Click here for an article in Mother Jones entitled "Ron DeSantis Is All In -- on Creating an American Autocracy," by Pema Levi. The subtitle is "His plan to outflank Trump would scale up the calculated system of repression he designed in Florida."
It's a long article. It details the first time that DeSantis fired a democratically elected county prosecutor, Andrew Warren (he's fired another one recently).
DeSantis has proven his “willingness to routinely use the machinery of the state to punish rivals,” explains Harvard government professor Steven Levitsky. “That’s authoritarianism at its core. That’s what authoritarians do.”
Levi says:
To stifle dissent, in 2021 DeSantis signed a law that would ramp up penalties for rioting but that civil rights groups warned would ensnare peaceful protesters; this spring he pushed legislation to unleash speech-chilling lawsuits against news outlets.
It tells how DeSantis won a squeaker of an election in 2018 -- winning by 32,000 votes out of over 8,000,000 votes cast -- "by sucking up to Trump on Fox News and securing his primary endorsement."
DeSantis has taken steps to capture State agencies:
One way DeSantis has created space to operate is by hollowing out state government, filling key posts with donors and loyalists—the academic term is “autocratic capture”—perhaps most notably on the state Board of Medicine, which has supported his agenda to put new limits on gender-affirming care. An analysis by the Democratic super-PAC American Bridge 21st Century found that over his first term, DeSantis installed 75 percent more donors in senior government roles than his predecessor, Republican Rick Scott, did in the same span. Such power grabs are “a cornerstone of authoritarianism,” explains Ben-Ghiat, and “create a climate where you can more efficiently transform everything.”
There's a lot here -- it's a long article -- but it's worth reading at a time when Florida's democracy is being lost as the state slides into autocracy.
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