Money that used to flow into the state during presidential elections has all but stopped, another indication that Florida's time as a major swing state is no more.
  • aramis87
    15•7 days ago

    Florida has historically been held up as a massively important state for any White House aspirant, and as a result has been on the receiving end of large candidate rallies, surrogate events and huge sums of national money fueling wall-to-wall campaign ads across the state’s 10 expensive media markets. But for the first time in recent political memory, the 2024 presidential race has left Florida as a comparative afterthought.

    If you ever wondered why Florida and Texas have been turned into such conservative hellholes, this is exactly why. Both were starting to turn bluer, and the Republicans didn’t want to lose those precious electoral college votes.

  • @[email protected]
    13•7 days ago

    Aww, poor Ronnie looks so sad. He was gonna be president. It was gonna be so great. He’d eat pudding with his fingers at every press conference. At the state of the union, he’d add a banana. And now that’s all been lost. No charisma. No personality. No hope for becoming president. Poor little guy in his ridiculous lifts is so dejected.

    Good. Fuck him. Asshole.

  • Noble Shift
    9•7 days ago

    Good. These people are legitimately not intelligent. Not in a funny haha way, not in a punching down way, just cold straight facts.

    I’ve never in my life or in my travels met a nationality of people as intellectually disadvantaged as the nation of Florida.

    Absolutely in no way should they be allowed to shape any policy or procedure, including their own.

    • @[email protected]
      11•7 days ago

      What bothers me is Texas isn’t exactly far ahead of Florida in what they teach kids and they also have massive influence on what books schools across the nation end up using.

    • magnetosphere
      6•7 days ago

      Floridians are just as intelligent and prone to moments of stupidity as the rest of the country. They just seem like exceptional idiots because of Florida’s Sunshine Laws, which publicize ridiculous, headline-grabbing incidents. Now, reporters actively search for funny/outrageous Florida stories, and the process feeds itself. The Sunshine Laws are responsible for most of the Florida Man jokes you’ve seen.

      No, I’m not a publicly agent for the state of Florida. Actually, I think it would be a terrible place to live. They’re not idiots, though.

      • Noble Shift
        11•7 days ago

        No bro, I’ve been here 5 years and these people are not intelligent. Sure there are intelligent people, but taken as a whole Floridians are suffering a mental and intellectual disadvantage.

        Incompetence is a fact of life here, and literally every single waking hour of every single day is affected by it in some way.

        I get your sentiment, but after traveling around the US for a couple decades, hands-down-bar-none these are the dumbest people (en masse) that I have ever encountered.

        [edit] Just go to any grocer and stand at the self-checkout and just watch for an hour. Minimum .25% of the people will be operating at the absolute limit of their mental capacity. No shit. It’s amazing and horrifying.

        • @vaultdweller013
          11•7 days ago

          So im gonna preface this by saying the furthest ive gone east is Arkansas. But I swear to fuck Florida plates will handsdown be the worst drivers in a pretty sizable radius, like driving down the wrong side of the highway after pulling a uey bad. Mind you they aint the most psychotic drivers, that goes to Idaho. But Idaho is just kinda doing their own thing, while everyone is playing chess Idaho has glued itself to the ceiling and is pissing into its own mouth.

            • magnetosphere
              2•7 days ago

              Yeah. Okay. What you say makes sense, and I’m not a big fan of starting arguments. I also appreciate that you said “I get your sentiment…” You got my meaning and considered it. Disagreements on the internet don’t often go that way.

              • Noble Shift
                2•7 days ago

                And I genuinely don’t want people to make the same mistakes as I did.

                Have a wonderful week.

        • nifty
          2•7 days ago

          The smartest regular citizens I’ve met have so far been in NY, MA or MN

            • nifty
              0•7 days ago

              Some doctorates are only earned because mommy and daddy made it easy to get in or have an easier life, so it doesn’t really predicate being intelligent or wise

      • @[email protected]
        1•7 days ago

        Relativism won’t save Florida. I’ve spent plenty of time there and have even travelled fully north to south and south to north. I’ve also lived in Louisiana and spent time in all parts of Texas and Mississippi. Florida really is on a different level.

    • @[email protected]
      -1•6 days ago

      We should have a rule that the 5 states with the lowest test scores in schools don’t get to vote for president.

  • @[email protected]
    6•7 days ago

    Florida’s status changes depending on how many retirees move to the state in any given year. When many move, it usually goes more conservative.

    • @[email protected]
      2•7 days ago

      We were just talking about that. It was glamorized in media for years and many of the television addled moved there. Thus Florida Man was formed.

  • @[email protected]English
    2•7 days ago

    Good. I’m a right winger but don’t like DeSantis’ approach to fighting the culture war, and it doesn’t seem like he’s done enough to fight the rising cost of living in Florida either.

    • @[email protected]
      1•7 days ago

      Governors can’t fix the cost of living, only legislatures can and with a wider variety of tools.

  • @[email protected]English
    68•7 days ago

    We need to treat every state as a battleground state

    Presidential campaigns cost over a billion dollars these days, if that’s not enough to campaign in 50 states, where the fuck is all that money even going.

    A billion dollars is an insane amount, I legitimately don’t understand how either party can claim with a straight face they need or even use close to that much

    • @[email protected]
      38•7 days ago

      The main reason Texas is not “in play” it’s because everyone assumes it can’t be “in play”. Over 5 million registered Texans did not vote in 2020! Among them there is definitely 700k Democratic votes and that would be a landslide win for Harris.

      • @[email protected]English
        22•7 days ago

        Indiana is never “in play”…

        Except when Obama carried the state to the point they even got a Dem governor…

        Then we started running moderates again for president, they got Pence who caused an HIV epidemic and then the whole country had to deal with him as VP.

        The problem is what “red states” need to turn blue isn’t what the DNC is willing to give.

        • @[email protected]
          12•7 days ago

          Part of it is because our congressional districts are drawn like a bowl of spaghetti. In statewide elections it matters less but congressional districs were specifically drawn to pack and crack votes here.

          • @[email protected]English
            5•7 days ago

            Absolutely, plus all the effort by the entrenched Republicans to keep putting more and more hurdles between voters and the ballot box. And all the effort to drive vulnerable minorities out of the state with bigoted laws.

    • originalucifer
      15•7 days ago

      Absurdly wealthy media controlling billionaires donate to pacs who then spend the money on… media

    • abff08f4813c
      2•5 days ago

      Campaigning in all 50 states and treating all of them as battleground states are not the same thing. The latter is harder and more expensive.

      As to why a billion is not enough, blame the SC for allowing Citizens United in 2010. After that the amount of money just got higher without end in this crazy arms race.

      • @[email protected]English
        0•7 days ago

        Considering the “victory fund” nonsense effectively raised the per person cap to 960k this year. Just imagine how much good the taxes on it would have done if we actually fucking taxed the wealthy.

        Then realize those donations is why we’ll never tax the wealthy.

        Politicians cut out the middle men and just collect it directly like the Catholics and Mormons do, get that 10% pre tax income…

    • Rhaedas
      4•7 days ago

      Not too much though. Florida makes a great breaker for those hurricanes. Get rid of most of it or make it all swamp, you’ll have more storms into the core areas.

      We may get that anyway with stronger storms, Florida or no Florida…

        • Rhaedas
          1•4 days ago

          Nice wiki link. The Talk section is also interesting, mainly concerned with the list of cities that are called Fall Line cities in the two Fall Line entries. I noted it because my location is on one list but two other places more eastern are on the other list, so it seems to be a very ambiguous definition, as geology tends to be.

          But Florida isn’t, so suck it! :p

          (Although Florida isn’t all low, there will be Floridian islands still, for a while)

          • @[email protected]English
            1•4 days ago

            I’m from Georgia, and the definition is completely unambiguous around here. Maybe it just seems more ambiguous in the Mid-Atlantic region because the escarpment gets a lot closer to the coast.

    • Atelopus-zeteki
      22•7 days ago

      With rising sea levels, all in due time. My uni did a map of FL at different sea levels. None of that state is very far up out of the ocean.

      • BakkodaEnglish
        5•7 days ago

        I looked at peak elevation on the keys one time because a buddy of mine was posting pretty crazy splits on some runs. Gtfo with your shit Doug.