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The Con is the Message. The Grift is the Motive.

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Steve Schneider

Gov. DeSantis doubles down on opposition to mask mandates in schools Inside a restaurant full of unmasked supporters Friday morning, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he would sign an executive order ...
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My 93-year-old father entered Memorial Regional Hospital, in Hollywood, on Dec. 1. By the night of Dec. 5, he was transferred to Hampton Court Nursing Home, in North Miami Beach. Both cities are in Florida, a state that is governed by Ron DeSantis, who probably took some elite courses in sophistry when he attended Yale and Harvard.

I say this because our governor makes waves by emitting sound and fury that signifies his callous indifference to life, and his devotion to his craven and expansive political ambition. DeSantis accomplishes this by latching on to the word "freedom", by decrying "tyranny", and by picking fights with a ghost that he calls "Faucian Dystopia." This is the Ivy League grads' way of saying that he opposes vaccine and mask mandates.

But my dad's recent medical predicament shined a light for me on the con game the governor is playing. Both facilities my dad entered require visitors to wear a mask to visit. Both medical institutions implemented this policy to deal with Covid-19; visitors were not mandated to wear masks before the pandemic.

Why hasn't big, bad Ron put these members of the "Faucian Dystopia" in their place? Why didn't he ask the Republican-dominated state legislature to ban masks at hospitals and other medical facilities? Why didn't he sign an executive order? I put these, and other questions to Christina Pushaw, his press secretary. Write to me at hillcrestunitowner@gmail.com if you want me to email you the complete, unedited exchange.

I'm ranting because DeSantis cowardly attacks public school systems that want people to wear masks to reduce the transmission of the deadly Covid-19 virus. Why focus on public schools? Does he want to tear the system apart? Why didn't he block private schools or hospitals from imposing a mask mandate? Is some form of alleged "tyranny" acceptable to the governor?

Significantly, masks stand a chance of decreasing virus transmission, many public health, medical and scientific experts say. This includes his former director of Emergency Management who brandishes his support for masks on his Twitter account.

Not surprisingly, DeSantis disagrees. As a layman, I take a simple, moderate, even conservative position. Maybe it will take years for the experts to determine whether masks helped in the fight against Covid, although I put my faith in the mainstream establishment consensus. But why not try to protect people from serious illness and death? I'm comfortable being humble I don't insist that I know for sure whether masks work or not. I wish DeSantis and his crew would also practice some humility.

To make the point in stronger terms, I think it is a good thing, a sane thing, for authorities to at least try to reduce the spread of the virus, which has killed more than 800,000 Americans. I also think it is patriotic, which is another term DeSantis and right-wing jokers at Fox pretend to hold up for praise.

Based on his actions and policies, I think our governor is a con artist and a grifter. He selectively decides when to tell private institutions what they can and can't do. For example, DeSantis and the Republican-controlled state legislature mandated that private businesses can't require proof of vaccine before they let people onto their private property. But the governor's press secretary admits in an email she sent me that DeSantis doesn't tell private hospitals and other medical establishments what to do about masks. Of course, the governor drives home my point by also decreeing that owners of private businesses cannot require employees to get vaccinated. The governor and the GOP legislature are perfectly capable of imposing their will on private businesses when it suits their purposes.

Does our governor protect the "freedom" of people who enter Memorial Regional Hospital? Hell no. Does he take on the "Faucian Dystopia" at Hampton Court Nursing Home? Hell no. You want to tell me the governor opposes "tyranny"? I say nonsense. He is spineless and cowardly, permissively giving his supporters what he thinks they want, even if many of them die because they spread the virus by not wearing masks, or refusing to get vaccinated.

Of course, DeSantis doesn't say much about the importance of getting vaccinated these days. His silence is noteworthy because press reports make it clear that most of the people dying from Covid now are not vaccinated.

And, as people continue to die from Covid, he hires a fellow Harvard grad to serve as Florida surgeon general. At a recent meeting in the office of a Democratic state legislator, doctor Joseph Ladapo, the new surgeon general, refused to wear a mask. He disrespected the representative after he learned her immune system was compromised because she is getting treatment for cancer. The doctor -- who took a vow to do no harm -- demanded that the woman step out into the hallway so they could speak to each other without wearing masks. She ended the meeting.

I'm not aiming at the obvious hypocrisy of Gov. DeSantis -- he proudly holds high the "sanctity of life" banner while more than 60,000 souls in Florida have perished from Covid-19 on his watch. I see something much more obvious and important; he is either indifferent to the consequences of his actions, or he is incompetent.

The governor's indifference to life and suffering, or his incompetence, were demonstrated when the lawyer in him arrogantly uttered incriminating words as he marched across the state in July and August. Repeatedly, DeSantis said he knew a summer Covid wave was coming because one destroyed many lives the previous summer. Despite his incriminating attempt at bragging that he is in control, the governor failed to get state-run monoclonal antibody treatment centers up and running until after several thousand more Floridians died from Covid this past summer. A caring and competent administrator would have acted sooner; the federal government owned stockpiles of the life-saving treatment since the previous winter.

So, his decisions, to me, seem based on winning fame on Fox News, and from other right-wing media outlets. At the same time, he is raising buckets of campaign money to stuff in his Christmas stockings. The money, no doubt, is intended to score major political wins next year, and beyond.

In short, the con is the message; the grift is the motive.

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Steve Schneider lives in South Florida. He writes articles for Op Ed News and Democracy Chronicles.

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