Professors from across the country have long been lured to Florida’s public colleges and universities, with the educators attracted to the research opportunities, student bodies, and the warm weather.
But for a swath of liberal-leaning professors, many of them holding highly coveted tenured positions, they’ve felt increasingly out of place in the Sunshine State. And some of them are pointing to the conservative administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as the reason for their departures, according to The New York Times.
DeSantis, who was elected to the governorship in 2018 and was easily reelected last fall, has over the course of his tenure worked to put a conservative imprint on a state where moderation was once a driving force in state politics. In recent years, DeSantis has railed against the current process by which tenure is awarded, and with a largely compliant GOP-controlled legislature, he’s imposed conservative education reforms across the state.
It’s weird that so often the reaction to people on the right trying fascism is for people on the left to quit jobs, move away, and forfeit votes. These things don’t seem part of a winning strategy.
People will go where they’re wanted/needed. Academics and doctors should ABSOLUTELY bail when the system they work under fails them so miserably.
The rest will follow suit and all that remains will be what all the conservatives deserve: nothing.
And for the record- they’re not “trying” fascism, they’re DOING fascism.
I agree with most of what you said. One issue, and it’s a big issue, there’s one other group that won’t leave: the vulnerable. People who are too poor or don’t have support to leave will be left behind. It is their vulnerability preventing them from leaving that will likely be their vulnerability staying. The bad things happen gradually and you adjust for them a little bit each time, until you can’t adjust anymore and you’re stuck.
That said, I can’t blame anyone for leaving/wanting to leave.
That would almost be OK, except because of the way the U.S. Senate works, this makes fascism at the federal level 2 steps behind the reddest states.
No it’s not just the senate. If people keep running away to a handful of “nice” states and give up on the others, then bye bye House. Bye bye Executive branch. Bye bye Judicial branch.
And then you’ll get the same dumbasses wondering why their nice place isn’t so nice anymore.
I feel like it’s only people who don’t actually live in these places or, if they do, aren’t the current targets of christian fascist terrorism (yet) who actually say insensitive, tone deaf, privileged shit like this.
When your actual safety is under threat because of the majority ideology where you live, you gtfo. If you look at history (which is all real stuff that actually happened…) the academics were always right after the LGBTQ community. Then writers and artists and musicians. Look at Germany and the multiple South American countries the US helped to destroy.
Florida is not Nazi Germany. It is if you consume all your news from lemmy headlines, but in real life it is not. It and the rest of America can be if people keep moving away - like I said in my original comment.
They didn’t say it was, they were using what’s called a metaphor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor
Not everyone can participate in active resistance.
It’s pretty funny how in one sentence you say it’s a metaphor and in the VERY NEXT ONE you’re talking about “active resistance”. Are you serious? Am I being punked?
And I’m not talking about any sort of active resistance. Literally passive resistance, voting, ANYTHING other than running into a henhouse would be better.
The “active resistance” bit was also a metaphor. Living one’s life surrounded by people who hate core parts of your identity isn’t great for maintaining good mental health.
…or you’re being punked, take your pick.
No, it’s Weimar Germany, when the course of that trajectory was still building but the opportunities for changing course were narrowing rapidly despite many peoples’ best efforts. And in Florida, as they already have a fascist state government, it very soon won’t even be Weimar Germany anymore. It WILL be “Nazi Germany.”
You thought by sating “Nazi Germany” you were picking a laughably ridiculous extreme, without having any idea that everyone else is way ahead of you and “Nazi” is no longer extreme, it’s looming reality. Get your history straight, and do better at picking metaphors that don’t make other peoples’ points for them.
Can you people actually read what I wrote rather than look at my score and try to get a gotcha in? Holy shit, like I addressed this in 3rd sentence in the comment you’re replying to. Let me bold it with [context added] in case you don’t get it
It and the rest of America can be [like Nazi Germany] if people keep moving away
I’ve already read far too much of what you wrote. Let me bold MY point for you:
America – all of it – CAN be [Nazi Germany or whatever fascist hellhole you want to use as an example] with NOBODY MOVING ANYWHERE AT ALL . . . and that is exactly the direction we are going in right now.
As of two years ago, my vote does not matter because the Rs decided that the R that won my district by a slender margin (BECAUSE we Ds were out voting) did not win by a wide enough margin, so they shifted the purple parts of that congressional district to a solidly D district two years ago.
I can vote D all day long, and it will never change that now R-forever city.
It’s ALREADY done in my district. I ALREADY do not have representation. It DOES NOT MATTER IF I MOVE.
You’re all butthurt because you think you’ve been the target of comment “gotcha” but I can assure you it’s nothing like the “gotcha” I got two years ago from my red state representatives who want my vote with all the passion they want a case of crotch rot.
The only question left here, then, is whether YOU can read what I wrote. I genuinely don’t think so.
You go live in a Christo-fascist shit hole. I’d rather take my family and go live somewhere safe, sane and better educated.
I’m in one of these shit holes, and what’s frustrating about your attitude is the privilege behind it assuming all of us can leave.
I never said everyone can leave, I never even implied it.
For as many good and decent people there were in Weimar Germany trying to change things, for as many people voted and participated in civic life, for as many people who genuinely loved their country more than a funny little man screeching about how they’d all been wronged (and who tried desperately to warn others of the encroaching danger), for as many people who had grown up there in a long unbroken line of forebears who had done the same, once the Reichstag Fire took place it was a done deal.
I think that in 1945, if you asked any German who had chosen to stay in 1933 if it was worth it, they’d have laughed at you or spat on you. I’m reading a book right now called Promise Me You’ll Shoot Yourself, about the waves and waves and waves of suicides – thousands – by any means possible in late April and early May, 1945 as the war was drawing to a close: even many of the survivors didn’t want to live in the world they had insisted upon creating just a handful of years earlier.
Similarly, today, when all the votes in your area have been neutralized by extreme gerrymandering, and you’re in a state that seems set in its right-wing lawless trajectory, there’s not a lot you can do. I’m in a similar situation as you, and I’m personally viewing the upcoming elections and whatever happens leading up to them as the period of time when we either take real steps toward fixing our shit OR our very own Reichstag Fire takes place. Like you, I can’t get out today, not even in 2023. But we’re making plans and going to do our very best. We can’t stay for this. And honestly, I don’t want to be around people who think any part of this is good, or even live well for a while in their idea of a good time, much less reap the eventual whirlwind they’re sowing right now.
It’s not just the right wing; it’s that EVERYTHING here is going to shit, it’s becoming a police state, and while it used to be a beautiful place to live, I don’t want to be here when they start the ovens or do whatever heinous shit they do to the outgroups to solidify their power. We’re getting out. I don’t have the ability to change anyone but myself, but that much I will do: not my conscience, not my convictions, but absolutely my location. Given my online life and vocal opinions regarding the oncoming fascist wave, I will certainly be on their list: I am the absolute definition of low-hanging fruit in that regard, lol. So to take the metaphor a step further, I literally have to move the tree or I will die trying.
Authoritarian governments only ever go in one direction. And they very rarely end whole. Get out while you can.
Exactly the wrong way to look at it. The way to overcome gerrymandering is to push higher turnout.
Short version is that in order to do that kind of extreme gerrymandering successfully, they have to make assumptions about what the vote will look like. One of those assumptions is that Dem turnout is lower than GOP turnout, because it is - GOP treat voting like a civic duty, Dems generally don’t. This is why putting even mild roadblocks in front of voting (like having ID, or waiting in line, or w/e) favor the GOP - GOP voters will jump through whatever hoops are necessary to do their civic duty, Dems get dissuaded from voting with much less effort.
What this means is that if Dems turnout in force, they win. In most places they outnumber GOP, even in gerrymandered maps - they just have to actually vote en masse.
No. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Two years ago, the purple part of my congressional district did just that, turned out to vote in force on an already gerrymandered map. Thus the R candidate had to fight like hell, and only won by a slender margin.
The Rs won. You might well assume it stopped there, and apparently have, going by what you wrote.
But because the margin was by less than 2%, and this is a red state, within a year the state legislature MOVED the purple and blue part of this congressional district slightly northwest to the solidly Dem “black” district, where our votes will simply go to the very cool and very secure Dem representative who already has all the votes he needs (and is worth every one of them).
The actual urban center, where my vote used to matter, will now remain R in perpetuity.
TL;DR: We voted en masse on a gerrymandered map. The Rs won, but it scared them. So they changed the map again.
Tell someone else how Dems voting en masse on a gerrymandered map does anything but get a corrupt red state legislature to move the lines again.
It’s literally impossible to draw districts in such a way that a minority party is the majority of voters in every district. You have to either pack the opposition into seats you are basically giving them to secure yours or you are doing some math on expected turnout and thinking how to promote turnout for your party and depress it for the opposition and aiming to win by a smallish but predictable margin.
It sounds an awful lot like you are in a very red state, and there isn’t a blue majority that can hypothetically vote.
Or they’ve packed enough Dem voters into a single district (depending on the state not doing this can be considered illegal racial gerrymandering, depending on how majority-minority districts fit in - in some cases not having them is racist, in others packing minorities into them is racist). But that requires a small number of total districts, or surrendering more than one to the opposition (the more districts you have, the less impact surrendering one district gives you).
Really, we just need to switch to some fixed, abstract mathematical process that cares not about how people will vote and use that to draw district lines. Something like least split line. But that’s a hard sell, because the people who would need to pass it are the people who benefit from it not existing.
What’s this “every” district business? Congressional elections, urban area, two primary districts with others on the fringe. The state legislature redrew the line between one of the primary districts and a fringe district. Lo and behold, a new perma-R city that was solidly purple and occasionally blue.
I won’t say which congressional district I’m talking about but honestly it’s not even hard to figure out: it’s not like they failed to announce it after the fact, or no one noticed when it was done.
There was, until two years ago. But hey, keep explaining. Maybe if you throw enough good-sounding words at the problem that will change the reality of it.
Enjoy it while it lasts, which will not be long if nobody is willing to resist.
The best time to resist is before it is overrun with regressive extremists.
I don’t blame anyone for getting out now that it’s a total shit hole.
So you’re saying we lost and should retreat? To where? If we all give up and move, by the time we’re settled in fascism will have followed us.
It’s like this, I’m not going to fault anyone who decided to get out of Germany in the 1930’s. Similarly, I can’t blame people who prefer to leave for greener pastures rather than deal with Christian White Nationalist a-holes everyday.
What a lot of people here don’t realize is a fascist USA will still affect them even if they move abroad.
It would be a bad strategy if people’s main goal in life was to influence national politics, but it’s not.
yeah everybody knows the only way to stop fascism is by voting
Eventually Florida will have no GDP, no productive members of society, etc… it’ll just be a bunch of trashy people with no money contributing to nothing. All of the businesses will leave the state, and the fascists can rule over a wasteland while the rest of the country moves on and tries to forget Florida even exists.