Former Republican congressman explains why he no longer wants to raise his family in Florida
Former Rep. David Jolly (R-FL) was born and raised in Florida, and he represented his state in Congress, but after the actions of the fringe-GOP legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), he's thinking about moving. DeSantis reportedly intends to officially launch his 2024 campaign in the coming week.
TIME Magazine quoted Jolly in a piece on DeSantis, saying that his hostility has permeated"through the air to make the state no longer desirable to vacationers and retirees.
“It’s in the air, it’s everywhere, it’s amazing,” Jolly told TIME. “It’s between neighbors, it’s when you go to restaurants, when you go to schools. You’re on one side or the other, and people know it.”
It was in that piece that the Florida native revealed he "is considering moving his family out of the state."
Speaking Saturday morning to Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC, Jolly explained, "Culture wars have two sides ... to do all of these things reflects a certain cruelty and darkness of one's personal ethos. I think Ron DeSantis is now going to be seen as that."
When he spoke again with Alex Witt on Sunday, Jolly said he's a fifth and six-generation Florida family with his two young children.
"Look, I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old who I hope can grow up in a community that is inclusive, that exposes them to diverse thinking, to diverse cultures, and allows our family to make decisions about which value set to orient our children around and ultimately give them the opportunity to make their own decisions," Jolly explained. "What has happened in the DeSantis era, the DeSantis administration is not just the attack on the LGBTQ+, the migrant community, the African American community, the denial of science and history, but it has brought back the implicit biases that as a nation we have been trying to move away from ever since the civil rights movement. He has brought that back. You feel it. You feel unwelcome, and it is a real decision to make to raise children in the state of Florida."
He went on to say that this is the perfect example of why the Republican Party will suffer greater losses in 2024, because doubling down on the culture wars assumes Americans agree with their fringe policies.
"Within a Republican primary, it gives him some fairly good currency, but in a general election what we continue to see is that Republicans are made out of touch with the general election voter," he explained. "A culture has two sides. It ignites both sides with equal passion. And so, where Donald Trump began to erode, or see an erosion of support, particularly in the suburbs Republicans generally soft Republican suburbs, began to say, hey, I don't like this Donald Trump leadership. Ron DeSantis is saying, well, if you didn't like, that let me show you the culture war I'm trying to lay across the nation. So, look, it has given them a foundation for a run in the Republican primary. I don't think it'll catapult him to the nomination, he thinks it will. But ultimately, any Republican on a culture wars platform, like that of Ron DeSantis in the general election, is going to be in trouble."
See the full conversation in the videos below or at the link here.
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