A Tale of Two Floridas

Next to Miami Beach, we have one of the worst tragedies in the history of the Sunshine State, a condominium that for decades held dark secrets about how dangerous it truly was, falling apart in the midst of climate change, minimal regulations, and ignored signs of deteriorating conditions. In the middle of the night, Death became swift and cruel and took people of all ages and facts of life in seconds.

South Florida is devastated, as they already have had to deal with the fallout of an ongoing pandemic on top of all the escalating issues related to the coronavirus. Just the other night, even with the presence of personal belongings, cherished items, and potentially even pets still stuck in the section of the condo still standing, Surfside officials had to make the heartbreaking decision of dismantling the rest of the building because of the threat of the tropical storm and because quite frankly, any hope of finding survivors is about gone. Even Ron DeSantis appears to be dumbfounded at the cruel tragedy that has fallen on his doorstep during his term.

On the other side of the state, we see a Donald Trump rally in Sarasota, as thousands of MAGAts and Qanons and conservatives showed up to hear a variety of white nationalists speak for several hours before the main star showed up and rambled his usual shtick. Even though just hours away the Gulf of Mexico was literally on fire and their beaches have been hit with pockets of red tide, this crowd rallies in support of the White Supremacist, soaking in his fake narratives and fake news, the horrible policies, the bullying, the posturing, and their hopes of the future when Republicans are once again in the lead. This crowd is behaving as if 2020 never happened, as if Trump didn’t wildly fumble the coronavirus response that had led to over 500,000 deaths.

The state of Florida is constantly suffering from an inner turmoil that is a result of the politics of the Sunshine State conflicting with the progress and attempts of progress that we see on its most popular and diverse corners.

This is the Tale of Two Floridas.

First, we have the Evolving Florida.

Tampa Bay is one of the most youthful areas in all the South, and Tampa itself is constantly on lists for top cities in the country. Miami is easily one of the most diverse Latino-dominant cities in the country if its not first place already. Orlando is on pace to be a top 10 worldwide diverse city in terms of demographics within the next half-century.

The bottom-half of Florida is so different from the north end that they honestly should be two different states. North and South Florida’s separation will result in shifts that would be much more different than the Dakotas or the Virginias. Miami is one of the wildest and most entertaining cities in the planet, and the entire county itself is a Latin American mecca with strong population numbers of a wide variety of immigrants and refugees. And even though we round up all the other cities and name them “Miami,” you are seeing strong growth with nearby places like Homestead, Hollywood, Hialeah, Aventura, and Fort Lauderdale. I also can’t move on without mentioning Key West, a city so unique they enjoy being surrounded by feral chickens and once seceded themselves from the rest of the United States.  

Orlando has risen from Land of Disney into a multi-cultural powerhouse with a growing food scene, a more progressive approach to how to operate as a city, and being a top-tier destination for visitors within the country and around the world. No city in the country receives more visitors than Orlando. Tampa Bay is one of the fastest-growing regions in the entire country, as their award-winning beaches continues to draw in interested people. Florida has the 4th-largest GDP in the nation and I can guarantee you most of it comes from the I-4 corridor as well as the Latino-centric area under Lake Okeechobee.

However, South Florida is also where you can visually see how most of the state’s potential hasn’t been met because of outside forces, and most of their problems remains ignored by the powers that exist. South Florida struggles more than the rest of the state with climate change concerns, infrastructure, homelessness, rising costs, rising sea levels, poor wages, overpopulation in a vulnerable area, improved-but-still-lacking public transportation, and of course just being a successful city struggling to get the attention of the politicians in Tallahassee.

Orlando also has its struggles as it’s taking on a growing population while having wildly astronomical rental prices, more expensive standard of living, a tourism industry that to this day doesn’t quite give back as much as it should, stagnant wages, transportation issues, and an understated water crisis that involves the natural springs being threatened. How does a state with such strong GDP, with such strong diversity, with so much natural beauty and natural diversity still teether on the edge with its plethora of problems?

The other Florida, the Political Side.

Florida Republicans have placed extra extra emphasis on the Sunshine State since the infamous 2000 election which saw Bush barely etch out a win thanks to *insert dozens of moments of ridiculousness coming from the Republicans*. Ever since, extra emphasis has been placed on making this state more appealing to not just the Republicans in the state, but nationwide. Republicans have decided to display Florida as this haven for conservatives; a place with full freedom, beautiful scenery, minimal taxes, minimal regulation, and plenty of space for your specialty houses, your specialty neighborhoods, and enough space to keep away from all the other minorities that already call Florida home.

As a result, Florida has seen a large increase of families coming in from other states (mostly “Blue” states like your California and New York) with plenty of money and resources to dictate where they want to live without any issues. We have seen the value of houses, condos, and apartments skyrocket because most of those moving down here have more wealth to spend, while forcing those with less financial value battling over the expensive scraps. We’re even seeing large investors buying up houses as well as property to complicate things for aspiring business owners and aspiring homeowners.  

With the increase of rich and richer demographics making their way down here (and up here, as we are seeing upper-class Latin Americans from impoverished places like Venezuela, Chile, and Colombia also make their way here), the prices are going up to tidy up profits, and taxes are kept to a minimum to keep the gravy train of rich transits flowing. Look at the price of visiting Disney in the 1990s and look at the prices today and tell me you can figure out who they are trying to appeal the most to. Have you ever seen how much it costs for international students to come here to WORK?

So how can the Florida Republicans not only keep their power but keep their rich(er) folks engaged? By constantly appealing and catering to the upper class and ONLY the upper class while triggering fears on those not as politically involved and scaring them to fearing Democrats in a variety of ways. Tallahassee doesn’t want to hear about your marijuana laws, your efforts to combat climate change, your efforts to try to make public transportation better, your emphasis on preserving and protecting the diverse but fragile Floridian ecosystem----none of these are things the rich conservatives are battling for. Florida is paradise to a rich white family; no state taxes, minimal overall taxes, minimal regulation, and enough of a distance from your diverse cities so that you can feel like you are a part of these wonderful cities without having to actually engage with the poorer classes. As a successful wealthy man, why visit North Beach Miami with the Latinos and Black Floridians when I can own a dozen properties in Palm Beach and have my own personal beach to enjoy?

Political Florida stirs the pot of fear, even changing details of their own lives to justify their stances. Marco Rubio famously has family that fled from Cuba——but the detail most don’t know is they fled from far-right dictator Batista and NOT Fidel Castro. This fearmongering even negatively affects those that lack the financial incentives of your upper class still would rather see themselves maintain in power than see any additional limitations or obstacles placed by a progressive wing of Floridians that are just trying to improve the state. If you see the map of Florida, its essentially a few giant blocks of blue surrounded by seas of red.

Surrounding the very progressive Orlando and Tourist Country area are counties that are politically deep red—also with some dark history concerning treatment of Black Americans. North of the Miami Zone (even though Trump got some pockets of support within, especially in Hialeah) are where you can find some of the richest Floridians, all of which skew towards the Businessman Mentality of MeMeMeMe. There’s also the intense spending to spread misinformation and fear tactics that results in the older Latino crowd fearing the rise of socialism, which still has its ugly reputation after controversial results in Cuba and poor results in Venezuela.

So we have the Florida that actually exists, and the Tax Haven Republican Paradise Florida that is advertised by the Republican Party, resulting in constant shifts upon each election season, and sometimes the consequences are brutal.

Fast-forward to what we’re seeing today.

DeSantis barely won his race against Andrew Gillum because of DeSantis’ leaning heavily on the MAGA magic (and because Florida is still brutally restrictive towards the Black American voting block). Under DeSantis, we have seen Mini-Trump politically stumble to seeing almost 38,000 die from the coronavirus, with countless more dead from visiting Florida as it reopened sooner than nearly the rest of the entire country. There’s also DeSantis battling what we’re teaching children, secretly dismantling and crippling the unemployment system, refusing federal help for those trying to earn income while unemployed, battling cruise lines over vaccine information, having shipments of vaccines somehow end up in richer areas of the state, making it impossible for local governments to battle the pandemic in their own way, creating voting restrictions, complicating our right to protest, among other wild nonsense to appeal to the MAGAts living in the state.

But on top of all that, under Republican watch we’ve seen Florida get hotter, we’ve seen multiple oil-related disasters on the Gulf of Mexico met with no complaints from state government, mass deaths of manatees, unchecked mass invasions of several species of animals, unchecked excessive dumping of toxic materials to the ocean, growing infrastructure problems, unnecessary complications in trying to improve public transportation, and just overall a state that is doing well but should be doing better. Miami alone is four times larger than Singapore, contains similar geological advantages, yet still has a smaller overall GDP and hasn’t evolved anywhere near as much as the top-tier Southeast Asian nation.

This isn’t the fault of those living in the state, it’s the fault of those running it, and running it for the rich few as opposed to the actual majority. And whether it’s the Republicans who have held power most of this century at the federal level, or the local Republicans harming the state with their policies and inactions, Florida deserves better than what we’ve been seeing from Tallahassee. The pandemic, pandemic response, and the condo disaster are part of the awful trifecta of tragedies caused by Republicans not focusing on the greater good but instead on appealing to their shrinking base of rich, successful, and powerful donors.

The condo on Surfside was a very avoidable tragedy if we simply had the necessary regulations required to ensure that cities close to the ocean in the midst of escalating climate problems don’t see their older buildings fall apart and take innocent victims with them. Even though we still don’t know what caused the collapse, I can guarantee you greed played a major part. Federally, the pandemic could have been largely avoided if Donald Trump had not attempted to kill everything that was created by Obama----including the very programs and playbooks that would have prepared the administration for the coronavirus.

In other words, Florida’s potential growth to become more of a global superpower is constantly stunted by the people that get voted into office, and usually by those who don’t treat Florida as a home but more as a temporary paradise---whether a retirement paradise or a place to live for a few years before moving on and selling everything to the next rich person. This cluster of Americans who can afford to come and ultimately leave years later are the ones most likely causing the state to become harder and harder to live in.

I dream of a day when Florida can finally overcome all the MAGAt and Republicanism that continues to drag the state down and we can truly start tackling the solvable problems that plague the Sunshine State. I dream of a new beginning where the pandemic response as well as the tragedy of the fallen condo finally motivates more Floridians to say enough is enough and vote out all the complacency that comes out of Tallahassee as well as Washington D.C. I dream of Florida finding its very own Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, someone who is no-nonsense and cuts so deep beyond the typical liberal dialogues that she can recruit support from all corners of the state. Maybe and only maybe then Florida can become better for the people that -actually- call this place home, and -actually- want to see the state improve.

The Sunshine State deserves much better.