is meant to help renters looking to one day buy a house.

“If you look at someone who pays a $2,000 [per month] mortgage, they’re getting recognition and credit for that from their bank as part of their credit score,” the prime minister said.

“But if you’re paying $2,000 a month on rent, you get no kudos.”

Typically the government doesn’t discuss what is in an annual budget until it is introduced in the House of Commons. But the announcement was made weeks prior to the release of the Liberals’ next budget, which is slated to drop on April 16.

Releasing tidbits from the budget ahead of time is part of a new communications strategy for the Liberals, sources told CBC News. Trudeau and his ministers are expected to make a number of similar announcements in the run-up to the budget, the sources said.

WATCH | Trudeau says new measures aim to help tenants: 

Liberals promise ‘renters’ bill of rights’ to fight housing crisis

5 hours ago

Duration 2:07

The Liberals are looking to create a ‘renters’ bill of rights’ to help deal with Canada’s housing crisis. Justin Trudeau says the plan is geared toward younger people suffering from a rising cost of living. The Conservatives call the measures meaningless.

Before revealing the planned rental measures on Wednesday, Trudeau took a moment to plug the April 16 fiscal plan, saying that the budget will be about “fairness.”

“For Canada to succeed, we need everyone to succeed,” he said.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland joined Trudeau for his announcement and hinted about further announcements ahead of budget day.

“Over the coming days and in the April budget, we are going to launch a no-holds-barred plan to wrestle down the cost of owning and renting a home,” she said.

Wednesday’s announcements came on the same day that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation released a report that found a surge in new apartment construction drove housing start increases in several major Canadian cities last year.

But the report also cautions that demand continues to outweigh supply.

The opposition Conservatives, who have enjoyed a healthy lead in recent polls, have made housing — and other cost-of-living issues — a key point of attack against the governing Liberals.

Following his announcement, Trudeau was asked whether he thinks he bears any responsibility for people feeling left behind in the current economy and whether the new measures would be enough to convince younger people to support him in the next election.

In response, Trudeau suggested that a recent rise in the cost of living is not unique to Canada.

“Young people who are key to our present, and obviously key to our future, are seeing a system that is stacked against them. That’s true in Canada but also true elsewhere around the world,” he said. “What we’re focused on now is making sure that young people can see their success in the economy.”

Opposition parties criticize Liberal announcement

Scott Aitchison, the Conservative housing critic, said Wednesday’s announcement was Liberal posturing that won’t get results.

“Today’s photo op is just another set of meaningless measures that won’t result in building the homes Canadians need,” he said in a statement.

NDP housing critic Jenny Kwan criticized the announcement for not going far enough.

“The Liberals are so out of touch with what Canadian renters are experiencing that they keep offering half-measures instead of a real action,” Kwan said in a statement.

The NDP is calling on the government to invest more in affordable housing while temporarily preventing for-profit firms from buying designated affordable-housing spaces.

WATCH | Liberal government promises better protections for renters in upcoming budget: 

Liberal government promises better protections for renters in upcoming budget

9 hours ago

Duration 11:39

The Liberal government unveiled three new proposals Wednesday to better protect renters in Canada. Power & Politics speaks to Marci Ien, minister of women, gender equality and youth, about the proposed protections.

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Trending