Today, as the Senate debates two of the most important bills in the nation’s history on voting rights, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is planning some kind of militarized police force to monitor voting in his state. This despite the fact that the governor has advertised his state as “the gold standard” after the 2020 presidential elections: “I think that’s how elections should be run,” DeSantis said on Nov. 4, 2020, after Trump won the state by over three percentage points. 

Sounding more and more like something out of Orwell’s 1984, the proposed Office of Election Crimes and Security would be part of the Department of State, and report directly to DeSantis. He’s asking his GOP-controlled legislature for $6 million to hire 52 people to “investigate, detect, apprehend, and arrest anyone for an alleged violation” of election laws. 

Members of DeSantis’ Gestapo would be stationed at various unnamed “field offices throughout the state” and act on tips from “government officials or any other person.”

“To ensure that elections are conducted in accordance with the rule of law, I have proposed an election integrity unit whose sole focus will be the enforcement of Florida’s election laws. This will facilitate the faithful enforcement of election laws and will provide Floridians with the confidence that their vote will count,” DeSantis said in his Jan. 11 State of the Union address. 

Like Gov. Brian Kemp has done in Georgia, DeSantis has signed draconian anti-democratic elections legislation with restrictions on voting such as limiting the availability of ballot drop boxes, making it more difficult to vote by mail, and preventing groups from offering water or snacks to people waiting in long voting lines. The law is being challenged in court and a trial is set to begin on Jan. 30. 

DeSantis has already shown a remarkable disdain for free and fair elections, especially when it comes to Black and brown communities. Plunging his state deeper into fascism, three University of Florida professors reported being muzzled as they attempted to testify against a new state law that restricts people from the right to vote—a stunning blow to free speech and First Amendment rights.

The Washington Post reports that Florida’s congressional Democrats have asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate issues of “voter suppression,” and focused their ire on DeSantis. 

“Harmful proposals to create new partisan bodies to oversee our voting process are exactly the kind of action that demand oversight as we work to ensure that our voting process is unquestionably trustworthy,” they wrote Thursday in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

DeSantis has gotten zero support on his new proposal. According to the Post, Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee spoke to a meeting of the Florida Supervisors of Elections association to explain the governor’s plan, and they were terrified. 

“It seems as if this is going to focus on a lot of grass-roots organizations that are out there trying to get people registered to vote, as well as people out there doing petition drives,” Scott said. “I think this is going to lead to people being intimidated if they’re civically involved. I don’t want people to be scared away from doing those kinds of things,” Broward County Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott told the Post. 

If DeSantis does for voting what he’s doing for COVID-19, there may not be anyone left to vote. 

After weeks of being MIA during an unprecedented surge of COVID-19 cases in his state, DeSantis held a press conference in Fort Lauderdale, spending much of his time—as did his stunningly anti-science surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo—dismissing COVID-19 vaccines as a help, downplaying the severity of symptoms of the omicron variant, and whining and complaining about how the federal government isn’t giving him the monoclonal treatment meds he’s convinced he needs.

Just days after lying about them, COVID’s ride-or-die was forced to admit via his Division of Emergency Management director, Kevin Guthrie, that “between 800,000 and a million expired test kits were found in a warehouse.” 

But in the fight against who’s more deplorable than whom right now, DeSantis is even being dissed by Trump. 

Trump gave an interview to One America News on Jan. 11 during which he was asked about his comments in another interview touting the value of COVID-19 vaccines. Trump doubled down.

“Well, I’ve taken it,” said Trump plainly. “I’ve had the booster. Many politicians—I watched a couple of politicians be interviewed and one of the questions was, ‘Did you get the booster?’ Because they had the vaccine, and they’re answering like—in other words, the answer is ‘yes’ but they don’t want to say it. Because they’re gutless. You gotta say it, whether you had it or not. Say it. But the fact is that I think the vaccines saved tens of millions throughout the world. I’ve had absolutely no side effects.”

You can watch the dumpster fire that is DeSantis’ mouth moving below: 

YouTube Video