Gaetz’s enablers

This column from the Orlando Sentinel says it all about Matt Gaetz and the Florida political swamp he springs from. It’s so perfect that Trump has wound up down there:

The past week has been like watching an atomic bomb detonate in slow motion across Florida’s political landscape.

One sordid detail and accusation after another involving Matt Gaetz and Joel Greenberg.

Suddenly, politicians who’d been happy to cozy up with these guys for years are eager to spill the beans.

CNN reports that members of Congress now say Gaetz was known for showing nude images of women on his phone.

One legislator finally discloses to the Sentinel that Gaetz told him he believed any nude images sent his way were “his to use as he wanted to, as an expression of his rights.”

Fox News is suddenly interested in year-old reports of a legislator who described a sex game Gaetz created, where Florida’s male legislators scored points for bedding lobbyists, aides and fellow legislators.

And all of Seminole County’s power crowd is suddenly acting aghast after Greenberg racks up his 33rd federal indictment.

Just stop it. All of you.

You don’t get to snuggle up to two guys who made one ugly headline after another when it served your political interests — and then start clutching your pearls when they become liabilities.

You people aren’t the whistle-blowers. You’re the enablers.

So are the voters.

Sure, the depravity of some of these latest accusations are new. And let’s be clear that, right now, these are only accusations and charges. No one has been convicted of anything.

But there are plenty of unseemly things we know these guys did — things documented in the pages of this newspaper — that many people seemed happy to ignore. Or even encourage.

The headlines were abundant:.

“Seminole County tax collector accused of impersonating police officer”

“Matt Gaetz’s State of the Union guest? A white nationalist from Vegas”

“Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg gives $3.5 million in consultant contracts, salaries to friends and associates”

“U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz was the lone vote in the House against an anti-human trafficking bill.”

“Groups call on Seminole Tax Collector Joel Greenberg to resign for ‘Islamophobic’ Facebook post”

All these headlines ran long ago. Yet none of the politicians shaking their heads and whispering in journalists’ ears today said squat back then.

I sure don’t remember hearing any member of Congress saying: “Matt Gaetz is flashing nude images on the House floor. It’s behavior that’s beneath Congress and humanity in general.”

After Greenberg was investigated for acting like a cop and pulling over a fellow motorist — and given a free pass by local prosecutors — I don’t remember Seminole GOP leadership saying: “This man is not fit for public office.”

To the contrary, these two guys remained political causes célèbres, being invited to fundraisers and the White House and shooting selfies with Roger Stone and ousted-legislator-turned-lobbyist Chris Dorworth.

Greenberg was so convinced that local voters loved his extremist ways, he talked of mounting a campaign for Congress just last year.

And Gaetz’s antics only seemed to help him rise in prominence. One day he was mocking COVID fears by wearing a gas mask on the floor of Congress. A few days later, he was flying in Air Force One.

One day, Floridians were dropping jaws after a lone Republican, State Rep. Chris Latvala, came forward to say Gaetz created a “game where members of the FL House got ‘points’ for sleeping with aides, interns, lobbyists, and married legislators.” The same week, we read stories identifying Gaetz as “a close DeSantis ally.”

These stories were well circulated.

In fact, it wasn’t the latest salacious accusations that we at the Sentinel have been scrutinizing for years. Rather, it was things like Gaetz’s role as a DeSantis adviser, even on issues in Orlando, 400 miles from Gaetz’s Panhandle district. Gaetz boasted about helping DeSantis make appointment choices for Orlando’s airport board. You remember that, right? The new appointees were part of a coup that tried to orchestrate a lucrative no-bid legal contract.

Gaetz was screaming about draining the swamp in Washington while helping fill it with sludge back in Florida.

Maybe before these guys were first elected, people didn’t know better. In fact, I understand why Seminole County voters first elected Greenberg, since he was trying to oust another tax collector with a troubling, conflict-of-interest track record. Seminole residents were trying to clean up one mess and accidentally made another.

But the new mess was quickly apparent. After Greenberg took office, he put friends on his payroll, struck weird cryptocurrency deals and had repeated run-ins with local authorities.

Meanwhile, Gaetz just laughed and scoffed as serious people asked serious questions about the conspiracies he peddled, the company he kept and the sex games his former legislative colleague said he played.

Everybody knew who these guys were. And few people in power seemed to care.

I think there were many among them who thought these guys were awesome.

Even now, Gaetz is still scheduled to headline a “Women for Trump” fundraiser in South Florida later this week. And I have little doubt that Greenberg would still have his supporters and cheerleaders if he were still in office, mocking Muslims and handing out cushy jobs instead of sitting in jail facing nearly three dozen federal charges.

The people who encouraged and indulged all this past behavior had no problems with it back then, no matter how aghast they want to act now.

They got precisely the kind of leaders they wanted.

The problem is that the rest of us did, too.

There is no bottom.