The Florida Holocaust

   Hitler only got 37% of the vote for the German presidency in 1932 against 53% for Paul Von Hindenburg. When Von Hindenburg died two years later in 1934, Hitler was able to combine the positions of president and chancellor into the new position of Führer, a move which allegedly was supported by 90% of the German people. Members of the Nazi party had to take an Oath to the Führer (H.A. Winkler, 2006, Germany: The Long Road West).

    Ron DeSantis was elected governor of Florida in 2018 by a very slim margin, 49.6% to 49.2% for his Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum. One year later in February 2019, Governor Ron’s approval rating was at an all-time high of 64%. He was possibly as popular as Hitler was in 1934, if you consider the difference in the coercion factor between then and now. Two years later, according to the Washington Post, August 9, 2021*, DeSantis’s approval rating had dropped 20 percentage points to 44%, attributed largely to his stance on Covid preparedness.  

According to an unidentified correspondent with Foxy News Service on August 18, 2021:

    In his second edition of the Political Math, just out, the author, Ron DeSantis maintains the 20% percentile reduction of his popularity in two years (2019-2021) was actually in reality, only a decrease of 5.6% (49.6% to 44%) since gaining office in 2018, an amount not statistically significant according to Governor DeSantis’ team of statisticians. In essence, the 20% drop is not real. Governor DeSantis further maintains that his political boldness of standing tall against the pandemic and science fake facts was worth the slight, insignificant, and certainly temporary, cost to his popularity. Furthermore, as the governor always says, “The reality I always go with is the one that almost always costs society the most, and me the least. Reality is relative.”  

    To further his case for standing tall against Covid science, DeSantis blames the case surge in Florida on illegal immigrants flooding the border of Texas, and then swimming across the Gulf, from Texas, the state of his fellow Republican governor, Governor Greg Abbott. Governor Greg also agrees with the “Hands-Off-Science and Truth Policy,” reworded by some as the “Hands-On Death Policy.”

   I am a retired scientist, and scientists believe in the cause – effect relationship. There are no doubts that Hitler was the cause of so much mandatory death and misery in Germany—the Holocaust. The vectors of death used by Hitler were asphyxiation and starvation. Given that horrific historic cause – effect relationship, is it at all fair to compare the effect of Hitler’s actions to that of DeSantis’s and Abbott’s? Is not the prevention of healthy, life-preserving practices in a deadly fight with a horrible disease every bit as heinous a crime as that of Hitler’s? To compare any political leader actions at any time in history now that the world has watched Hitler’s reign of terror is horrific and usually unspeakable. You be the judge.

    There are decidedly differences between Hitler’s atrocities and DeSantis’s ban, and the ones that I see are the obvious ones: 1) Hitler administered death by inclusion of gas and the DeSantis-Abbott team by omission of mandatory masks; 2) Hitler’s victims had zero choice of death; death was mandatory, while Floridians have the choice to court death or not and wear masks and get vaccinated. Regardless, children aren’t getting vaccinated; the maskers are still exposed to non-maskers; and finally, 3) the results of DeSantis’s and Abbott’s actions and those of Hitler is quantitative, i.e., the number of deaths.

    But, qualitatively speaking, when I last checked, human pain and misery hadn’t changed whether you are talking about one individual or one million.  As I see it, a Hitler victim and a DeSantis/Abbott victim would see it no differently were they alive to talk about it. What is the difference between preventing a safe practice, like mask wearing, that decreases the probability of death by 65-90%**, and administering a deadly gas which increases the probability of death 100%? None. Furthermore, qualitatively speaking, if given the choice between, unnecessary, uninvited, and premature death, whether you are experiencing starvation in a concentration camp or an organ shut-down in hospital bed from Covid, as opposed to a natural, end-of-life biological death, which would YOU choose?

    Stay tuned; the saga continues. DeSantis’ ban on mandatory school mask policies faces a court challenge Friday (Spectrum News, 8-18-2021). Regardless, DeSantis’ personal position has not altered. Has political math warped reality and truth so much that death is now only collateral damage and the price a politician must pay to get elected?  Are there going to be zealots who try to erase from the history books the story of a “Florida Holocaust” just as they have the tried the true, German Holocaust? If Ron DeSantis succeeds in a bid for the presidency in 2024, I would say the erasure had already started.

*(https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/09/has-ron-desantis-cracked-code-lead-post-trump-gop) 

** According to University of California Davis in 2020 report and CDC double-masking report in 2021.