Educated GOPers ‘Leaving DeSantis Campaign In Droves’ Dan Rather says ‘There Is No Other Side To Slavery’

Yesterday’s Miami Herald reports that the fortunes of Ron DeSantis are on the downslope and this article posted before Kamala Harris spoke and DeSantis called her a “chirping demagogue” — and made a mocking gesture with his right hand on the word “chirp.” Could he be more classless or clueless? First, take a look at DeSantis’ actual numbers and then read the commentary post-Friday’s tone deaf slavery debacle.

A trio of Republican primary polls, including previously unpublished data obtained by McClatchyDC, show that Florida’s governor has suffered steep declines in support among GOP voters with at least a bachelor’s degree, an erosion that threatens to undermine his candidacy.

Their defections — which started in the spring and have continued this summer — are disproportionately responsible for DeSantis’ overall decline in the race, where polls show he now sits a distant second place to Trump. In all three surveys, the governor now has barely half the support with college-educated white voters that he did when the year began, larger drop-offs than he suffered with other demographic groups.

The numbers reflect a pressing problem for the Florida Republican as he seeks to reset his campaign amid fundraising concerns and flagging poll numbers, challenging him to recover the lost support among voters who once made him Trump’s top rival for the nomination. The national surveys paint a troubling picture for his campaign, even as his allies insist that recent state-level polling already shows his candidacy regaining momentum.

A poll from decision intelligence company Morning Consult, for instance, found that DeSantis’ support had dropped 18 points among white college-educated Republicans, from 41% when the year began to 23% in mid-July, according to internal data shared with McClatchyDC. A poll from market research firm Ipsos, meanwhile, found the governor’s support had been halved since mid-March, when it reported he had 39% among college-educated Republicans, according to data shared with McClatchy.

The same survey, released this week, found he had dropped to 20% among those voters, a 19-point decline. (Ipsos’ survey did not distinguish between college-educated white Republicans and college-educated Republicans, although the difference between the makeup of the two groups is small.)

These are catastrophic figures. When confronted with them, DeSantis merely shrugs and says that people have always underestimated him. Perhaps. Also perhaps it’s one thing to win a governorship in ruby red Florida and a whole different kettle of fish to win the Oval Office.

A few noteworthy followers of politics have chimed in on the walking disaster that is the DeSantis campaign, namely Steve Schmidt and Dan Rather. Here’s Schmidt’s take on what happened yesterday in Florida.

Optimism towards the future is an elemental value in America that DeSantis and his fellow extremists don’t understand. Anger, grievance and resentment are fuels on Twitter and Fox News, but not in real life. It’s too bad that Ron DeSantis can’t see the good out there. His blindness is disqualifying. He can’t see America, but America can see him with perfect clarity.

True enough. And Schmidt repeats a comment he made about DeSantis a while back, “It’s impossible to say you love this country when you hate half the people in it.”

The state of Florida is going to teach its middle schoolers that some enslaved Blacks benefitted from slavery because the slaves learned important vocational skills. The new African American history standards were approved by the Florida State Board of Education yesterday.

Here is a famous image that shows the good life lived by American slaves in the antebellum south. The photo was called “whipped Peter,” and it was used to stir anti-slavery sentiment by abolitionists who were discovering the power of photos to change public opinion:

[The photo was taken in 1863 when Peter had a medical exam in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.]

What is happening in Florida is a disgrace. It is appalling and shameful. In fact, it should be considered a form of child abuse because it is. Governor Ron DeSantis is currently and deservedly being humiliated across America. His failing and flailing campaign is bankrupt and sputtering.  It is an out-of-touch debacle that will ensure he never becomes president.  The good news is that his political career is almost over.

From Steve Schmidt’s lips to God’s ear. It can’t happen soon enough.

Dan Rather also had some views. It’s pertinent to mention that he’s 91 years old and he went to segregated schools. He starts his essay by saying, “I was born 66 years after slavery was legally abolished by the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Not exactly ancient history. Today, that’s how long ago the Eisenhower administration was, or Elvis Presley’s first number one hit.”

Think about that a moment. When Rather was growing up, he knew elders who had been alive when slavery was still the law of the land.

As much as we wish American history were different, tragedy is part of our reality. We do a grave disservice to future generations if we sanitize the truth. People can behave horribly. Societies that profess noble values can countenance violent bigotry. We can either look back from whence we have come with clarity, or we can try to muddy the roots of the present and weaken ourselves in the process.

This week, the Florida State Board of Education reworked its standards for teaching Black history. The changes come in response to the state’s so-called “Stop W.O.K.E. Act.” Passed last year, it limits training and education around issues of race, sex, and other criteria for systemic injustice. At its heart is a core belief that has animated right-wing culture warriors: that people alive today should not be made to feel bad or even uncomfortable by the sins of the past. The thinking goes, that was a long time ago.

But of course it really wasn’t. And the legacies of the past live on. And if we don’t learn from history, we are bound to repeat it.

Proponents of these new standards, especially their biggest cheerleader, Governor Ron DeSantis, say they promote teaching positive achievements of Black Americans in history. No problem there. It’s when it comes to the other side of the coin that we have a big issue — the new lessons seem intent on downplaying the horrors of the Black experience. In other words, once again, the truth. The truth revealed by hard facts.

One passage that has gotten a lot of attention is for middle schoolers. It states they should learn that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” The danger of this narrative is striking. A system that brutalized, raped, and killed human beings while stealing their freedom and denying their humanity is rotten to its core. That enslaved people were able to find resilience and build lives in some form is a testament to their courage and spirit. There is no “other side” to the story of slavery.

That’s it, plain and simple. There is no other side. Slavery was a tragedy. It was an abomination. It was a horror. And the Founding Fathers knew this full well. Benjamin Franklin in particular predicted that slavery would prove an obstacle to the peaceful continuance of these United States at some future point and he was right.

Rather notes that the generation that fought the good fight over civil rights in the 1950s and ’60s is passing away, “much as the generation that remembered the Civil War did during my own youth.” Those people, and the people who lived through slavery, paid a dear price. A petty tyrant like Ron DeSantis can’t be allowed to bury the truth. The truth of what happened must be taught to young Americans and future Americans, painful though it may be.

And here’s the bottom line on Ron DeSantis: He knows he’s not qualified to be president of the United States. But he saw the woefully unqualified Donald Trump do it and so he became obsessed with copycatting Trump’s formula of being an extremist joke, figuring if Trump could do it, so could he. It will be satisfying to watch him get his comeuppance.

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