24
votes
New College: How Ron DeSantis is forcing Florida brain drain by targeting an LGBTQ+ campus
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- Authors
- Lex McMenamin, Photography by Bea Oyster, Fortesa Latifi, Brittney McNamara, Lexi McMenamin
- Published
- Nov 7 2023
- Word count
- 3201 words
Among other targets in the culture war, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has attacked critical race theory and gender studies. The takeover of New College is one battle. Since January of 2023, DeSantis appointees have worked to remake the formerly quite queer liberal arts college into a Christian conservative college. They have ended the gender studies program and aggressively recruited male students to counter the 'feminization' of the school. 40% of the professors resigned before fall classes.
Teen Vogue here presents a close look at the lived experience of students who have fled from the increasingly hostile cultural environment to Hampshire College in Massachusetts. They describe the unique properties of New College that have been lost, how they resisted, and their lives in exile. These students, their hoped-for learning experiences, and the institution that hosted them are casualties of our war of values and politicized education, as Americans fight over what schools can teach and how these young citizens can live.
And the Democratic Party will run Joe Biden, on a beleaguered economy with a lower approval rating of anyone since Carter. They sure care about the lives of liberal thinkers and vulnerable groups who need and deserve systemic reforms.
Respectfully, The implication that the presidential election need not be discussed “because state level offices” is dubious. It was your first of at least 3 statements that essentially told me that my thoughts are not worth being shared (including the paradoxical ones that I and other Americans have been lied to and convinced by right wing media, but that somehow this doesn’t mean Biden will have a hard time winning re-election).
Approval ratings do correlate with incumbent election outcomes.
Inflation was higher in 2021 and 2022 than in any other years of the previous four decades.
The unemployment rate is projected to increase from 3.6 percent at the end of last year to 5.1 percent at the end of 2023.
NYT/ Siena Poll: a majority of registered voters say Biden’s policies have personally hurt them.
Most of the critical battleground states Trump lost in 2020 currently poll in his favor, including Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania.
You allege doomerism, chastising someone voicing dissatisfaction with their political party. Idk what your pedigree in progress is, but I don’t believe it comes from acquiescence to the decisions of millionaires. I protest Biden’s lack of primary challengers. I believe he won election due to an enormous dissatisfaction with Trump’s behavior, rather than enthusiasm for Biden himself.
The Overton window has shifted and what was outrageous is now moreso the norm, and the soothing of time has people less likely to vote for the purpose of keeping trump out. Brian kemp even said that trump lost Georgia because of Republicans who didn’t vote for him. There was shame and disgust at his behavior.
The republicans will rally behind an alternative to trump, though some will be disaffected if he’s not the gop candidate (seems unlikely, even jail wouldn’t prevent that). The question is if the urgency to be rid of him is strong enough to encourage people to vote for an older Biden who has not impressed people and has presided over serious inflation of gas and groceries.
I believe we should have been given a primary choice. And frankly, I’m grossed out by your “tow the line, everything’s fine, you’re basically a right winger” bullshit
I hear you, but you pointed it out yourself - people are fickle and misinformed.
I guess I'd also add that people generally don't keep up with politics outside of major events in my experience, at least where I am.
Even then, I see people trying to talk about situations that have nuance and they choose to just go with the most braindead take.
I guess thinking more than in binary terms is too much to ask. It's very frustrating. These sorts of people choose to deny reality and facts on multiple levels. It makes reaching people that don't agree fairly difficult and feel fruitless.
All this is of course, anecdotal evidence and may not even matter. I deal with blue collar people every day. These people also vote, so...yea. It's equal parts scary and sad.
All I can do is stay informed of my local and state candidates the best I can, and vote straight Dem in a semi rural and fairly red part of my state.
I kinda see where you and the previous poster are coming from and want to offer my own experience and frustration there. I don't know what to do other than to vote as best I can on the information I have avaliable.
Honestly, this comment just feels like a non sequitur. The problem with Florida isn't Joe Biden; it's that Republican minds have been poisoned by the culture war issues that they manufacturered. There's very little Democrats can do to improve this situation: Republicans control the right-side of the Overton window, and so the onus is on Republicans to shift away from extreme positions.
Let's hope their sustained poor performance in national elections will cause them to moderate their views.
Edit: I think it's best to imagine the Overton window as a piece of taffy. You can stretch it from the left, and you can stretch it from the right; but if you stretch it from both ends for long enough, it's going to split in two. Running a more progressive candidate will certainly shift the left-side of the Overton window more leftward, but it isn't guaranteed to shift the right-side of the Overton window more leftward -- in fact, right-wingers might even double down as people reentrench deeper in their political bubbles.