The DeScandals and DeFeats are piling up for Florida's George Wallace wannabe

It's hard to keep track of it all; but the DeSantis marriage's dreams of dynasty are collapsing in black comedy and pretty hilarious taunts from the lascivious Matt Gaetz.

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Now Wallace was, for all practical purposes, the governor of Alabama from 1962 until 1986. Once when a law prevented him from succeeding himself, he ran his wife Lurleen in his place and she won by a landslide. — Patterson Hood, Drive-by Truckers

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My beloved Drive-by Truckers tell the George Wallace story more efficiently and entertainingly than I ever could in this space. So I’ll just direct you to “The Three Great Alabama Icons,” from their epic Southern Rock Opera double album. I first heard this “song” on Tampa’s WMNF radio in my car circa 2001 — and was like "who the hell are these guys?” Buy the deluxe re-release; send DBT some cash. They’ve earned it.

But they will not be writing any songs about the contradictions and complexities and tragedies and evolutions of Ron DeSantis — because there are none.

DeSantis is as boring as he is gross, vindictive, and corrupt. He will be remembered in Florida, historically, like a natural disaster wiping out institutions and infrastructure and insurance markets and maternity care. He’s also managed to kill the fake “pro-life” movement with Jennifer Canady’s eager — and then very much not eager — help.

We will talk about Ron DeSantis in the future like we talk about Hurricane Andrew. Ya’ll voted for Hurricane Andrew twice; and I’ll never stop reminding you of it.

A catastrophic couple weeks for Lurleen DeSantis

Ron DeSantis does share one very specific characterological assumption with George Wallace (and maybe a few others with the Jim Crow version of Wallace).

DeSantis thinks he can extend his little dictatorship by running his wife to succeed him in 2026 — cuz that’s what little dictators do.

The trouble for Ron and Casey: his little dictatorship and his Casey campaign died in the last two weeks, while she was still just a distant tropical depression.

And boy, when dictatorships go, they really go.

Ask the lascivious Matt Gaetz, who smells the blood in the water for when he runs against Casey in 2026.

I’ve put together a brief roundup of all the ways DeSantis stepped on rakes in the last two weeks on behalf of his wife’s campaign to come. Here is actual film:

You’ll notice that Gaetz shows up multiple times to put Ron in the b***-kicking machine after the rakes hit him in the face. Let’s review:

Gator-dammerung: the Hobbesian grifter civil war of all-against-all at the University of Florida

Even if you’ve been following the Ben Sasse-is-a-“disruptor” grifter, Mori Hosseini-is-a jealous tyrant, Ron DeSantis-is-a-meddling fool triangle at the heart of the UF debacle, you probably missed this amazing story of GOP grifter-on-GOP grifter violence from the Independent Florida Alligator.

Elections and the DNC have overshadowed it. Go back and read it. It is epic.

The article details, mostly anonymously, all the awful, cowardly, incompetent, lying, self-dealing, man-baby “leaders” of UF who have (likely) permanently damaged and diminished arguably Florida’s most important public institution of any kind.

Here’s my favorite moment:

Hosseini and Sasse, through a university spokesman, Steve Orlando, disputed that personal conflicts led to Sasse’s resignation. In a statement, Orlando said, “those claims are completely unfounded,” and Orlando said any insiders discussing with journalists what happened should do so on the record, by name.

But the whole thing is the blackest of comedies. Read it. There is not one person to root for in this Hobbesian civil war of awful. In those situations, I always just root for terrible people of power to inflict maximum carnage on each other and hope the collateral damage is minimal.

The chef’s kiss: a wonderfully gratuitous pile-on from Matt Gaetz, who in the happier Before Times helped stand up the DeSantis dictatorship he plans to replace with himself in 2026.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who represents the congressional district in Florida’s Panhandle, called it “this widening Ben Sasse scandal” and said DeSantis wants no part of it.

Et tu, Matt:

I happen to think the chaos at UF may both kill UF Jacksonville and create UF Polk from the ashes of Florida Poly — more to come on that theory in a different article.

Parkcopalypse: the abject “back down” on selling off park land to developer buddies signals the end of the DeSantis dictatorship

I think the clearest sign that the DeSantis little dictatorship is crumbling is the total public rejection and then rapid public backdown on his plan to turn Florida State Parks into ATM machines for his developer buddies.

Every GOPer has openly dunked on DeSantis over Parkcopalypse without consequence.

And as always happens when confronted with an actual fight — as Trump so easily demonstrated — the little dictator bent the knee to his vassals, Magna Carta-style. Nobody fears him anymore.

And, of course, there’s that man Gaetz again to rub it in. And when Gaetz rubs something, well, you know … best not to think about it:

His fellow Republican in Congress – U.S. Rep Matt Gaetz, who represents the state's western Panhandle – also posted on X: "We do NOT need to commercialize our state parks. We should keep them natural, thriving and beautiful. Signed, Florida Man."

The Pedicini collapse; and the urgent need to remove defeated Pedicini client James Satcher before he destroys Manatee’s general election

It’s easy to forget how how much DeSantis is in bed with the loser “consultant” Anthony Pedicini. Full run down on Pedicini’s no-good, terrible very bad Election Day here.

Pedicini wrote the DeSantis speech when DeSantis and Pedicini-owned Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister removed State Attorney Andrew Warren from office just for existing. See this article I wrote detailing that in 2022:

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All the governor's snowflakes

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Key Sheriff Chronister testimony from his deposition:

Q: So when did you first confer with Mr. Pedicini about the topic of Andrew Warren's suspension?

A: A few days before the suspension when I was authoring the speech.

Q: Okay. Did you tell the governor's office that you were going to talk with people about it?

A: I did not.

Q: Okay. Do they know that you spoke with Mr. Pedicini about it?

A: I don't believe they did.

Q: Okay. And you didn't know that he had also been helping them draft the order -- right -- or at least providing language for the order?

A: No, sir. I'm not aware of him participating in any of the process.

Now compare the DeSantis corrupt removal of Warren with DeSantis’ refusal to secure Manatee County elections from the destructive spite of James Satcher, the corrupt Pedicini client and DeSantis-appointed Supervisor of Elections, who was crushed by Manatee voters on Tuesday.

Satcher responded to his loss by firing the top operational employees in the office in what seems like obvious attempt to spite the public and destroy Manatee’s general elections in November. It is genuinely one of the most serious local civic crises I’ve ever seen. A host of local voices are calling for Satcher’s immediate removal.

So, this seems like this is a natural place for Matt Gaetz to jump in and publicly demand Ron DeSantis secure Manatee elections by removing his defeated crony from office immediately and restoring the four elections professionals Satcher fired from spite.

Somebody in Manatee needs to get Gaetz’s people on the phone.

Woke-a-geddon: Moms 4 Liberty is as dead as Florida’s “pro-life” movement after DeSantis’ string of Tuesday night defeats

My dear friend and Monroe County School Board School Board Member Sue “Accountabaloney” Woltanski has a detailed round-up of last week’s Moms4Liberty death rattle.

It starts like this — note the bold.

Eighteen months ago, on February 21, 2023, Governor DeSantis met with Florida House Speaker Paul Renner, Florida Commissioner of Education, Manny Diaz Jr., Florida GOP Chairman Christian Ziegler (infamous for a sex scandal), and Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice, co-founders of Moms for Liberty, for a strategy session to identify school board members who, according to the governor, did not protect parental rights and or shield students from “woke” ideologies.

That makes for quite the how-it’s-started; how-it’s-going.

Bridget Ziegler’s board buddies in Sarasota took big Ls on Tuesday. So I guess poor Bridget will have to go back trolling bars and watching and/or creating her husband’s brutal porn with addled “friends” to get her woke freak on. The Sarasota School Board chambers are going back to something like normal.

And I laughed so hard at this from DeSantis’ press conference. Like all weak men, he can’t take an L:

The governor has a political action committee that will advocate against amendments on November ballots to legalize recreational marijuana and guarantee a constitutional right to abortion, which he implied may have diverted his support for his school board endorsements.

“You know, 2022, we put a lot of resources in; we weren’t in position necessarily to do that because we’ve got so much other stuff going on,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis has done one half-assed little event at a Catholic high school in Tampa to fight for forced birth — which used to be the one fake sacred thing that supposedly unified all GOPers and gave the party reason to exist. Other than that, he’s as timid as his dear dear dear Jennifer Canady. So no, anti-wokers, he wasn’t busy doing anything but shopping for post-gubernatorial pudding.

DeSantis said this at his little forced birth event.

If you care about building a culture of life in this state or this country, them winning in Florida I think really represents the end of the pro-life movement.

Too late, Ron.

Not that you actually care — but you and Jennifer Canady have 100 percent killed the pro-life movement, which was always fake and not a movement.

Forced birth will never be on offense again. It will never move, except in retreat — regardless of whether amendment 4 gets to 60 this time. Killing the “pro-life” movement is going to be in the first line of your political obituary, as well as Jennifer Canady’s, who is too cowardly to publicly advocate for her own “accomplishment.” Did she even show up for your little event 30 minutes from where she supposedly lives? I couldn’t tell from media accounts; but I don’t think so.

Et tu, Jennifer:

As a post-script, here’s my favorite little act of spite from DeSantis in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election:

Eighty percent of Broward County voters chose to send DeSantis-appointed, M4L-loving School Board Member Daniel Foganholi packing. Even in Broward, 80 percent means a lot of GOPers tossed that freak out.

DeSantis immediately appointed this 80-percent M4L loser to the state Board of Education just to spite the public.

The unraveling New College grift — where Rufo and Ricketts are leaving Corcoran to hold *all* the bags

Finally, I think it’s fitting that we end with New College, which I have long hypothesized began the DeSantis collapse when it announced the grifter Richard Corcoran’s hilarious salary last year.

You probably saw the reporting about all the discarded books found in a dumpster. There’s a great column about it here.

And Stephanie Hayes picks up on what I find most telling and interesting and … hilariously ominous for one Dick Corcoran.

In the aftermath of the book purge, Corcoran sort of, kinda, a little bit, tried to act like, dare I say, a weak, but vaguely normal college president doing damage control:

Unfortunately, much of the coverage has been sensationalized, catering to the narratives of our critics," Corcoran wrote. "While the optics of seeing thousands of books in a dumpster are far from ideal, it is important to understand that the disposition of materials is a necessary process in libraries, and ensures that our collection remains relevant, up-to-date, and in good condition for our community’s use.

That’s a man who is scared. It’s a break from the false bravado that has protected him for so long.

Corcoran is right to be scared — because his one-time bro Chris Rufo did not get the memo; or more likely, has recognized it’s time to move his grift locust act to the next gullible conman that will have him.

Rufo’s gonna leave Corcoran with all the inevitable investigations that will try to sort out the various scams of Corcoran’s rule.

And I bet Rufo and his rich buddy Joe Ricketts have some fun stuff to share with Matt Gaetz about what all has gone down in Sarasota.

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Has Joe Ricketts abandoned Richard Corcoran's New College grift?

Thoughts and prayers, Dick.

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I tried to tell ya’ll, GOPers

Sorry this is a little long; but I also consider it a public service to connect all of this in one place. It completely validates this article I wrote a while back — in which I noted that DeSantis’s inability to deal with the smallest of local scandals presaged his downfall.

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Glass Jaw Ron: what Polk County's Rick Nolte scandal tells us about DeSantis' weakness

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This is a weak man, whose time is done. Yes, he can kick a few civic dogs like the abusive toddler he is while he still has the official power.

But a DeSantis dynasty?

LOL.

Bro, you and Casey are no George and Lurleen Wallace. For almost everyone else alive in America, that would be a compliment.