Younger Floridians are fleeing the state in record numbers and business dollars are drying up as the state is increasingly seen as the place “where empathy, decency and kindness go to die,” a columnist wrote Friday.
“Gov. Ron DeSantis and his obedient Republican legislature have made bullying and attacking the vulnerable the hallmarks of their goverance,” wrote Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post.
And it’s having a demonstrably negative impact.
Along with taxpayer’s dollars being lost on the governor’s “right-wing stunts” frequently being defended – often unsuccessfully – in courts, Florida is losing business and is suffering a brain drain, she said.
The American Community Survey showed in June that 674,740 people left Florida for another state in 2021, Rubin said. More than any other state.
She wrote, “In February, USA Today reported, 'Florida may be the most moved to state in the country, but not when it comes to Gen Z. They are the only generation that chose to exit Florida, with an outflux of 8,000 young adults."'
Florida's universities and colleges have seen an increase in staff departures, with 1,087 resigning from the University of Florida alone in 2022, she wrote.
“Record numbers of faculty are not returning to University of Central Florida, Florida State University and the University of South Florida. This is hardly surprising, given DeSantis’s assault on academic independence and his suggestion that students go out of state if they want to study topics such as African American studies,” Rubin said.
And c organizers of conventions – historically a huge business in Florida – are looking to be hosted elsewhere.
“There is little sign that the rest of the country is enamored of censorship, book bans or anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment. The question remains whether DeSantis’s act wears thin at home,” Rubin wrote.