It was fun while it lasted. (Photo by Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
You’d have thought the Republic could have at least made it to our 250th anniversary before we decided to elect a fascist.
I’m not going to say it’s been a good run, though we’ve had some proud moments: the 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments, the novels of William Faulkner and Toni Morrison, the poetry of Langston Hughes and Anne Sexton, antibiotics, the moon landing, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Clean Water Act, jazz, the national parks, the election of Barack Obama.
I’m not going to say this election is some kind of freakish, unimaginable event.
It isn’t. This is who too many of us have always been: angry, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, willfully ignorant, and scared.
Oh, well.
So, goodbye to the rule of law.
We’ve already seen what that’s like here in Florida.
Goodbye, checks and balances.
Goodbye to an independent judiciary.
Goodbye to a free Ukraine.
Goodbye to free speech.
Goodbye to a free press.
The incoming regime has promised to wreak vengeance on its perceived enemies, especially in the media.
Goodbye to science-based health care.
If Ron DeSantis’s pet quack, Covid-denier, anti-vaxxer Joseph Ladapo becomes (as is rumored) U.S. Surgeon General, many of us will likely get sick — maybe even die — from preventable diseases.
Polio, anyone? How about measles?
The Florida prototype
Goodbye to fact-based history.
Florida led the way: Soon, many other state education systems will join us in claiming slavery wasn’t that big of a deal.
Goodbye to facts, period. The truth is what the regime says it is.
Goodbye to the old American ideal of social justice — not that we’ve covered ourselves in glory on that one, but we used to claim we believed in it, at least.
Now we don’t have to pretend.
Goodbye to the possibility of peace in the Middle East.
Netanyahu can now carry on his genocidal project unchecked — and probably, like his patron Trump, manage to stay out of jail.
Of course, unless he kills every single Palestinian on the face of the earth (not that I’m trying to give him any ideas), he’s ensuring generations of young Arabs will turn to terrorism.
If you visit horrors on an entire people, they often want to do the same to you.
Goodbye to the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Goodbye to full citizenship for women.
Goodbye to medical abortions, mifepristone, and misoprostol.
Despite several states voting to enshrine reproductive rights in their constitutions, despite a strong majority of Floridians voting to roll back the cruel and dangerous six-week ban (which still failed to reach the nearly impossible threshold of 60%), the Project 2025-ers, headed by their poster-boy J.D. Vance, will try to enforce the Comstock Act.
Goodbye to bodily autonomy — for women, anyway.
The new regime has made it clear we are mere Handmaids — baby incubators — or Aunts or Marthas.
Who do you think does all that work?
Goodbye to marriage equality.
Gay people, like women, aren’t fully human.
Goodbye to the Inflation Reduction Act and its green incentives.
Goodbye to sustainability; hello to rising waters.
Enjoy the flooding, South Florida.
And go on, buy the biggest F-150 and a house on a barrier island.
See what happens in the next big storm.
Goodbye to the Department of Education.
Goodbye to NATO.
It’s full of foreigners, and the regime hates foreigners.
Speaking of foreigners, goodbye to cheap food.
If Trump carries out his tariffs plan, you’ll have to save up to buy a single orange.
And if he carries out his mass deportation plan, more than 1 million people will be removed from Florida.
Goodbye to Florida’s construction industry, its landscaping businesses, and its fruit and vegetable farms.
Who do you think does all that work?
Goodbye to the panther, goodbye to the manatee, goodbye to the key deer.
Emboldened by passage of the godawful Amendment 2, Florida will no longer worry much about protecting them.
We need their habitat for new gated communities — if we can find anyone to build them (see above).
Goodbye to any hope of slowing climate change. You may be OK for a while; your children and grandchildren will not.
Goodbye to Social Security.
Goodbye to programs for the poor.
Goodbye to holding police accountable, even a little.
Goodbye to “love thy neighbor as thyself.”
The regime rejects the Christianity of Christ.
Too weak.
Goodbye to America defining itself as a Beacon of Hope, the Light of Freedom, or any of that other stuff they told you in 3rd grade.
The country will be a laughingstock at best, at worst an existential threat.
So, goodbye to what was best about Florida and the rest of America.
Congratulations, Vladimir Putin. You’ve won.