AOC and the Florida freedom virus – The Spectator World
AOC s trip to Miami was the ultimate troll job, but it also betrayed a truth that many progressives and long-time Florida haters have sensed but haven t been able to admit to themselves: Florida, thanks to Governor Ron DeSantis and his understanding of the ascendant Floridian ethos of anti-technocratic Americanism, is no longer the state of Florida Man. Instead, it s where the political ideas and policies that will resist AOC and her progressive-minded ilk are being developed.
Florida is where the battle for the soul of the country is being waged. Now that it is a serious state and the antithesis of the bureaucratic dystopia of the blue state, AOC and her fellow progressives will do their best to play up its tropical playground nature while downplaying its newfound position as the great resistor to blue-state technocracy.
The progressive narrative is heavily invested in the idea of Florida Man and the red state rube, which is why DeSantis, even though he s a graduate of elite institutions and has proven himself a formidable political operator, is still framed by Democrats as a bumbling idiot.
Once again, Democrats are betraying their true beliefs when they mock DeSantis as AOC did on her recent visit. The more they frame him as the Florida Man fool, the more they re signaling that they believe him to be anything but.
While she was in town, AOC, predictably, was photographed hanging out with drag queens on South Beach, in yet another highly curated and politically savvy photoshoot. Those drag queens, no doubt, are as woke as they are tacky. Yet here was AOC playing to a progressive audience that lives and dies for men in drag, while once again signaling that Florida is a silly, silly place.
If AOC wanted to go full Miami, she should have ditched the ginger with the drag queens and hit up a local joint with some tried-and-true Latinas to twerk the night away. But she s too Latinx for that, of course.
I like pretty much everything about Florida except that it is too flat and too hot, and that’s not going to change. Otherwise, God bless ’em.