The Troubled Terrified Trembling Throat of Ron DeSantis
Florida Governor Ron Dion DeSantis wants you to know that he has your throat’s back.
Lately, he’s been hyper concerned (obsessed) over attempts by the LGBTQ community (the gays) and black folk to shove various things down his, and other Floridian’s throats. In his world view, or at least the one he’s pimping today, brown and gay people are on a mission to humiliate white straight folk, and erase gender. And if that’s not enough, he’s gravely concerned that we queers may all be trying to “groom” innocent straight kids by the mere mention of our existence in virtually any context.
All this concern coming from someone who regularly cavorts with the Pussy Grabber-In-Chief is a bit hard to take seriously, but, here we are. Back to 1984 when the likes of Ralph Reed, Pat Buchanan, and the legions of the “Moral Majority” were similarly absorbed with the safety of innocent throats across the nation.
Interestingly, most of those moralizers from the 1980’s were unmasked as the very personification of the things they were whipping followers into frenzied fear over. Jim Baker was a corrupt fraudster who robbed his parishioners blind (and is back doing it again for nostalgia’s sake). Pat Buchanan was every bit the racist and misogynist dinosaur we thought he was. The Falwells, oh my, then and now. The apple didn’t fall far from that tree.
DeSantis is a bit like an uninspired Hollywood film executive who lacks anything new or creative. So naturally, he’s reached for a good nostalgia pimping sequel, with the ultimate villainous evil (drum roll plz) - us queer folk, back to strike fear once again into the throats of poor defenseless Americans. Taking a break from our busy schedule of causing all manor of natural disaster and calamity, us gays are back for our ultimate supposed goal, the children.
The ambition and ego of Ron DeSantis has led him to repackage the musings of the Q-Anon lunatic fringe into a semi coherent horror film script. He now hopes to jockey that sucker all the way to the ultimate in political box office gold, the White House. It was easy enough for most Americans to dismiss wild ideas about pedophilia rings being housed in pizza joint basements. But, ever the opportunist, DeSantis realized the Q-ball nuts were on to something. And he will seek to mine the hell out of it, all in the name of protecting your throat and your precious children.
Humor aside, what DeSantis and the GOP are doing in reigniting the culture wars of the 1980’s will have very real costs to the safety and quality of LGBT and black lives. Those costs are already showing up. Increases in hate crimes, suicide rates, drug issues and a litany of other statistics are showing the stress on our communities. We may not have Fred Phelps and his nasty corps demonstrating at our funerals and pride parades, but we are being actively dehumanized. And that only leads to one result - violence. Ultimately, DeSantis’ crusade will manifest in attacks on our events, mass shootings, and increased targeting of individuals.
For generations, the go to method of othering and dehumanizing the LGBT community has been even the indirect hint of pedophilia and a nefarious “agenda” that supposedly targets American children. California’s anti-gay marriage Proposition 22 which seemed destined for defeat, actually succeeded by stoking the fears of parents that gay marriage would “be taught in schools”. I personally thought the tactic was absurd and outlandish until my landlord, a self described liberal, confessed her support for Prop 22. Her language that day could have been a direct quote from any number of DeSantis’ recent speeches. It was one of my first introductions to the latent potency of any connection between gay identity and children.
Flash back over three decades prior, a heroic figure named Harvey Milk courageously stood up to directly fight that very kind of notion in the 1970’s when he campaigned against the Briggs Initiative.
Milk, by appearances, had the benefit of a society at that time that could generally discern posturing and pandering from genuine informed policy. The fight in Florida today, is the direct descendant of Milk’s battle then. The tactics and language are near analogs. But if Florida is any indication, the arc of history, it would appear, is a bit more fatigued as it reaches for justice in today’s society.
The tradition of political scapegoating of gays and other minorities, of course has even deeper and darker roots. It is also extremely potent in the short run. Most people know Senator Joseph McCarthy’s name and have a vague understanding of McCarthyism and the Red Scare. But what most people don’t know is that McCarthy’s number one target was not commies, but gay men.
Many of his targets either disappeared from society or committed suicide rather than be exposed. Of course, in those days, merely being gay could get you thrown in prison and branded a deviant who would be driven from any community to, you guessed it, “save the children”. McCarthy brandished his political tool like a machete, hacking away at gay men in government and society. It didn’t matter if the allegations were true, and many weren’t. Most targets simply could not fight such accusations.
And always implicit, if not explicit, was the presumption that gay identity and pedophilia were inextricably linked.
What is remarkable about this moment, is just how rapid a reversal it represents. Political scientists, only years before were marveling at the rapidity of advances in public attitudes and LGBT rights. It was regarded as the fastest attainment of rights in modern history by an ostracized and disempowered group. What made the LGBT rights movement so successful, so quickly, is the same tool that must be deployed against DeSantis today.
That tool was visibility. When members of the LGBT community stood up and opened up to family and friends, we rehumanized ourselves in a way that showed our truth was unimpeachable. “Love is love.” The struggle for LGBT rights also had a distinct advantage over the black civil rights movement. Those who identify as LGBT cut across every racial, political, religious and economic boundary. Which meant that white families (who wielded greater political clout) had to contend with this reality under their own roofs. The more we came out, the more we succeeded.
But those gains had not yet set deeply enough that they couldn’t be challenged. It was our profound mistake to think our mission was accomplished. As with other rights struggles, it is always the unaddressed fear that lingers in society, beyond the reach of polite discussion, that later haunts a movement. Even Jewish people fight lingering stigma to this day.
We are fighting an evil that has dogged humanity since its earliest days. An evil that returns over and over. But mostly when our anxiety is at its highest. When it can best feed on our deepest fears, and divide us most efficiently. It’s no accident that DeSantis is just as focused on black people and CRT (of which he knows nothing about). The fear parents have for their children in the presence of gay men, is a sibling to the fear white people have of confronting racism in our society. Unfounded, but nonetheless gripping. But, as Harvey Milk showed in the 1970’s, facing down that fear directly with grace and truth, is the only way to effectively thwart it.
Timothy P. Holmberg is a former staff reporter and opinion writer who currently writes freelance on subjects ranging from local politics to social justice
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