DeSantis' Migrant Transports Backfire in South Florida

[applegrove]

DeSantis’ Migrant Transports Backfire in South Florida

September 18, 2022 at 11:21 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 158 Comments

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/17/desantis-migrant-transports-south-florida-00057337

"SNIP.......

Politico: “The move by DeSantis dominated the radio and television airwaves in South Florida — where large swaths of Hispanic voters live. One Spanish radio host loudly denounced the move and even compared DeSantis’ actions to that of deceased Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who relocated Cubans in the early ‘60s.”

.......SNIP"

[yankee87]

1. DeathSantis

What next, having immigrants were some kind of patch? Maybe he can put them into a "re-education" camp. The thing is, I have no idea how low the Qpublican leaders will go to gin up their base.

[sop]

2. Being compared to Castro is the kiss of death in the South Florida media.

[Deminpenn]

19. Crist campaign should be all over the SFla

airwaves with this comparison.

[SoCalDavidS]

3. He Obviously Thinks The Fix Is In

He & Abbott would not be so cavalier if they didn’t think they were going to win easily.

[rubbersole]

9. Yes.

All repubs...Lindsey, the Supreme Court, Rubio..

[SoCalDavidS]

11. If They Thought It Would Be Tight, They'd Be Tacking Towards The Center

Instead it's like they're being so bold as to do shit that middle of the road voters will find deplorable. Like they aren't worried about the Independent voters.

[rubbersole]

14. I wonder if they're worried about ANY voters.

The polling vs the final "vote" totals for Collins, Graham, McConnell were off by huge margins, always in the repubs favor. With the ruskies' cyber capabilities you just have to wonder...which might be the point - democracy doesn't work.

[magicarpet]

4. You know these migrants should be kind of thankful,...

.... that DeSantis was sorta very kind. I mean he landed the private chartered jet at the airport in Martha's Vineyard and allowed the wary migrants to disembark the plane and walk into the airport terminal for eventual processing on the ground.

Now if DeSantis really intended to be nasty he would have borrowed the Pinochet flight plan of abrupt arrivals.

It goes something like this.

You kidnap your victim,.. excuse me I meant passenger. Then you toss them in the airplane. You rev up ip the engines and airborne. Once you reach your destination you don't land at the airport. You just circle around just above the airport. Then you open all the passenger doors,.. and at 20,000 you you forcibly push them out of the airplane at gun point, no parachute,.. what was called a Pinochet 20,000 foot free fall once you arrive at your designated destination.

Now that is a rude and nasty flight plan. We should be very thankful Governor Ron DeSantis did not select that type of arrival then quick and rude disembarking of his private chartered jet.

It could have been so much worse - had DeSantis not been in the mood to be so thoughtful, sweet, & kind.

We should all thank our blessings & Governor DeSantis too, he is such an accomplished and well practiced - humanitarian - I guess ?

+++×××+++

This is the CYA spin these fucking Fascist will put on this horrendous frat-boy criminal stunt.

"Own the Libs" - boy did this backfire with extreme blow back - right in the faces of these Nazi frat-boy conniving criminal Fascist clowns.

[DBoon]

20. like this?

[magicarpet]

21. Yes you got it.

The Generalissimo Augusto Pinochet and his secret police the DINA were a nasty nasty bunch of thugs. A lot of priests, nuns, intellectuals, union organizers, and political subversive were given helicopter rides and pushed out at 600 feet over the Chilean jungles to disappear them.

The School of the Americas at Fort Benning in Georgia trained these thugs in South American countries and Central American countries to be ruthless human rights violators. Who's main job was to keep the population in line using mostly iron fisted tactics.

Banana Republics and Puppet Governments were the name of the game. Selecting, propping up, and heavily compensating strong-men, warlords, and dictators was the way we did foreign policy and foreign diplomatic relations.

Henry Kissinger and GHW (Poppy) Bush called many of the shots and ran the show.

[LymphocyteLover]

5. Good!

as well as it should... he's such an evil mother fucker

[Lucinda]

6. ...

[Warpy]

7. Exactly, Castro really did empty out some of the prisons

and ship the convicted criminals here, where they were largely dumped into the Cuban communities.

Republicans make no distinction between that and the toddler in his Mum's arms, little bare foot sticking out.

Fortunately for the Venezuelans, even bedrock Yankee Republicans, well represented on Martha's Vineyard, knew the difference.

[Crazyleftie]

8. he need to nab a few cuban migrants

that will really set off fireworks in south florida.....

[IronLionZion]

10. He needs to lose Cubans and other Latinos this election year

many Cubans came to the US as refugees seeking asylum just like these Venezuelans. Florida has plenty of Latinos who are US citizens and vote. Same with Texas and Arizona.

[Sky Jewels]

17. I'm hoping that the FL Cuban population will become less toxically red as

the Batista-era generation dies off.

But I'm not holding my breath.

[IronLionZion]

18. Trump lost some of them in 2020 from 2016

after reversing some Obama reforms for travel and diplomatic/economic policies with Cuba. I'm hoping the younger ones are more liberal and turn out to vote.

[Evolve Dammit]

12. They used Covid Relief monies for this?????

[Stuart G]

13. DeSantis needs to lose..and this should do it. K and R

It is late September..6 weeks to discuss this and bring DeSantis down, all the way down.

[William769]

15. K&R.

[Orrex]

16. Yeah, we'll see

I'm guessing that he'll skate to another victory on election day.

[mathematic]

22. I think he was expecting them to be Mexicans

DeSantis couldn't have thought it was a good idea to do this to Venezuelan refugees.

[Botany]

23. "Earlier surveys showed that about half of Venezuelans in the U.S. live in Florida."

I hope Christ is running spots in Spanish radio & TV.

"From 2010 to 2019, the Venezuelan population in the U.S. increased 126 percent to 540,000, more by far than people with roots in any other nation. The top three nations are Latin American, but Guatemala is a distant No. 2 at 49 percent growth followed by No. 3 Honduras at 47 percent.

Earlier surveys showed that about half of Venezuelans in the U.S. live in Florida."

https://www.tampabay.com/news/2021/09/25/venezuelans-live-mostly-in-florida-and-they-top-hispanic-population-growth/#:~:text=Earlier%20surveys%20showed%20that%20about%20half%20of%20Venezuelans,socialist%20Hugo%20Chavez%20and%20his%20successor%20Nicol%C3%A1s%20Maduro.

[patphil]

24. If DeSantis loses the Cuban American vote, he's finished.

No re-election as governor, and no Republican nomination for President.

[bluecollar2]

26. He won't lose the Cuban vote

Even if the Cubans arriving in Florida are detained by state authorities they will be turned over to the Federal government.

Then the Cubans will blame the President...

[ancianita]

25. Batista followers' disinformation. Fidel Castro did no such thing. Castro ONLY gave Cubans the right

to leave if they wished. Nothing more. He wouldn't help Cubans leave (they had to find means on their own), and he certainly did not force them. I've been to Cuba twice, and fact checked this. All Cubans I spoke to agreed that Castro never relocated anyone.

This is BS and anti-communist hype. If Cubans want to vilify DeSantis, they need to try another tack. They should have seen through this guy years ago, anyway.

[peppertree]

27. But as you know, RW Cuban exiles never let facts get in the way of a good slur or story

You see this same thing among pseudo-fascists in Argentina, Brazil and elsewhere in the region: make your narrative 'the history' - and weaponize the judiciary when the narrative just won't stick.

Case in point: Judge Aileen "Where's My Mercedes?" Cannon.

[ancianita]

28. True. But we here should all do a better job of fact checking rather than spreading misinformation.

So I posted that to clarify. We must not believe the hype, especially when we know about the sources, whether corporate or Miami Cubans.

Yes, the real point is the right's weaponizing anything here in Florida. But it could also be corporate media who want to amplify divisions between old and new immigrants by dog whistling some "bad words" like "Castro."

But two things are factually true: Cannon's got leverage for now, and DeSantis can't be arrested for his politicized immigration drama.

We could focus on more productive issues, since these are resolving no matter what else we say.

[peppertree]

30. Well said

It's too bad our friends on the right don't see it that way.

Their credo, as you know, is 'keep throwing spaghetti on the wall; some it is bound to stick'

[ancianita]

31. Thanks, peppertree, but seriously, I don't give a damn that the wholly owned subsidiary of the

Koch/Mercer/Uhlein/Thiel networks see anything that way. WE should see that about them by now.

My main point is that we shouldn't help them one bit. We shouldn't jump on every example of baseless drama that serves our side, or serves our need for laughs, mocking or jokes. Doing any of that just contributes to the political chaos, confusion. We have to be careful not to let provocative OP's divert our focus from the decades old agenda by corporations to eventually capture this government and thereby, democracy.

We're in a serious phase of saving this democracy. We need to act accordingly, imo.

[peppertree]

32. No doubt about it: they're playing for keeps

Behind all of the fascist despots over the last 100 years or so, you can always find big business and elite support.

Money, media, manipulation, muscle.

Without that support, they're reduced to little more than side shows and nuisances.

We'll see.

[Martin68]

29. Karma is a bitch.

[Stuart G]

33. Yes, there is "Time To Tell the Migrant Transport Story" Plenty of time...The whole story.

DeSantis will go down because of the ..."WHOLE STORY"...

THIS STORY IS UGLY, VERY UGLY.

and in my opinion it will hurt DeSantis a great deal

[LetMyPeopleVote]

34. DeSantis invites election backlash with Martha's Vineyard stunt

DeathSantis is being compared to Castro and is pissing off Venezuela voters.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/desantis-invites-election-backlash-marthas-vineyard-stunt-rcna48307

The Miami Herald reported late last week on the fact that prominent voices in the Venezuelan American community were not pleased. Maria Corina Vegas, who helps lead the bipartisan American Business Immigration Coalition, told the newspaper, “The governor likes to pander to communities like mine, traumatized by political persecution and violence. This is a new low, even for this governor.”

Yareliz Mendez-Zamora, who helps lead the Florida Immigrant Coalition, added that DeSantis and his lieutenant governor — who recently said that Cuban immigrants who were in Florida “illegally” should be bused out of the state — are “showing that they’re against all immigrants.”

A day later, Politico reported:

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to transport mostly Venezuelan migrants to Martha’s Vineyard earlier this week could hurt the Republican governor in November with a key constituency that the GOP has sought to win over. The move by DeSantis dominated the radio and television airwaves in South Florida — where large swaths of Hispanic voters live. One Spanish radio host loudly denounced the move and even compared DeSantis’ actions to that of deceased Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who relocated Cubans in the early ’60s.

In case this isn’t painfully obvious, I can safely say, as a Miami native, that when a governor is being compared to Castro on Spanish-language radio in the Miami area, that’s not great for an incumbent......

We’ll know soon enough whether the governor pays a price for this. He might not: DeSantis’ advantage in statewide polling already suggests that Floridians are willing to overlook the Republican’s many failures.

But Democrats were looking for something that might shake up the race, and the governor just handed them a controversy that could do exactly that