As you watch the maskless revelers on crowded Florida beaches with only 12% of the population vaccinated against COVID-19, keep in mind that they are the gift Governor Ron DeSantis keeps on giving the rest of the country. He’s probably been only 2nd to Trump in convening super-spreader events that have killed thousands of people. He’s a mean, nasty piece of work in every way even going so far as to confidently admit that he’s making sure his rich donors are getting vaccines ahead of everyone else and threatening to deny them to anyone who complains about it.
But for reasons that aren’t hard to fathom, since he’s such a lovely guy, the mainstream press has discovered that this Trump 2.0 is quite the dreamboat. Eric Boehlert wrote about it in his great newsletter today:
Despite 32,000 Covid deaths in the state, as well as a mediocre at best vaccination rollout, journalists are lining up to do the Republican’s bidding.
“How Ron DeSantis Won The Pandemic,” was the Politico headline Thursday night, for a big write-up that read like it was written by the governor’s press office. The Republican deserves huge praise, readers were told, because his pandemic decisions, “have ended up being, on balance, short of or even the opposite of ruinous.” Can the press post the bar any lower?
“After a year of criticism by health experts, mockery from comedians and blistering critiques from political rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is standing unabashedly tall among the nation’s governors on the front lines of the coronavirus fight,” CNN cheered this week. The report then quoted DeSantis boasting about his Covid record from a recent fundraising appeal, yet CNN raised no objections to the governor raising money off tens of thousands of pandemic deaths.
CNN suggested the “defiant and combative” DeSantis deserves a Covid star turn despite the fact, “Florida lands nearly in the middle of all states on a variety of coronavirus metrics.” (With tourism floundering, the state’s also drowning in a $2.7 billion budget shortfall.)
Indeed, Florida’s deaths per 100,000 population rate is nearly identical to California and New York, where Democratic governors are not currently being toasted by the Beltway press. DeSantis and his allies argue those two blue states have implemented much harsher lockdown and social distancing measures, while Floridians have been able to roam freely, therefore making DeSantis a success. But scientists note Florida’s humid climate may have helped keep the death rate low.
In a recent report about Florida’s supposed Covid success story, the New York Times quoted DeSantis bragging, “If you look at South Florida right now, this place is booming.” He added, “You can live like a human being. You aren’t locked down. People aren’t miserable.” (No Democratic officials were quoted in the Times piece to offer a counter perspective.)
Politico last month applauded the “wonky” Florida governor and his Covid-fueled rise in Republican politics: “Conservatives are relishing the contrast and holding up DeSantis as an example of effective governance.”
In terms of a Republican presidential primary, it’s likely a large percentage of voters still think the virus is a “hoax,” and bashing science could play well for candidates like DeSantis. But the way that Politico so casually presented DeSantis’ Covid track record of 30,000-plus deaths as being a remarkable accomplishment that he can use as a springboard for national office simply highlighted the absurd (nonexistent?) standard the Beltway press often uses for grading Republican politicians.
Note that some local Florida journalists often don’t display the same, fawning enthusiasm as the D.C. press. “From the pandemic’s infancy, DeSantis has conveniently, even diabolically, airbrushed Covid-19 out of public life here,” Florida’s Lizette Alvarez wrote late last year. “The result: 1.2 million total covid-19 cases, nearly 61,000 total hospitalizations and a new seven-day case-positivity rate of 9.7 percent — all rapidly rising toward crisis levels.”
And from Nate Monroe in the Florida Times-Union: “Florida has, by the most generous accounting, just barely lurched through to the (hopeful) end of the pandemic under the leadership of Ron DeSantis — neither a particular success story nor the epitome of failure. Just average devastation.”
For the Beltway press, average devastation now counts as a Republican win.
And, as I’ve written before, they are at the same time erroneously saying that California has done a much worse job (not true) and pushing the Governor Newsom recall effort. When push comes to shove they just like assholes. Always have.
BTW: Here’s DeSantis’ stellar COVID record compared to Washington Guess which line is his.
