Too Cute 

A Different Race

Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida are both running for re-election against high profile opponents.  Abbott faces Beto O’Rourke the well-financed populist from El Paso.  DeSantis is running against Charlie Crist, a former Governor himself and now Congressman. Both are just barely leading the polls, a percent outside the margin of error.  You’d think they’d run to the center and try to lock down their second terms. 

 But they aren’t. In fact, neither Abbott nor DeSantis are campaigning for the offices they hold. They are both running to the right, to their own base.  Those folks are already secured for this November. 

But they are running against each other, for an office in the near future. They are gambling their Governor seats in a “highest stake” bid. They are betting that Donald Trump can’t or won’t run (hopefully  jailed) and they can inherit the whirlwind he created. Each Governor wants to be the “Trumpiest” candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 2024. 

If they lose their home states in November, game over.  But instead of Abbott dealing with mass shootings and utility upgrades, he’s shipping migrants by bus to New York City.  And instead of DeSantis worrying about rising sea levels or even Florida’s failing public education, he’s borrowing migrants to fly to Martha’s Vineyard.  He found them at Lackland Air Force Base, just outside San Antonio, Texas, Abbott’s state.

Helpless

Let’s get a few things clear here.  There is really nothing so helpless as an illegal migrant  getting to the United States border.  The reality is:  most migrants are leaving their homes in Central or South America, because the living conditions are intolerable.  Some are leaving dictatorships like Venezuela’s Maduro.  Some are running from climate conditions that no longer allow them to till fields and produce a crop.  And some are running from nations so corrupted, that gangs are the only form of “governing”.  They are all running for their lives, for their children, and for a better future.  And like generations of immigrants, including the ones that founded our Nation, they are coming to America.

The migrants risked the long walk through the jungles of the Darien Gap in Southern Panama.  They paid exorbitant fees to “coyotes” to get them on trains or trucks across Mexico.  They slept in doorways and tents, shelters and sometimes just on the street.  And all to try to improve their lives by getting to the United States.

Are there drug smugglers among them?  Perhaps, but by far the millions who are coming to America are trying to improve their lives.  For most; they get across the border, either legally at the crossings, or illegally wandering through the Texas or Arizona drylands, and present themselves to the authorities.  They are NOT criminals.

Pawns

Nor should they be pawns in the DeSantis/Abbott political “games”.  They deserve compassion, and justice, and if their case is right, asylum and a chance here in the United States.  And if you want to know, “what’s in it for me?”, the answer is simple.  We are suffering from a labor shortage, and they are a ready source of labor, willing to work harder than most Americans at jobs most Americans don’t want to do.

Instead, the good people of the states of Texas and Florida (and Arizona) are spending millions of dollars to serve the political causes of their Governors.  Two passenger airplanes rented to the state of Florida, going to Texas to pick up migrants (under false pretenses) and ship them to Martha’s Vineyard.  All to prove that those folks “up North” should have to deal with people crossing the border.  DeSantis chortled in front of a fawning crowd, proud of taking these Venezuelans who escaped the Maduro dictatorship, and shoving them up the Northern Liberals’…island.  

Race to the Bottom

Is he any better than the Coyotes who charged them thousands of dollars to ride in a crowded freight car across Mexico?  Better than the guide who threatened to leave them in the Darien Gap, with the snakes and the swamps, if they didn’t pay an extra fee halfway through?  Better than the drug smugglers who hid out among the migrants as they crossed the Rio Grande?

And to add insult to injury, the Republicans in the Florida legislature may have used Covid Relief money to pay for the planes.  They are so pleased to “stick it” to the Biden Administration, I expect they’ll try it again.

DeSantis has “out-shined” Abbott, who only sent busloads of migrants to Washington, DC, and dumped them on Massachusetts Avenue outside the National Observatory and drove away.  The Observatory also is the home of the Vice Presidential mansion.  A nearby church rushed to take the migrants in, just as the good people of Martha’s Vineyard found shelter, food, and are helping “their” migrants in moving on with their lives here in America.

Reckless Cruelty

DeSantis and Abbott have made their clear decision.  The people of their respective states aren’t really that important.  What is important:  to score political points with helpless migrants and get a “leg-up” on the 2024 Republican nomination.  They both want their fifteen minutes on Fox News, and maybe an hour on OANN and Newsmax.  I hope the good people of Texas recognize the millions they are spending for this, isn’t going to guarantee they have heat next winter.  And I hope the powerful Venezuelan Miami political machine takes note of who the pawns are in this latest gambit.

One of the famous phrases in American History was said to Senator Joseph McCarthy in a Senate hearing.  McCarthy was terrorizing the Nation with false accusations of Communism, so much so that even President Eisenhower felt powerless to stop him.  But a lawyer named Joseph Welch publicly called McCarthy out in front of the nation.  That statement equally applies to Governors DeSantis and Abbott.

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness… You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

When it comes to DeSantis and Abbott – the answer is clearly no.