Our Florida Fascist

The worldwide, agelong struggle between fascism and democracy will not stop when the fighting ends in Germany and Japan.

— Henry Wallace

Make no mistake, Ron DeSantis is a fascist of the first order.

Scapegoating is his go-to strategy, as it was Hitler's.

Consider DeSantis' latest fundraising appeal, brought to my attention by a praiseworthy article in the neo-Nazi, pro-Trump magazine The American Mind.

In it, DeSantis asks donors to recognize their common enemy.

"Our country is currently facing a great threat," he begins. "A new enemy has emerged from the shadows that seeks to destroy and intimidate their way to a transformed state that you and I would hardly recognize."

And who is the common enemy donors should fear?

"The radical vigilante woke mob," he says; a hard-charging horde of hysterics comprising teachers, writers, athletes, philanthropists, scientists, CEOs, and liberal politicians. 

This is the mob, DeSantis says, that burned our cities in 2020, crucified Karl Rittenhouse, and stigmatized anti-maskers; this is the mob now persecuting the January 6 insurgents.

The radical vigilante woke mob will not only "tear down monuments and buildings, but tear down the American spirit," DeSantis writes. "They go after the family unit, parental rights, traditional moral values, the church, and fact-based education."

DeSantis is fairly blunt in identifying precisely who populates this steamrolling juggernaut: Jews, Queers, Blacks, and Commies.

"Over the past few years, we’ve watched horrified as this group has attempted to brainwash our children into thinking we live in an evil, racist, irredeemable country," he says. 

"We listened to them deny science and data to exert political theater, all the while trampling over personal liberties enshrined in the Constitution. 

"We saw them take to the streets for an entire summer like outlaws, burning, looting, and destroying everything in sight."

But, never fear, the radical vigilante woke mob has met its match: Ron DeSantis.

"I am choosing to counter this enemy with faith, with reason, and with freedom," DeSantis declares. "As Governor of the Free State of Florida, I have chosen to lead with a vision that builds America up, rather than tears it down."

If this drivel sounds all-too familiar, it's due to its resemblance to Hitler's rantings.

Hitler targeted only Jews and Commies, because Germany in the 1930s had few open Queers, and even fewer Blacks; and called the common enemy the "Jewish influence," instead of the "radical vigilante woke mob."

But the differences end there. Hitler's message uncannily mirrors DeSantis': we must annihilate our internal foes, or we'll all become Bolshies; and I'm the man to do it.

"In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it," Hitler said in 1939. "During the time of my struggle for power, the Jews received my prophecies with laughter when I said I would one day take over the state and settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious—but I think for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. 

"Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth—and thus the victory of Jewry—but the annihilation of all Jews in Europe! 

"The nations are no longer willing to die on the battlefield so that this unstable international race may profit from a war or satisfy its Old Testament vengeance.

"The Jewish watchword 'Workers of the world unite' will be conquered by a higher realization, namely 'Workers of all classes and nations recognize your common enemy!'"

Now hold on, wait a minute!

Does a passing similarity between DeSantis' and Hitler's rhetoric actually make them kin? Or, as they say in Hollywood, is the resemblance strictly coincidental?

In other words, am I fretting over a libtard's bugaboo?

A more companionable commentator, columnist David Brooks, would say that I'm not, despite his conservative leanings.

He sees DeSantis and his craven followers as the vanguard of "the terrifying future of the American right," which he describes as "the fusing of the culture war and the class war into one epic Marxist Götterdämmerung."

DeSantis, Brooks argues, will use the power of the state—since teachers, preachers, journalists and marketers won't do it—to ram right-wing beliefs down everyone's throat.

Hitler called that conformity the "national community."

DeSantis calls it "We The People."

With no room for dissent, or for bodily or intellectual autonomy, there's not much difference.

Our Ingrained Responsibility to Stay Informed

Most people do not really want freedom,
because freedom involves responsibility.

— Sigmund Freud

It has become quaint in American to believe in responsibility.

You can avoid taxes, dodge military service, abandon your children, snub your neighbors and rob retailers—all while shirking any responsibility.

You can cheat your employer, scam customers, rip off investors and fleece donors—all while shirking any responsibility.

You can even become president and shirk any—and all—responsibility.

But as Americans, I believe, we do have one ingrained responsibility, a responsibility that we cannot shirk: to stay informed.

It's a civic and a moral responsibility, no matter how we eventually might use it, to gather and digest accurate information.

To do any less—to remain content with a litany of lies, inanities, and propaganda—is to remain a chump, a sucker, an idiot, and an ignoramus.

We have far too many of these sorts of nincompoops—the so-called "low information citizens"—for our nation's wellbeing.

I for one am disgusted with them.

They're like spoiled little kids, afraid they'll be frightened or saddened by fairy tales that haven't already been read to them a hundred times or more. 

Jack Nicholson-style, they can't handle the truth—and are willing to forego freedom, rather than acquire and accept information when it runs counter to their fantasies.

Unable to discern fact from fiction, they're allowing their lives—and, worse, the lives of their fellow Americans—to be ruled by profit-seeking charlatans.

And even worse yet, these dunces are blind—oblivious to the real-world consequences of their willful ignorance. 

By supporting charlatans, they're unwittingly accelerating the erosion of human rights and civil liberties—rights and liberties our forebears struggled to gain for us. That blindness represents the very apotheosis of irresponsibility and poor citizenship; and an assured dead end for our democracy.

But asking these dimwits to "connect the dots" between their ignorance and its outcomes—to accept blame for the suspension of our personal freedoms—is a waste of time and energy. 

I'd sooner ask my cat to solve a quadratic equation.

Above: Battle Flag by Andrew Wyeth. Tempera on wood. 30 x 22 inches.

I am the American Voter

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the 

collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

― H.L. Mencken

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

But that's as far as I go.

All that "one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" stuff that follows is socialism.

Jesus would never approve that shit.

Besides, socialism is the reason gas is so pricey.

I spent $110 yesterday to fill the Ford F. 

F is right!

It's all the Dems fault—them and the Blacks and all the other freeloading coloreds.

Oh, and the child molesters. Can't forget them.

Go back to where you came from, I say (but not aloud). Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Why can't we all just get along?

I'll tell you why.

Too many people want their own bathroom.

What's wrong with men's room and women's room?

And women—don't get me started on women.

I'll never forgive Jane Fonda.

Never ever ever.

I am the American voter.

Cartoon: Dave Whamond

Supreme Justice

A brief note to urge mothers to drop their unwanted children at the doorstep of Amy Coney Barrett. You can obtain her street address from Ruth Sent Us. She loves foundlings.

Up

The Uncola.

— Advertising slogan

In 1919, St. Louis adman Charlie Grigg saw big money in soda pop.

So he quit advertising for sales and joined a beverage company.

An innovative guy, before long he invented two successful soft drinks for the company, "Whistle" and "Howdy."

But it was his third invention that made Grigg's name.

In 1929, Grigg—now heading his own beverage company—introduced "Bib," a name he would change seven years later to "7 Up."

The "up" in 7 Up came from lithium, a mood-enhancing substance used to treat depression in the early 20th century.

Grigg added tons of it to 7 Up, to distinguish it from other lemon and lime pops.

A well-known picker-upper, lithium was a popular ingredient in patent medicines at the time; and doctors would advise depression-sufferers who could afford it to vacation at spas near lithium-rich springs, where they could drink and bathe in the mind-altering waters.

Grigg’s formula was perfect.

His timing was also perfect: 7 Up appeared just two weeks before Black Tuesday, the event that triggered—no pun intended—the Great Depression.

Sales of 7 Up soared.

Consumers believed Grigg's claim that the pop buoyed flagging spirits (7 Up is a "savory, flavory drink with a real wallop," his ads said).

They also liked to use 7 Up as a hangover cure (it "takes the ouch out of grouch," the ads insisted).

Grigg's invention became the third best-selling pop in the world—until the federal government intervened.

In 1948, the feds banned lithium in all foods and beverages, determining it to be a cause of birth defects, kidney failure, and death.

Without lithium, 7 Up's sales tanked.

But in 1968, with the help of ad agency J. Walter Thompson, 7 Up staged a comeback.

JWT tapped into the counter culture, labelling 7 Up the "Uncola" and positioning it in ads as if it had been concocted by The Beatles.

The agency hired designer Milton Glaser—famous for his Bob Dylan poster—to create campaign graphics and rented thousands of billboards alongside America's busiest highways, where college kids would be sure to see them.

JWT also launched a TV campaign that featured a genial Black actor who explained why kola nuts were inferior to lemons and limes.

The ads worked so well, 7 Up's sales skyrocketed. 

The pop reclaimed its rank as the third largest-selling soft drink and at the same time became inextricably linked to America's "rebellious youth."

By the 1990s, however, those youth were in their 50s, and 7 Up became, in the words of one Wall Street analyst, "what old people drink."

Today, the brand has less than 1% market share.

Above: The Seven Ups by Robert Francis James. Oil on fiberboard. 8 x 10 inches.