DeSantis abjectly surrenders on book-banning just like the little DeSantis he always was
I told ya'll, way back in their 2022 salad days, we would crush the book-banners and anus people with their own book-banning and their own anus-peopling. Bask in this win -- and understand it.
Mr. “Always Back Down” has an announcement.
L.O.L. Laugh at this clown:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to limit the ability of the public to challenge books in schools — an apparent acknowledgment that efforts to remove titles from schools have gone too far in some instances.
The state has been engulfed in a long-running controversy about books being pulled from schools. DeSantis backed laws targeting what type of content is appropriate in school books, sparking confusion and controversies around the state regarding book removals.
DeSantis continued to pushback Thursday against what he and his supporters have described as “false narratives” about book bans in Florida, saying some school districts have overreacted and are incorrectly interpreting state laws.
We normal people — we dirty libs — should take a moment to bask in this win. We don’t celebrate our wins enough. Too often, it seems like we prefer lamentation and dread.
I, at least, do not.
Spiking the ball when we win is much more fun and strengthens our ability to protect those who remain vulnerable to our grossest politicians and worst citizens.
Trust me, if the incredible shrinking dictator thought people liked book-banning in a way helpful to him, he would be personally snatching every copy of Beloved out of every tiny library in your yard and sicking the National Guard on every librarian like Texas sicks razor wire on children crossing the Rio Grande.
He saw the fear, thanks to moral aggression
DeSantis is backing down because, in the immortal words of Ricky Bobbie’s daddy, he saw the fear. The fear of you — of us. And DeSantis is far too much of a little DeSantis to get in a car with a cougar as an act of personal development.
And remember who told you we would do this, way back in the CCDF salad days of 2022? That would be me.
I told you that we, the decent, normal people of Polk County, could and would make the CCDF’s book-banning, anus people our little DeSantises. The only gross little DeSantis who got through now wishes he didn’t — because of me.
We normal Polk people led the state in punching the book-banners in their figurative DeSantis mouths; and the state as a whole has gradually started to follow, thanks in part to the rapist J6 dictator also punching him in the mouth and laughing at him with material we gave him.
DeSantis’ little DeSantises will never admit to us or themselves that we punched DeSantis first; and we don’t need them to.
But we do need to understand what they won’t admit.
Unapologetic moral aggression is imperative and effective in fighting a gross war against immoral cowardly gross invaders. We’ve proven that over and over again here in Polk County the post J6 era, starting with Saga Stevin and her gross, failed campaign for Lakeland mayor.
I’ve used the term “moral aggression” quite a bit here already in recent months. And I’ll both continue to use it and demonstrate it as much as I can in the months to come.
Hey, book-banners and CCDFers, how did that “Townsend”-ing work out for you?
The former CCDF reached its brief shining moment of “influence” by rage-rallying in May 2021 against a mask-mandate everyone was ready to lift.
I want to reflect on that shining moment if you’ll permit me a brief personal indulgence.
I was sitting at home when that rally happened. I was focused on my next book, minding my own business, not really paying attention, worrying about my parents who would both die within a few months, happy to be vaccinated and emerging from COVID time.
And I woke up to this in The Ledger:
I have no problem with shit talk, obviously. But I don’t like it when people take credit for other people’s accomplishments with their shit talk.
The actual credit of my “Townsend-ing” belongs to the strange, entirely personal anti-Billy alliance of Barney/Wesley Barnett, acting on behalf of Wesley’s wounded mother-in-law Melony Bell; Gow/Kay Fields; Big Corrupt Charter school money; Will Harrell trying to emerge from his daddy’s shadow, and my now dear friends Bill and Pam Mutz.
They bought/cobbled together/influenced enough of a weird, one-time anti-Billy coalition to nip me in 2020 with the laughably false and self-contradictory claim that I was a civics-hating racist who actively threatened Trump voters and was “Public Enemy Number 1.” Really, that all happened.
The 2020 election is a fascinating — and validating — bit of personal and local history for me. And they deserve the credit, the people I named, not some random lady with poster board and a funny eagle hat peacocking at an anti-mask food truck rally amongst gross pretenders to power.
When I saw that CCDF lady taking the credit for the success of the actual anti-Billy coalition, I thought: Keep that we out your mouth. And behalf of the actual anti-Billy coalition, I, well, you know …
And what happened next?
Well, today we live in a “red” county where:
Saga Stevin, Jill Sessions, Rick Nolte, and Terry Clark are object lessons
The CCDF had to change its name because it’s so toxic
Grady Judd is afraid to join 55 of his sheriff boys by publicly endorsing the rapist J6 dictator and afraid to be seen with CCDF founder Steve Maxwell
Former CCDFer Hannah Petersen and I are developing a friendship and collaborating productively as citizens
Steve Maxwell’s protege James Dunn is a convicted criminal, yet again
Lisa Miller trounced J.D. Alexander’s gross money
CCDF-ish school board Lori Cunningham faces an ethics trial for something she was advised by her own lawyer not to do more than a decade ago
And “Lakeland First” seems not to exist in an real way.
That’s just off the top of my head, without even talking about Big Charter’s DoE/Jefferson scandal or the Schofield case.
And here’s a secret: unlike Mike, I actually don’t take anyone’s behavior personally. I don’t want anyone to have that kind of power over me. I just wanted to use the Jordan clip because it’s funny.
I am, however, a historian of sorts, who tries to document, learn, and teach the lessons of history for myself and my community. I care about that mission. You could say it is personal to me. I think this post Townsend-ing few years of citizenship has contributed to it.
And it has shown, I would say, that it’s not particularly difficult to make a little gross DeSantis like DeSantis show what a little DeSantis he is. But doing so requires a firm commitment to moral aggression. So if you’re gonna think of my name as a verb, I hope you’ll make it synonymous with that.
Absent that, eagle-hat-CCDF-lady, let me ask you: how did your Townsend-ing work out for you?