The guy behind me at the rental car line at the Sarasota airport was wearing a red fleece with a Bridgewater State insignia, so I asked him if he worked there. “I’m the president,” he said. Fred Clark and I discussed his challenges as the president of a public university today. I told him about my career writing admissions and fundraising materials for colleges around the country. He was interested in my connection with Bowdoin College, especially with the Host Family Program.
I asked Fred his thoughts about the recent news at New College in Florida. For readers unfamiliar with the situation, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis basically took over the progressive state school by firing the president and stacking the board with right-wing ideologues. He rolled his eyes and said, “Thank God we’re in a state like Massachusetts.”
Fred Clark is not, mind you, a member of the liberal eastern elite, the kind of person today’s right-wingers love to trash. He’s a first-generation college student who graduated from Bridgewater State. After serving as Chair of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, he assumed the presidency at Bridgewater State nine years ago. He’s focused on expanding opportunities for undergraduate research, internships and study abroad.
DeSantis’ move against New College was his latest effort to appeal to Trump’s populist base, as he prepares to run for president. He brags that “Florida is where woke goes to die.” Woke, it seems, is the term today’s GOP applies to anyone who acknowledges that women, minorities, immigrants and LBGTQ members have different lived experiences and histories than straight white American males.
Presidential candidate Nikki Haley took up this drumbeat with the preposterous claim that “Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic.” Maybe Ron and Nikki haven’t heard that 56% of Americans view the term “woke” positively, while only 39% view it negatively. Moreover, DeSantis has waged a battle against Disney World, the state’s largest employer and a huge benefit to the economy, because of its wokeness. Talk about a shoot-yourself-in-the-foot move.
DeSantis oversaw the enactment of the Florida 2021 election law, which made it harder to vote by mail, harder to find an accessible drop box and harder to assist others in submitting a legitimate mail-in ballot. He led the enactment of what became known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, an effort designed to prevent teachers from discussing LBGTQ issues in the classroom. His proposed a “School Choice” bill, which will hurt public education, would give a parent $7,000 (no matter their income level) to use for sending their child to a private or parochial school.
True to his my-way-or-the-highway style, DeSantis has made it mandatory for bloggers who write about him to register with the state, a move of which Vladimir Putin would surely approve.
Carl Ramey, a columnist for the Gainesville Sun, notes that DeSantis governs like an extortionist. “His blustering bullying style seeks confrontation where none exists and favors actions where none are needed.”
DeSantis revealed both his foreign policy naiveté and his lack of principles when he said to Tucker Carlson that the war in Ukraine is a “territorial dispute.” After getting a huge backlash he said that Putin was a “war criminal.” Is that the kind of flip-flopping leader we need during these challenging times?
Many Republican donors and voters view DeSantis as a good replacement for Trump, given the former President’s many legal challenges and his weakening grip on all but his most rabid supporters That said, a few big donors are pulling their support because of DeSantis’ hardline, anti-abortion stance. Other commentators have noted that DeSantis is an even greater danger to our democracy than Trump, because he’s a shrewder, more disciplined politician.
Maybe I’m naive, but I remain hopeful that the Republicans will nominate a moderate candidate who believes in working across the aisle and, most important, values America’s basic democratic principles.
David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary and suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns at dtreadw575@aol.com.
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