Suzanne Harrington: Florida politics and Succession - is life imitating art?
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during convocation at Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Va., Friday, April 14, 2023. (Paige Dingler/The News & Advance via AP)
As Succession ends tonight – a dystopian nightmare in which unfettered, unaccountable billionaires wreck America for their own gain – down in Florida, life continues to imitate art. Through media control and manipulation, the Succession kids have put a white supremacist in the White House; down in Florida, Elon Musk would like to do the same.
Except unlike in Florida, the amoral characters of Succession are sophisticated, sharp, savvy, even as their stunted inner lives resemble a series of catastrophic mid air collisions involving their own private jets.
Ron DeSantis, on the other hand, is alleged by staff to have eaten chocolate pudding with three fingers on a private jet, something much capitalised upon by his rival Donald Trump, whose elect-me adverts refer to DeSantis as ‘pudding fingers’. I really, really wish that I was hallucinating and making all of this up.
But spoonphobia is the least of it. DeSantis has made ‘don’t say gay’ a catchphrase nobody apart from homophobes ever wanted to hear, in a law which “prohibits classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” in schools.
He has allowed a head teacher to lose her job because some Florida parents confused Michelangelo’s David with pornography. He has banned abortion after six weeks, which is much the same as banning it outright, because who realises they’re pregnant at six weeks? It’s as if he has a tick list, oppressing anyone who isn’t white, straight, cis, keen to reproduce, or afraid of Renaissance art.
So much so the veteran civil rights movement, the National Association For The Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) has issued a travel advisory about visiting Florida, warning how it’s now a hostile environment if you’re black, queer or dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. Calling DeSantis a “hate-inspired state leader”, a senior NAACP spokesperson said “We will not allow our rights and history to be held hostage for political grandstanding.”
It’s like watching a terrible time-travel movie, where ordinary people are being dragged backwards to an era long consigned to the history books. The very same history books Florida kids are no longer allowed to learn from, because any discussion of American racism has been banned in the state. Black lives don’t matter.
Kickback has come from one of America’s most beloved totems – Mickey Mouse. Disney – not known for its radicalism – has responded to the state governor’s instigation of regressive culture wars and ongoing feuding with the corporation by cancelling a proposed billion-dollar development near Orlando. Imagine picking a fight with Mickey Mouse, and losing.
Our opprobrium, however, should extend beyond the pudding-fingered mouse-baiter to the billionaire backing him. Elon Musk has made much of helping DeSantis to launch his presidential campaign on Twitter Spaces. So far, so Roman Roy. Tragically for these wannabe supervillains – and comedically for the rest of us – the tech let them down. Like a wonky rocket falling to earth, the much-hyped launch failed on take-off. Glitches, radio silence, buffering.
Let’s hope it’s an omen. Meanwhile, even as a straight white post-fertile woman, I won’t be going to Florida on my holidays anytime soon.
