The Florida Governor's Race Is Suddenly About Race
The Florida Governor’s Race Is Suddenly About Race
Andrew Gillum has been the target of racist ads and attacks that go far beyond mere dog whistles
By Bob Moser
After Andrew Gillum’s expert-confounding victory in Florida last week, it was a mere matter of hours before the inevitable race-baiting commenced. Following in the footsteps of their Georgia neighbors, Florida Democrats nominated their first-ever black candidate for governor in Gillum — and his newly minted Republican opponent, Rep. Ron DeSantis, celebrated his own win by going on Fox News and trotting out some racial code-speak.
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The bullhorner-in-chief had been a tad more subtle in his own 5 a.m. post-Florida-election tweet, calling Gillum a “failed Socialist Mayor” who “has allowed crime & many other problems to flourishing in his city.” DeSantis’ opponent, Trump opined, “is his biggest dream.”
The president couldn’t be more grossly mistaken about that: If anybody got his dream opponent in this election, it’s Gillum — as DeSantis’ “monkey” comment made clear. Like Stacey Abrams, the first black nominee for governor in Georgia, Gillum hopes to win by drawing record numbers of voters of color and millennials to the polls, Obama-style. And the more dog-whistling and bullhorning that DeSantis and Trump do between now and November, the better his chances of inspiring a turnout tsunami.
So while Gillum was duly lamenting that “monkey” comment, he could not even pretend to be truly upset or outraged; instead, he took a page right out of Obama’s “they go low, we go high” playbook, tweeting back:
Link to tweet
Later, on Fox himself, Gillum elaborated: “I actually believe that Florida and its rich diversity are going to be looking for a governor who’s going to bring us together, not divide us,” he said. While he’s busy appealing to “our higher aspirations as a state,” Gillum added, “DeSantis can do the bidding of big business and big lobbyists and Donald Trump.”
The presence of black candidates at the top of the ticket presents an exquisite dilemma for DeSantis, Trump and Brian Kemp, the voter-suppressing Republican who hopes to fend off Abrams in Georgia. It’s one thing to race-bait white candidates and make them “black by association”; it’s a whole ‘nother to direct racial barbs at black candidates seeking to make history on a state level akin to Obama’s earth-shattering breakthrough in 2008. As the late John McCain could certainly have testified, nothing will concentrate the minds of the voters Gillum and Abrams need — white liberals and people of color alike — quite like racialized put-downs of their champions.
But here’s where it gets tricky for the GOP: If they keep it clean and steer clear of agitating the Democratic base, DeSantis and Kemp risk having their own white-right bases stay home in November. How are Republicans supposed to win in Georgia or Florida sans race-baiting? It’s been decades since they even attempted it. And in elections expected to be very tight, the temptation will almost surely be impossible to resist.
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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/gillum-desantis-florida-718993/
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Well worth the read.
Thank you, my dear babylonsister!
