Donald Trump Finally Posted Again On Truth Social. Welcome To The Future Of Politics - Forbes

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In case you’ve been wondering why Truth Social exists and why it’s gaining traction with users this month, I’ve got some fresh news for you.

A political candidate like Donald Trump, who hasn’t technically announced he is running for office again, has started posting on his own Truth Social app. This could be a sign of things to come in political circles. Here’s why.

In technology, the concept of “one-to-many” messaging has been around at least since the 90s when popular messaging apps like ICQ and others allowed you to broadcast a message to your followers. These apps were the precursor to social media platforms, which essentially do the same thing. A “post” on Facebook is a one-to-many message and so is a tweet.

What’s new with Truth Social is that it’s a political app disguised as a social media platform. Now that Donald Trump is starting to post “truths” (as they are known) to his two million followers, it almost feels like the campaign has begun, and Truth Social has become the main conduit of communication. Trump was likely waiting until he had around two million followers before he started posting.

This puts other candidates in a bind, if Trump does decide to start his campaign. (And, honestly, why wouldn’t he make a run for office again. He has a massive base ready to vote for him again.) It might be President Biden or someone else, but they won’t have a “one-to-many” platform meant solely—or at least primarily—for broadcasting political messages to millions of people.

Trump controls his own political messaging conduit, and he could easily adjust policies and features to suit his needs. He can cherry-pick users, and control the debate.

Truth Social is a simple, easy to use app that doesn’t exactly set a new standard for social media features. It’s essentially just Twitter with a different name and different terminology. I don’t particularly like it or see how it could succeed, but it’s currently the most popular app right now on the app store. Even if you strongly disagree with the politics, it is something to behold. A potential political candidate now owns and operates a powerful social media platform.

We’ve never seen this before. You may recall that President Obama did take advantage of emerging technology during his campaigns and had an impressive digital strategy. His political ascent coincided with the rise of smartphones and apps. It’s no coincidence that younger voters found out about Obama in those early days because they were early adopters of technology, and the campaign was constantly reaching a wide audience in the digital space.

And yet, even President Obama didn’t have his own social media app with millions of users all ready to support a candidate. In looking through the comments on Trump’s first post where he said “I’m back” on Truth Social, most of them seem like people cheering for him at a political rally.

Imagine how Trump will be able to post about his political views, announce campaign rallies, trounce his adversaries, and stir up his base all without any restrictions.

And, imagine another candidate trying to make any traction on the app. Good luck with that.

Amazingly, there’s been some debate about whether Trump will go back to Twitter. If you look at the Truth Social app and what appears to be a newfound excitement, posts from followers who are all cheering on their candidate, and the unrestricted and unfiltered nature of the platform, it makes you wonder why Trump would even bother with Twitter ever again.

Spoiler alert, he won’t.

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Smerconish viewer stick-figure politics - CNN

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Smerconish viewer stick-figure politics  CNN

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Drug Sentencing Bill Is in Limbo as Midterm Politics Paralyze Congress - The New York Times

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A broadly supported bipartisan measure to eliminate a racial disparity in drug sentencing faces a difficult road as Republicans seek to weaponize the issue of crime against Democrats.

WASHINGTON — The Equal Act would appear to be a slam dunk even in a badly divided Congress.

The legislation, which aims to end a longstanding racial disparity in federal prison sentences for drug possession, passed the House overwhelmingly last year, with more than 360 votes. It has been enthusiastically embraced on the left and right and by law enforcement as a long-overdue fix for a biased policy. It has filibuster-proof bipartisan support in the Senate and the endorsement of President Biden and the Justice Department.

Yet with control of Congress at stake and Republicans weaponizing a law-and-order message against Democrats in their midterm election campaigns, the fate of the measure is in doubt. Democrats worry that bringing it up would allow Republicans to demand a series of votes that could make them look soft on crime and lax on immigration — risks they are reluctant to take months before they face voters.

Even the measure’s Republican backers concede that bringing it to the floor could lead to an array of difficult votes.

“I assume the topic opens itself pretty wide,” said Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, who became the 11th member of his party to sign on to the Equal Act this month, giving its supporters more than the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural obstacles.

The drug legislation is not the only bipartisan bill caught in a midterm political squeeze. A multibillion-dollar Covid relief package has been languishing for weeks, as Republicans insist that consideration of the measure must include a vote on retaining pandemic-era immigration restrictions that the Biden administration wants to lift.

Democrats are increasingly at odds with the administration over its plan to wind down the public-health rule, known as Title 42. A vote would underscore that division and potentially open some of them to a politically difficult vote.

Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, became the 11th member of his party to sign on to the legislation this month.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

The uncertainty surrounding the bipartisan bills is a clear sign that if legislating on Capitol Hill is not already done for the year, that moment is fast approaching.

Given the calendar, virtually any legislation that reaches the floor is bound to attract trouble. Even consensus measures are at risk unless enough supporters in both parties agree to band together to reject politically difficult votes that could lend themselves to 30-second attack ads — the kind of deal that grows more difficult to reach each passing day.

There are exceptions. A request by Mr. Biden this week to send an additional $33 billion in aid to Ukraine to bolster the war effort is expected to draw broad bipartisan support and little dispute. Democrats are still hopeful they may be able to salvage pieces of a hulking social safety net and climate package under special rules that allow them to move forward without Republican support. But that, too, could require a series of votes orchestrated by the G.O.P. to make Democrats squirm.

“What’s hurting bipartisanship is that even when there’s enough Republican support to pass a bill, the hard-right militants sabotage it to score political points, and gridlock prevails,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader. “But there’s always hope that cooler heads prevail, and occasionally they do.”

Backers of the Equal Act and other criminal justice legislation said they hoped that was true for them. They insist that they can still get their bill passed this year, and that opposition will backfire politically.

“This is a real opportunity for bipartisan achievement to eliminate one of the worst vestiges of injustice from American drug policy,” said Holly Harris, the president and executive director of the Justice Action Network and a leading proponent of criminal justice changes. “Those who seek to thwart this opportunity for 15 minutes of fame, five minutes of fame — I don’t think that’s going to be rewarded by voters.”

The measure has bipartisan support in the Senate and the endorsement of President Biden and the Justice Department.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

In a letter to Senate leaders this week, Ms. Harris’s group and about 50 law enforcement, progressive and conservative organizations urged them to quickly take up the legislation, saying that “we cannot miss this moment to right this decades-long wrong.”

The legislation would eliminate the current 18-to-1 disparity in sentencing for crack cocaine versus powder. The policy that can be traced to the “war on drugs” mind-set of the 1980s, which treated those trafficking in crack cocaine more harshly. It resulted in a disproportionate number of Black Americans facing longer sentences for drug offenses than white Americans, who were usually arrested with the powder version.

As a senator, Mr. Biden was one of the champions of the policy; it has since become widely discredited, and he has disavowed it.

The United States Sentencing Commission has said that passage of the legislation could reduce the sentences of more than 7,600 federal prisoners. The average 14-year sentence would be cut by about six years, it estimated.

Though Mr. Schumer endorsed the legislation in April, he has not laid out a timeline for bringing it to the floor. Democrats say he is giving backers of the bill a chance to build additional support and find a way to advance the measure without causing a floor fight that could take weeks — time that Democrats do not have if they want to continue to win approval of new judges and take care of other business before the end of the year.

“Getting the opportunity is the challenge,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and one of the original sponsors of the legislation. “We just don’t move many free-standing bills which involve some controversy.”

Its supporters say that they recognize the difficulties but believe that it is the single piece of criminal justice legislation with a chance of reaching the president’s desk in the current political environment.

“Of all the criminal justice bills, this is the one that is set up for success right now,” said Inimai Chettiar, the federal director for the Justice Action Network. “It is not going to be easy on the floor, but I think it is doable.”

The problem is that the push comes as top Republicans have made clear that they intend to try to capitalize on public concern about increasing crime in the battle for Senate and House control in November.

The approach was crystallized in their attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings last month, as they accused her of leniency in sentencing. Given the rise in crime and drug overdoses, some Republicans say they are also having second thoughts about the landmark First Step Act, a sweeping bipartisan law passed in 2018 that freed thousands from prison after their sentences were reduced in a bid to ease mass incarceration.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, this week reprised his criticism of Judge Jackson and attacked Mr. Biden for having issued his first round of pardons and commutations, including for those convicted of drug crimes.

“They never miss an opportunity to send the wrong signal,” he said of Democrats.

Senator Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Republican who led the opposition to the First Step Act, said he was in no mood to let the Equal Act sail through. He has said that if the disparity is to be erased, penalties for powder cocaine should be increased.

Demonstrators at a criminal justice reform rally in Washington in 2018.Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images

“My opposition to the Equal Act will be as strong as my opposition to the First Step Act,” Mr. Cotton said.

The legislation encountered another complication on Thursday, when Senators Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Mike Lee of Utah, two top Republican supporters of the previous criminal justice overhaul, introduced a competing bill that would reduce — but not eliminate — the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. They said that research showed that crack traffickers were more likely to return to crime and carry deadly weapons.

“Our legislation will significantly reduce this disparity while ensuring those more likely to reoffend face appropriate penalties,” said Mr. Grassley, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

Sponsors of the Equal Act say they intend to push forward and remain optimistic that they can overcome the difficulties.

“We’ve got an amazing bill, and we’ve got 11 Republicans and people want to get this done,” said Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey and the lead sponsor of the legislation. “My hope is that we are going to have a shot to get this done right now.”

Ms. Harris said that Democrats must recognize Republicans will attack them as soft on crime regardless of whether they act on the measure.

“They are fearing something that is already happening,” she said. “Why not dig in, stay true to your principles, and do what is right for the American people? Maybe, just maybe, the politics will shake out.”

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Political cartoon shared by Elon Musk is being sold as an NFT - New York Post

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The creator of the political cartoon Elon Musk used to illustrate his current political views is looking to cash in after his sketch sparked a viral social media debate.

Colin Wright, a contributing editor for the online culture commentary site Quillette, is selling the cartoon as an NFT and has opened bidding on the OpenSea digital marketplace.

The auction page for the drawing – dubbed “my political journal” – showed at least two active bids. The top bid for 1.25 ether – a prominent cryptocurrency token – is worth nearly $3,600.

“The auction for the #NFT of my political cartoon that @elonmusk shared (230K retweets, 1.3M likes) is currently at 1.25 $ETH! There are 13 days left to bid, so don’t miss your chance to own a bit of internet history!” Wright wrote in an update on Friday afternoon.

Musk caused a stir on Thursday when he tweeted out Wright’s cartoon. It depicts a stick figure standing slightly left-of-center on the political spectrum as of 2008 – only to end up as right-leaning conservative in 2021 as a figure labeled “woke progressive” gradually moved further left during the intervening years.

Musk, who is in the process of buying Twitter for $44 billion, later elaborated on his political stance, noting he was a staunch supporter of Democratic former President Barack Obama. However, he asserted the current Democratic party has been “hijacked by extremists.”

“The far left hates everyone, themselves included!” Musk tweeted Friday morning.

Elon Musk’s Twitter buy has angered left-leaning pundits and activists.

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Musk followed minutes later, adding, “But I’m no fan of the far right either. Let’s have less hate and more love.”

The NFT auction isn’t Wright’s only effort to monetize the cartoon. In a post thanking Musk for his post, he also posted an Etsy listing for a mug depicting the political doodle.

In another tweet, Wright said he “really [loved] the discussion it has kindled.”

“Though admittedly simplistic, I think it speaks to a truth many feel. Of course, politics are more complex than can be captured in a political cartoon with stick figures,” he said.

Thank you! I really love the discussion it has kindled. Though admittedly simplistic, I think it speaks to a truth many feel. Of course, politics are more complex than can be captured in a political cartoon with stick figures.

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) April 29, 2022

Musk’s decision to share the drawing further roiled left-leaning Twitter users and pundits, who have already expressed concern that his dedication to free speech absolutism will clear the way for more abusive and harmful posts on the platform.

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How DeSantis Transformed Florida’s Political Identity - The New York Times

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The state has become an unlikely laboratory for right-wing policy, pushed by a governor with presidential ambitions.

MIAMI — Florida feels like a state running a fever, its very identity changing at a frenetic pace.

Once the biggest traditional presidential battleground, it has suddenly turned into a laboratory of possibility for the political right.

Discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity prohibited in early elementary school. Math textbooks rejected en masse for what the state called “indoctrination.” Schools and employers limited in what they can teach about racism and other aspects of history. Tenured professors in public universities subjected to new reviews. Abortions banned after 15 weeks. The creation of a law enforcement office to investigate election crimes. A congressional map redrawn to give Republicans an even bigger advantage.

And, perhaps most stunning of all, Disney, long an untouchable corporate giant, stripped of the ability to govern itself for the first time in more than half a century, in retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. conversations with young schoolchildren.

“It does have this feeling of, ‘Oh, what the hell just happened?’” said Kristen Arnett, a novelist and Orlando native who now lives in Miami. “It’s overwhelming.”

Florida has transformed over the past two years as Gov. Ron DeSantis has increased and flexed his power to remarkable effect, embracing policies that once seemed unthinkable. That has made the Republican governor a favorite of the party’s Fox News-viewing base and turned him into a possible presidential contender.

Mr. DeSantis displayed the signed Parental Rights in Education law, known by opponents as “Don’t Say Gay,” while flanked by elementary school students.Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times, via Associated Press

Mr. DeSantis has demurred on the question of whether he will seek the White House in 2024 even if former President Donald J. Trump runs again. Mr. Trump has retired — for now — to his Palm Beach estate of Mar-a-Lago and looms as his party’s king or kingmaker. Yet it is Mr. DeSantis who has kept Florida in the national spotlight — relentlessly.

Bob Buckhorn, the former Democratic mayor of Tampa, blamed a combination of factors for Florida’s sudden turn: Mr. DeSantis’s ambition, national culture wars and Mr. Trump, for having “given voice to all of the ugliness and the demons that inhabit Americans.”

“It’s just an unholy alliance of circumstances that have come together that allow this type of politics to occur,” Mr. Buckhorn said.

Not long ago, such a shift would have seemed out of the question in a state notorious for its tight election margins and nail-biting recounts. Mr. DeSantis won the governorship by about 32,000 votes in 2018, hardly a mandate. His aloof personality did not exactly sparkle.

But beginning in 2020, a politically attuned Mr. DeSantis seized on discontent with coronavirus pandemic policies, betting that economic prosperity and individual liberties would matter more to voters in the long run than protecting public health. More than 73,000 Floridians have died of Covid-19, yet public opinion polls have shown that Mr. DeSantis and many of his policies remain quite popular.

Parents, especially, who cheered the governor’s opposition to Covid-19 restrictions in schools, have remained active on issues of curriculum and culture.

“I think the governor is more popular than Disney — I think the governor is more popular than the former president,” said Anthony Pedicini, a Republican strategist in Tampa. “If you’re running for office as a Republican in Florida and you aren’t toeing the DeSantis mantra, you will not win.”

The question now for Mr. DeSantis — and virtually everyone else in Florida — is whether the rightward lurch will stop, either by court intervention, corporate backlash or, come November, electoral rebuke. But given Florida’s trends in recent years, the more likely outcome could be a sustained campaign toward a new, more rigid conservative orthodoxy, one that voters could very well ratify this fall.

The state’s swift and unexpected rightward tilt has happened as Florida has swelled with new residents. Between July 2020 and July 2021, about 260,000 more people arrived than left, a net migration higher than any other state. The trend began before the pandemic but appeared to accelerate as remote workers sought warm weather, low taxes and few public health restrictions.

Culturally, Floridians have been less conservative than their leaders. They have voted by large margins to legalize medical marijuana, prohibit gerrymandering and restore felons’ voting rights. (Last year, Republican lawmakers passed limits on the use of such citizen-led ballot initiatives.) So the recent rash of legislation has been met with trepidation in the state’s big cities, which are almost all run by Democrats.

“I’m not exactly sure what DeSantis is trying to prove,” Brian Hill, an energy consultant, said on a sun-swept morning this week in downtown Orlando’s Lake Eola Park, near the Walt Disney Amphitheater, which is painted in rainbow colors in celebration of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

In 2016, a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 others at Pulse, a gay nightclub in town. The amphitheater, Mr. Hill said, is “a symbol of how far we’ve come.” He contrasted it with the law restricting sexual orientation and gender identity discussions through third grade, a measure that supporters said promoted parental rights but critics called “Don’t Say Gay.”

“The bill is taking schools back to the ’80s, to be honest,” said Mr. Hill, 52, who has lived in Orlando for two years. “It’s not realistic with today’s society.”

Mr. DeSantis has demurred on the question of whether he will seek the White House in 2024 even if former President Donald J. Trump runs again.Doug Mills/The New York Times

Going after Disney seemed doubly strange to some Orlando residents, considering how Mr. DeSantis fought to keep businesses open during the pandemic, a boon to tourism and theme parks. “The magic is back!” his Twitter account proclaimed in August 2020 after a Disney vice president took part in one of his events.

Even some residents who generally like the governor worry that his battle with Disney has gone too far. One DeSantis supporter interviewed outside a sports club in the Orlando suburbs declined to give his name but said revoking Disney’s special tax status was “cancel culture-esque.” (Disney told investors this week that its tax district cannot be dissolved unless the state assumes its existing bond debt, the Orlando NBC News affiliate WESH reported.)

May von Scherrer, 35, came to Florida from Puerto Rico in 2017 and said she had found it “thrilling” to support the Black Lives Matter movement in marches during the summer of 2020. That time now feels very distant.

“I’ve never felt more like those sci-fi dystopian futures,” she said. “That’s what’s happening now. We’re living in them.”

But few political observers expect distaste with Mr. DeSantis and his policies to translate into robust opposition come Election Day. Florida Democrats lack the organization, funding and leadership required to mount a vast and expensive campaign. They have also lost their edge in voter registrations; Republicans now hold a narrow advantage.

“People who love DeSantis are super jazzed,” said Nate Monroe, metro columnist for The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville and a frequent DeSantis critic. “People who don’t — and there are a considerable number of people who don’t in the state — are just kind of like, ‘Eh, it’s hopeless, why even bother at this point.’”

Mr. DeSantis holds near daily public events in which he bashes President Biden while supporters lavish him with unmitigated praise. He exerts such dominance over Florida Republicans that a candidate for agriculture commissioner dropped out after the governor endorsed his opponent on Twitter. And he has raised more than $100 million, an extraordinary sum, from donors all over the country.

Last Friday, Mr. DeSantis signed into law the restrictions on how racism and other aspects of history can be taught in schools and workplaces, known as the “Stop WOKE Act,” in an elaborate ceremony in which supporters described him as brave and bold.

Among those present were parents who opposed school closures, quarantines and mask mandates during the pandemic — and then remained engaged on other education matters. Mr. DeSantis has repeatedly featured those voices to cast his policies as common sense.

Christine Chaparro said she would be pulling her children out of the Broward County public schools after her son brought home language arts workbooks that cited the co-author of an antiracism book and mentioned Black Lives Matter and Stacey Abrams’s voter suppression claims in the 2018 Georgia governor’s race.

“I disagree that what is in my kids’ benchmark assessment workbooks is accurate history or a lens that belongs in an elementary school classroom,” she said.

A day earlier, Democrats had briefly shut down a special legislative session to protest the passage of the new congressional map. Mr. DeSantis had demanded the redrawing of two districts held by Black Democrats, and Republicans had acquiesced. Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor.

State Representatives Travaris McCurdy and Angie Nixon protest a redistricting proposal pushed by the governor and approved last week. Phil Sears/Associated Press

“You can only hold people down for so long before they will do anything that it takes to make their voices heard,” State Representative Fentrice Driskell, Democrat of Tampa, said. “The governor has interfered in this process, and it’s wrong.”

Meantime, parts of Florida remain unaffordable, especially for its many low-wage workers. Property insurance rates rose 25 percent on average in 2021, compared with 4 percent nationally, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Another special session has been called for May to address the crisis.

Despite all the charged rhetoric and national headlines, Ms. Arnett, the novelist, said her daily life was not much different from before.

“If you put on the TV or you look at the news at what’s going on, it seems like Florida is a conservative hellhole,” she said. “When you’re living in Florida and interacting with people and moving through your day-to-day life, it doesn’t feel that way at all.”

The challenge, she added, is understanding what the changes in the state mean and what to do about them.

“Every day, every other day, something is happening, so you don’t have time to address and solve a problem,” she said. “It’s like warp speed on all of this stuff.”

Eric Adelson contributed reporting from Orlando.

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Kathy Hochul’s Political Future Gets Complicated - Vanity Fair

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Scandal forces out her lieutenant governor, her tax-funded Buffalo Bills stadium is unpopular, crime is on the rise, and Cuomo is in the shadows throwing barbs.

By Chris Smith

April 28, 2022

New York Governor Kathy Hochul presents Empire Building Playbook at The Empire State Building on April 21, 2022 in New York City. By John Lamparski/Empire State Realty Trust/Getty Images 

Kathy Hochul was cruising. Suddenly propelled from obscurity into the New York governor’s office last August, she moved quickly and shrewdly to amass more than $20 million in campaign contributions toward winning a full term in the job, a show of force that helped push Hochul’s strongest rival, state attorney general Letitia James, out of the race, pretty much clearing the Democratic primary field. Hochul, a former congresswoman, seemed perfectly cast for the moment: a cheerful, outgoing woman replacing a raging, scheming man, Andrew Cuomo, who had resigned in disgrace because of a sexual harassment scandal(Cuomo has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing). The glaring contrast produced glowing media coverage of Hochul as New York’s first female governor. It also produced widespread relief in the state’s political class after nearly 12 years of Cuomo’s machinations. “She’s rational,” a senior New York Republican told me about one month into Hochul’s reign. “It’s amazing.”

It's a funny thing, though, about going from being a breath of fresh air to actually doing the job of governor: You need to make decisions, and those choices inevitably piss off some people. Hochul’s billion-dollar, mostly taxpayer-funded gift of a new National Football League stadium to her native Buffalo is not playing well with the rest of the state’s voters. Oh, and this being New York state politics, elected officials tend to get arrested—most recently, the guy Hochul chose to replace her as lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin. Benjamin had initially appeared to be a crafty pick: Black voters in New York City are a crucial bloc in Democratic primaries, and Benjamin—Black and from Harlem—could have been a useful link for Hochul. But in mid-April Benjamin, accused of trading state money for campaign cash, was indicted by federal prosecutors and promptly resigned, though he has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Hochul has yet to select a replacement.

For all the headlines generated by the bad economics of the Buffalo Bills stadium deal and the allegedly bad behavior of Benjamin, another issue is a more potent problem for Hochul as she tries to establish a firm claim on the governor’s job: the rise in crime, particularly in New York City. The key question is how much she gets blamed for it.“It’s unfair, but this is an election year where being a woman running for a chief executive role is going to be a net negative, because of public safety,” a top New York Democratic strategist says. “She’s a uniquely weak general election candidate in a year when crime is a priority, and now, with Benjamin, she’s got at least a stain of corruption.”

The public, nationally, is in a sour mood when it comes to incumbents, which helps to drag down the governor’s poll numbers and make her political future far more complicated, with June’s Democratic primary closing in and with Cuomo lurking in the shadows. On Monday a Siena College poll showed Hochul’s personal appeal holding steady, but her job performance number underwater—with 57 percent disapproving—and nearly half of those surveyed claiming they’d vote for “someone else” in November if Hochul is on the ballot as the Democratic nominee. “They’re questioning her judgment,” says Bruce Gyory, a veteran Democratic strategist. “She isn’t as strong as she looked in January, when a confluence of factors were in her favor. But the bottom line is to be elected governor of New York, particularly as a Democrat, you need to be able to form a multiracial and cross-regional coalition. And right now she’s the only candidate in position to do that.”

She has a challenger to her left in the Democratic primary—New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams—and one to her right, Representative Tom Suozzi of Long Island. Both have so far failed to get any traction, and the campaign’s first debate is still unscheduled. The leading candidates for the Republican nomination are Andrew (son of Rudy) Giuliani, who has never held elective office, and Representative Lee Zeldin, of Long Island. Both are largely unknown to statewide voters, and Hochul’s camp would be highly confident running against either one, especially considering that New York Democrats enjoy a 4 million voter registration advantage over Republicans. “You always have to worry about everything,” a Hochul insider says. “But Zeldin and Giuliani are tied to the single most unpopular person in the state of New York—and that’s Donald Trump.”

Far more popular, however, despite having resigned in disgrace, is Cuomo; the ex-governor also possesses about $16 million in campaign money, and Cuomo has been popping up in public, stoking speculation about his intentions. In practical terms, though, Cuomo is rapidly running out of time to get on the fall ballot as an independent, with about four weeks left to collect thousands of petition signatures. He hasn’t made any move to hire the necessary solicitors. The more likely scenario is that Cuomo keeps lobbing attacks at Hochul from the sidelines, as he did in a recent Daily News op-ed. “Does he care if that could help elect a Republican? Are you kidding me?” says the top Democratic strategist, who knows Cuomo well, laughing. “This is a chaos agent. If he can’t have power, no one should have power.”

“We didn’t tell her to appoint Brian Benjamin. We didn’t tell her to build the Bills stadium,” Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi says. “The governor has made it clear from the beginning that if he’s got something to say, he’s gonna say it. Nothing has changed. He continues to evaluate his options.”

A Hochul campaign spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment. There are no sure things in politics, of course, but at this point Hochul remains a solid front-runner. How she navigates her current troubles, though, and dodges any grenades Cuomo may throw her way, will determine whether Hochul wins decisively enough to establish a mandate to lead for the next four years.

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How DeSantis Transformed Florida’s Political Identity - The New York Times

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The state has become an unlikely laboratory for right-wing policy, pushed by a governor with presidential ambitions.

MIAMI — Florida feels like a state running a fever, its very identity changing at a frenetic pace.

Once the biggest traditional presidential battleground, it has suddenly turned into a laboratory of possibility for the political right.

Discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity prohibited in early elementary school. Math textbooks rejected en masse for what the state called “indoctrination.” Schools and employers limited in what they can teach about racism and other aspects of history. Tenured professors in public universities subjected to new reviews. Abortions banned after 15 weeks. The creation of a law enforcement office to investigate election crimes. A congressional map redrawn to give Republicans an even bigger advantage.

And, perhaps most stunning of all, Disney, long an untouchable corporate giant, stripped of the ability to govern itself for the first time in more than half a century, in retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. conversations with young schoolchildren.

“It does have this feeling of, ‘Oh, what the hell just happened?’” said Kristen Arnett, a novelist and Orlando native who now lives in Miami. “It’s overwhelming.”

Florida has transformed over the past two years as Gov. Ron DeSantis has increased and flexed his power to remarkable effect, embracing policies that once seemed unthinkable. That has made the Republican governor a favorite of the party’s Fox News-viewing base and turned him into a possible presidential contender.

Mr. DeSantis displayed the signed Parental Rights in Education law, known by opponents as “Don’t Say Gay,” while flanked by elementary school students.Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times, via Associated Press

Mr. DeSantis has demurred on the question of whether he will seek the White House in 2024 even if former President Donald J. Trump runs again. Mr. Trump has retired — for now — to his Palm Beach estate of Mar-a-Lago and looms as his party’s king or kingmaker. Yet it is Mr. DeSantis who has kept Florida in the national spotlight — relentlessly.

Bob Buckhorn, the former Democratic mayor of Tampa, blamed a combination of factors for Florida’s sudden turn: Mr. DeSantis’s ambition, national culture wars and Mr. Trump, for having “given voice to all of the ugliness and the demons that inhabit Americans.”

“It’s just an unholy alliance of circumstances that have come together that allow this type of politics to occur,” Mr. Buckhorn said.

Not long ago, such a shift would have seemed out of the question in a state notorious for its tight election margins and nail-biting recounts. Mr. DeSantis won the governorship by about 32,000 votes in 2018, hardly a mandate. His aloof personality did not exactly sparkle.

But beginning in 2020, a politically attuned Mr. DeSantis seized on discontent with coronavirus pandemic policies, betting that economic prosperity and individual liberties would matter more to voters in the long run than protecting public health. More than 73,000 Floridians have died of Covid-19, yet public opinion polls have shown that Mr. DeSantis and many of his policies remain quite popular.

Parents, especially, who cheered the governor’s opposition to Covid-19 restrictions in schools, have remained active on issues of curriculum and culture.

“I think the governor is more popular than Disney — I think the governor is more popular than the former president,” said Anthony Pedicini, a Republican strategist in Tampa. “If you’re running for office as a Republican in Florida and you aren’t toeing the DeSantis mantra, you will not win.”

The question now for Mr. DeSantis — and virtually everyone else in Florida — is whether the rightward lurch will stop, either by court intervention, corporate backlash or, come November, electoral rebuke. But given Florida’s trends in recent years, the more likely outcome could be a sustained campaign toward a new, more rigid conservative orthodoxy, one that voters could very well ratify this fall.

The state’s swift and unexpected rightward tilt has happened as Florida has swelled with new residents. Between July 2020 and July 2021, about 260,000 more people arrived than left, a net migration higher than any other state. The trend began before the pandemic but appeared to accelerate as remote workers sought warm weather, low taxes and few public health restrictions.

Culturally, Floridians have been less conservative than their leaders. They have voted by large margins to legalize medical marijuana, prohibit gerrymandering and restore felons’ voting rights. (Last year, Republican lawmakers passed limits on the use of such citizen-led ballot initiatives.) So the recent rash of legislation has been met with trepidation in the state’s big cities, which are almost all run by Democrats.

“I’m not exactly sure what DeSantis is trying to prove,” Brian Hill, an energy consultant, said on a sun-swept morning this week in downtown Orlando’s Lake Eola Park, near the Walt Disney Amphitheater, which is painted in rainbow colors in celebration of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

In 2016, a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 others at Pulse, a gay nightclub in town. The amphitheater, Mr. Hill said, is “a symbol of how far we’ve come.” He contrasted it with the law restricting sexual orientation and gender identity discussions through third grade, a measure that supporters said promoted parental rights but critics called “Don’t Say Gay.”

“The bill is taking schools back to the ’80s, to be honest,” said Mr. Hill, 52, who has lived in Orlando for two years. “It’s not realistic with today’s society.”

Mr. DeSantis has demurred on the question of whether he will seek the White House in 2024 even if former President Donald J. Trump runs again.Doug Mills/The New York Times

Going after Disney seemed doubly strange to some Orlando residents, considering how Mr. DeSantis fought to keep businesses open during the pandemic, a boon to tourism and theme parks. “The magic is back!” his Twitter account proclaimed in August 2020 after a Disney vice president took part in one of his events.

Even some residents who generally like the governor worry that his battle with Disney has gone too far. One DeSantis supporter interviewed outside a sports club in the Orlando suburbs declined to give his name but said revoking Disney’s special tax status was “cancel culture-esque.” (Disney told investors this week that its tax district cannot be dissolved unless the state assumes its existing bond debt, the Orlando NBC News affiliate WESH reported.)

May von Scherrer, 35, came to Florida from Puerto Rico in 2017 and said she had found it “thrilling” to support the Black Lives Matter movement in marches during the summer of 2020. That time now feels very distant.

“I’ve never felt more like those sci-fi dystopian futures,” she said. “That’s what’s happening now. We’re living in them.”

But few political observers expect distaste with Mr. DeSantis and his policies to translate into robust opposition come Election Day. Florida Democrats lack the organization, funding and leadership required to mount a vast and expensive campaign. They have also lost their edge in voter registrations; Republicans now hold a narrow advantage.

“People who love DeSantis are super jazzed,” said Nate Monroe, metro columnist for The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville and a frequent DeSantis critic. “People who don’t — and there are a considerable number of people who don’t in the state — are just kind of like, ‘Eh, it’s hopeless, why even bother at this point.’”

Mr. DeSantis holds near daily public events in which he bashes President Biden while supporters lavish him with unmitigated praise. He exerts such dominance over Florida Republicans that a candidate for agriculture commissioner dropped out after the governor endorsed his opponent on Twitter. And he has raised more than $100 million, an extraordinary sum, from donors all over the country.

Last Friday, Mr. DeSantis signed into law the restrictions on how racism and other aspects of history can be taught in schools and workplaces, known as the “Stop WOKE Act,” in an elaborate ceremony in which supporters described him as brave and bold.

Among those present were parents who opposed school closures, quarantines and mask mandates during the pandemic — and then remained engaged on other education matters. Mr. DeSantis has repeatedly featured those voices to cast his policies as common sense.

Christine Chaparro said she would be pulling her children out of the Broward County public schools after her son brought home language arts workbooks that cited the co-author of an antiracism book and mentioned Black Lives Matter and Stacey Abrams’s voter suppression claims in the 2018 Georgia governor’s race.

“I disagree that what is in my kids’ benchmark assessment workbooks is accurate history or a lens that belongs in an elementary school classroom,” she said.

A day earlier, Democrats had briefly shut down a special legislative session to protest the passage of the new congressional map. Mr. DeSantis had demanded the redrawing of two districts held by Black Democrats, and Republicans had acquiesced. Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor.

State Representatives Travaris McCurdy and Angie Nixon protest a redistricting proposal pushed by the governor and approved last week. Phil Sears/Associated Press

“You can only hold people down for so long before they will do anything that it takes to make their voices heard,” State Representative Fentrice Driskell, Democrat of Tampa, said. “The governor has interfered in this process, and it’s wrong.”

Meantime, parts of Florida remain unaffordable, especially for its many low-wage workers. Property insurance rates rose 25 percent on average in 2021, compared with 4 percent nationally, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Another special session has been called for May to address the crisis.

Despite all the charged rhetoric and national headlines, Ms. Arnett, the novelist, said her daily life was not much different from before.

“If you put on the TV or you look at the news at what’s going on, it seems like Florida is a conservative hellhole,” she said. “When you’re living in Florida and interacting with people and moving through your day-to-day life, it doesn’t feel that way at all.”

The challenge, she added, is understanding what the changes in the state mean and what to do about them.

“Every day, every other day, something is happening, so you don’t have time to address and solve a problem,” she said. “It’s like warp speed on all of this stuff.”

Eric Adelson contributed reporting from Orlando.

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The state has become an unlikely laboratory for right-wing policy, pushed by a governor with presidential ambitions.

MIAMI — Florida feels like a state running a fever, its very identity changing at a frenetic pace.

Once the biggest traditional presidential battleground, it has suddenly turned into a laboratory of possibility for the political right.

Discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity prohibited in early elementary school. Math textbooks rejected en masse for what the state called “indoctrination.” Schools and employers limited in what they can teach about racism and other aspects of history. Tenured professors in public universities subjected to new reviews. Abortions banned after 15 weeks. The creation of a law enforcement office to investigate election crimes. A congressional map redrawn to give Republicans an even bigger advantage.

And, perhaps most stunning of all, Disney, long an untouchable corporate giant, stripped of the ability to govern itself for the first time in more than half a century, in retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. conversations with young schoolchildren.

“It does have this feeling of, ‘Oh, what the hell just happened?’” said Kristen Arnett, a novelist and Orlando native who now lives in Miami. “It’s overwhelming.”

Florida has transformed over the past two years as Gov. Ron DeSantis has increased and flexed his power to remarkable effect, embracing policies that once seemed unthinkable. That has made the Republican governor a favorite of the party’s Fox News-viewing base and turned him into a possible presidential contender.

Mr. DeSantis displayed the signed Parental Rights in Education law, known by opponents as “Don’t Say Gay,” while flanked by elementary school students.Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times, via Associated Press

Mr. DeSantis has demurred on the question of whether he will seek the White House in 2024 even if former President Donald J. Trump runs again. Mr. Trump has retired — for now — to his Palm Beach estate of Mar-a-Lago and looms as his party’s king or kingmaker. Yet it is Mr. DeSantis who has kept Florida in the national spotlight — relentlessly.

Bob Buckhorn, the former Democratic mayor of Tampa, blamed a combination of factors for Florida’s sudden turn: Mr. DeSantis’s ambition, national culture wars and Mr. Trump, for having “given voice to all of the ugliness and the demons that inhabit Americans.”

“It’s just an unholy alliance of circumstances that have come together that allow this type of politics to occur,” Mr. Buckhorn said.

Not long ago, such a shift would have seemed out of the question in a state notorious for its tight election margins and nail-biting recounts. Mr. DeSantis won the governorship by about 32,000 votes in 2018, hardly a mandate. His aloof personality did not exactly sparkle.

But beginning in 2020, a politically attuned Mr. DeSantis seized on discontent with coronavirus pandemic policies, betting that economic prosperity and individual liberties would matter more to voters in the long run than protecting public health. More than 73,000 Floridians have died of Covid-19, yet public opinion polls have shown that Mr. DeSantis and many of his policies remain quite popular.

Parents, especially, who cheered the governor’s opposition to Covid-19 restrictions in schools, have remained active on issues of curriculum and culture.

“I think the governor is more popular than Disney — I think the governor is more popular than the former president,” said Anthony Pedicini, a Republican strategist in Tampa. “If you’re running for office as a Republican in Florida and you aren’t toeing the DeSantis mantra, you will not win.”

The question now for Mr. DeSantis — and virtually everyone else in Florida — is whether the rightward lurch will stop, either by court intervention, corporate backlash or, come November, electoral rebuke. But given Florida’s trends in recent years, the more likely outcome could be a sustained campaign toward a new, more rigid conservative orthodoxy, one that voters could very well ratify this fall.

The state’s swift and unexpected rightward tilt has happened as Florida has swelled with new residents. Between July 2020 and July 2021, about 260,000 more people arrived than left, a net migration higher than any other state. The trend began before the pandemic but appeared to accelerate as remote workers sought warm weather, low taxes and few public health restrictions.

Culturally, Floridians have been less conservative than their leaders. They have voted by large margins to legalize medical marijuana, prohibit gerrymandering and restore felons’ voting rights. (Last year, Republican lawmakers passed limits on the use of such citizen-led ballot initiatives.) So the recent rash of legislation has been met with trepidation in the state’s big cities, which are almost all run by Democrats.

“I’m not exactly sure what DeSantis is trying to prove,” said Brian Hill, an energy consultant, on a sun-swept morning this week in downtown Orlando’s Lake Eola Park, near the Walt Disney Amphitheater, which is painted in rainbow colors in celebration of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

In 2016, a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 others at Pulse, a gay nightclub in town. The amphitheater, Mr. Hill said, is “a symbol of how far we’ve come.” He contrasted it with the law restricting sexual orientation and gender identity discussions through third grade, a measure that supporters said promoted parental rights but critics called “Don’t Say Gay.”

“The bill is taking schools back to the ’80s, to be honest,” said Mr. Hill, 52, who has lived in Orlando for two years. “It’s not realistic with today’s society.”

Mr. DeSantis has demurred on the question of whether he will seek the White House in 2024 even if former President Donald J. Trump runs again.Doug Mills/The New York Times

Going after Disney seemed doubly strange to some Orlando residents, considering how Mr. DeSantis fought to keep businesses open during the pandemic, a boon to tourism and theme parks. “The magic is back!” his Twitter account proclaimed in August 2020 after a Disney vice president took part in one of his events.

Even some residents who generally like the governor worry that his battle with Disney has gone too far. One DeSantis supporter interviewed outside a sports club in the Orlando suburbs declined to give his name but said revoking Disney’s special tax status was “cancel culture-esque.” (Disney told investors this week that its tax district cannot be dissolved unless the state assumes its existing bond debt, the Orlando NBC News affiliate WESH reported.)

May von Scherrer, 35, came to Florida from Puerto Rico in 2017 and said she had found it “thrilling” to support the Black Lives Matter movement in marches during the summer of 2020. That time now feels very distant.

“I’ve never felt more like those sci-fi dystopian futures,” she said. “That’s what’s happening now. We’re living in them.”

But few political observers expect distaste with Mr. DeSantis and his policies to translate into robust opposition come Election Day. Florida Democrats lack the organization, funding and leadership required to mount a vast and expensive campaign. They have also lost their edge in voter registrations; Republicans now hold a narrow advantage.

“People who love DeSantis are super jazzed,” said Nate Monroe, metro columnist for The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville and a frequent DeSantis critic. “People who don’t — and there are a considerable number of people who don’t in the state — are just kind of like, ‘Eh, it’s hopeless, why even bother at this point.’”

Mr. DeSantis holds near daily public events in which he bashes President Biden while supporters lavish him with unmitigated praise. He exerts such dominance over Florida Republicans that a candidate for agriculture commissioner dropped out after the governor endorsed his opponent on Twitter. And he has raised more than $100 million, an extraordinary sum, from donors all over the country.

On Friday, Mr. DeSantis signed into law the restrictions on how racism and other aspects of history can be taught in schools and workplaces, known as the “Stop WOKE Act,” in an elaborate ceremony in which supporters described him as brave and bold.

Among those present were parents who opposed school closures, quarantines and mask mandates during the pandemic — and then remained engaged on other education matters. Mr. DeSantis has repeatedly featured those voices to cast his policies as common sense.

Christine Chaparro said she would be pulling her children out of the Broward County public schools after her son brought home language arts workbooks that cited the co-author of an antiracism book and mentioned Black Lives Matter and Stacey Abrams’s voter suppression claims in the 2018 Georgia governor’s race.

“I disagree that what is in my kids’ benchmark assessment workbooks is accurate history or a lens that belongs in an elementary school classroom,” she said.

A day earlier, Democrats had briefly shut down a special legislative session to protest the passage of the new congressional map. Mr. DeSantis had demanded the redrawing of two districts held by Black Democrats, and Republicans had acquiesced. Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor.

State Representatives Travaris McCurdy and Angie Nixon protest a redistricting proposal pushed by the governor and approved last week. Phil Sears/Associated Press

“You can only hold people down for so long before they will do anything that it takes to make their voices heard,” said State Representative Fentrice Driskell, Democrat of Tampa. “The governor has interfered in this process, and it’s wrong.”

Meantime, parts of Florida remain unaffordable, especially for its many low-wage workers. Property insurance rates rose 25 percent on average in 2021, compared to 4 percent nationally, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Another special session has been called for May to address the crisis.

Despite all the charged rhetoric and national headlines, Ms. Arnett, the novelist, said her daily life is not much different from before.

“If you put on the TV or you look at the news at what’s going on, it seems like Florida is a conservative hellhole,” she said. “When you’re living in Florida and interacting with people and moving through your day-to-day life, it doesn’t feel that way at all.”

The challenge, she added, is understanding what the changes in the state mean and what to do about them.

“Every day, every other day, something is happening, so you don’t have time to address and solve a problem,” she said. “It’s like warp speed on all of this stuff.”

Eric Adelson contributed reporting from Orlando.

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Ruby Cramer named Washington Post national political enterprise reporter - The Washington Post

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Announcement from National Editor Matea Gold, Deputy National Editor Philip Rucker and Senior Politics Editor Dan Eggen:

We are thrilled to announce that Ruby Cramer, whose penetrating and carefully observed profiles of political figures have distinguished her as one of her generation’s dynamic talents, is joining The Washington Post as a national political enterprise reporter.

Ruby, who comes to The Post from Politico Magazine, will helm some of National’s most ambitious long-form stories about the people and movements shaping American politics. We anticipate her character-driven narratives will contain scoops and new insights, expanding the unrivaled coverage of candidates and campaigns from The Post’s Politics and Features staffs.

Ruby’s mission will be to understand and illuminate the forces that propel the most intriguing political figures of our day, reveal their interior lives and the contradictions with how they present themselves to the public, and elucidate the ways they use power.

She has worked for the past year at Politico Magazine as senior staff writer, specializing in short and long profiles of characters famous and unknown from across the political spectrum. She told us about Bill de Blasio’s aimless afternoon walks through Prospect Park, explored Eric Adams’s contradictions and multitudes, and captured Pete Buttigieg wrestling over how much of his true self to show the public in a documentary about his 2020 presidential campaign.

Before working at Politico, Ruby spent nearly nine years at BuzzFeed News, traveling the country to cover the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. Her deeply reported and distinctive profiles of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Bernie Sanders in 2020 asked readers to reconsider what they thought they knew about two of the most-covered candidates in modern political history. She is gifted at narrative reconstructions as well, assiduously chronicling the collapse of the 2020 Iowa caucuses and the end of the Sanders campaign. Along the way, Ruby witnessed Bill Clinton picking a fight with a 24-year-old Sanders voter at a restaurant in Santa Fe, N.M., and illuminated the grief that politics can create when she introduced us to the 30-year-old Clinton staffer who processed Hillary Clinton’s mail, including from thousands of strangers after her defeat to Donald Trump.

Ruby started out in journalism as a fact-checker at the CBS Evening News and a research assistant for the late author Michael Hastings.

Ruby’s first day will be June 6.

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