Nobody with a sane perspective of reality can deny that the Republican Party has become a cesspool of nefarious qualities like white supremacy, Christian nationalism, homophobia, antisemitism, QAnon conspiracy theories and unbridled greed amongst other character deficiencies mixed together looking for a leader that will allow unbridled greed to properly use the other nefarious "qualities" to maintain itself in the leading role.

Florida’s sane people are in a deep quagmire. We not only have Donald Trump as resident of the State, but worst yet, we have Ron DeSantis as governor. DeSantis working in conjunction with an inept Democratic Party, (sometimes the Dems are so inept that it makes it difficult not to believe they are working in conjunction), has been able to convey the image that Florida is going to be in the Republican camp for a long haul. All because while DeSantis is busy implementing Fascism many of the Democratic leaders are more concerned about “encroaching socialism.”

What do they mean by “encroaching socialism”? This term has been mainly propagated in the South Florida area by Cubans and Venezuelans exiles that left their countries to escape socialist revolutions. What do they mean? I cannot exactly say what they mean. But I need to point out that none of them are ever seen defending Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, an increase in the minimum wage, racial justice, and many other issues pertaining social and economic justice, since all those issues smacks them as socialism.

The fight against this “encroaching socialism” has taken the Democratic Party along lines dictated by the Republican Party. Granted, South Florida has a large number of people that have left their native land based on political reasons plus also economic or social reasons. Those that have left for political reasons are mainly people that in the USA context would be considered to be Republicans because of the nature of their political stand and economic status in their land of origin. For these people the term “encroaching socialism” has worrisome connotations because for them it means the loss of privileges to do whatever they want socially and economically.

Most of these people that are terrified about “encroaching socialism” consider themselves victims of political processes that have given state power to popular forces that have been oppressed and discriminated for centuries, consequently, those newly empowered popular forces have taken measures to curtail the economic and social abuses of the past. So, these newly minted political “victims” come to the United States, many of them to Florida, who is the home to 950,000 people that carry the label of illegal immigrants. But, as said before, the condition of the political “victims” is usually very different to those that are here in the USA for economic reasons.

Many of the political “victims” of these popular-led governments are ex-members of the local oligarchy that as said before lost their privileged status thanks to popular-led governments. The vast majority of the “illegal” immigrants don’t belong to this economic strata. But, even though, they are vast in numbers and many of them have also become legal residents and citizens they are not from the same social strata as the backbone of the pacesetters in the South Florida political scene. Many of the “victims” are strong backers of DeSantis and his policies and are cheering DeSantis implementation of his many draconian positions.

The “victims” are first in line cheering DeSantis on issues like making education palatable to white supremacists sensibility (teaching about slavery and critical race theory), loosening gun laws (their representatives in the legislature have never distinguished themselves for any opposition even to the sale of semi-automatic weapons), targeting immigrants of color (even though some of them are considered colored themselves by white supremacists), voter suppression and gerrymandering to deprive Black Americans of political power, fighting pandemic restrictions that have led South Florida to have approximately 10 times the number of deaths from Covid than blockaded and impoverished Cuba (84,927 South Florida to 8,530 Cuba with roughly the same amount of population). The contrast of placing profits over people and vice versa is clearly seen in the results of the fight against Covid.

Michigan and Pennsylvania, both purple states like Florida have also been recently considered, has shown that being in the forefront of issues that affect people’s daily lives is a sure way of getting majority people support. Florida’s Democrats needs to ditch prioritizing people’s concern about losing their past privileges and focus instead in promoting solutions to issues like the high cost of housing, healthcare, racial and sexual discrimination, labor unions rights, etc. Political backwardness should not be rewarded and catered to.

For the Democratic Party to be able to move forward and be representative of the majority of people of Florida it has to recognize its mistakes, correct them, and move forward with leadership capable to answer to people’s needs.