Hard times are on the horizon.
Unemployment rates are creeping up, especially in the public-service sector, and, like many others, Florida’s current governor will soon be out of a job.
He’s got only 15 months left to ride the taxpayer gravy train.
Once a promising presidential candidate, accustomed to hearing himself called “DeFuture,” Ron DeSantis will be DeThroned, DeMoted, DeFunct.
In common with thousands of recently — or soon to be — laid-off government workers, he may experience DePression.
Rumor is he harbors ambitions to again run for the White House — assuming there are elections in 2028.
The problem with this plan is that in 2024, America met him and America said, “Oh, hell no!"
DeSantis was a truly, epically, terrible candidate. They had to remind him to smile.
Polls show him favored by only 10% of Republican voters: Ahead of Marco Rubio but way, way behind JD Vance.
When people think you’re weirder than JD Vance, you might want to adjust your ambitions and rethink your career path.
Perhaps go for something a little more realistic.
Never fear: DeSantis has plenty of options.
He prides himself in making sure Florida is “Open for Business,” so why not open a business?
Maybe a surf shop in his hometown of Dunedin: Ron Ron.
Sure, Ron Jon might sue, but DeSantis is a lawyer: He can surely handle it.
Speaking of the law, as long as he keeps his bar license current, why not practice whatever it was he learned at Harvard?
Oh, maybe that’s not such a good idea. Lawyers, even Florida lawyers, are expected to perform a certain amount of pro bono work every year, representing the poor and the powerless.
DeSantis doesn’t much like the poor and the powerless.
Still, he could open a boutique firm, specializing in suing school librarians, middle school teachers, college professors, and anyone else who smells “woke” to him.
Shoot, he could become a college professor himself!
Evidently anyone can.
Seems politicians finding themselves between elected gigs can always find a university home.
Mike Haridopoulos, who now represents the Space Coast in Congress, used to teach at UF and Brevard Community College.
When Secretary of State Marco Rubio got term-limited out of the Florida Legislature, Florida International University paid him 23 grand a year to teach one class — around seven times what your average adjunct pulls in per course.
Maybe DeSantis could teach a political science class called “Authoritarianism for Fun and Profit.”
Other washed-up politicos, including Richard Corcoran, Manny Diaz Jr., and Jeannette Nuñez, all scored top jobs as university presidents. DeSantis could, too.
All he has to do is push somebody out, the way he did at New College or at the University of West Florida, and “suggest” he’s obviously the best possible choice. Given that he appointed most of Florida universities’ boards of trustees, it’s a safe bet he’d get what he wants.
But perhaps he’d prefer to reconnect with those “blue-collar” roots he’s always talking about and do something a bit less exhausting than the day-to-day business of firing academics for mentioning race and gender.
How about opening his own specialty restaurant?
He could lean into Donald Trump’s affectionate nickname for him: Call it Meatball Ron’s Fine Dining, home of the No-Lab-Meat Polpette.
He likes to say that while he grew up in Tampa Bay, his true home is the Rust Belt of his parents’ Ohio.
You know, declining Industrial Heartland, home of Real Americans (Real American places do not have beaches, leggy pink birds, or free-range Burmese pythons), casseroles, corn fields, Vice President J.D. Vance, and rampant addiction to opioids.
He could sell farm equipment. Foster our amber waves of grain.
Only thing is, farmers can’t afford tractors. John Deere is losing money and laying off workers, thanks to tariffs on steel and aluminum, retaliatory Chinese tariffs on soybeans, and diminished crop sales owing to Trump’s gutting of USAID.
On second thought, maybe DeSantis could sell fish bait.
Given the rate of inflation at the grocery store, a lot of us may soon have to start catching our own dinner.
Or go back to his first, best love, baseball, at which — as he reminds us on every other page of his memoir — he was really good, awesomely good.
Luckily, the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, a beloved minor league team located in the governor’s birthplace, are hiring everything from Kid Zone Attendant to Assistant Concessions Manager.
Some day he could even try out for the team.
It would be like a movie!
Maybe not.
DeSantis claims he cares about Florida’s economy, so why not contribute to our agriculture industry?
Given the mass deportations and immigrants’ fears they’ll be dragged off by ICE, even if they’re legally here, Florida farmers can’t find people to harvest their crops.
Strawberry fields forever — also tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbages, and cane.
The governor clearly thinks 12-hour days in our world-renowned Florida sunshine build character: A bill he signed last year bans local government from requiring employers to give workers water and heat breaks.
But let’s get real real. While Ron DeSantis likes to talk up learning a trade instead of getting a degree from a snooty college (or, in his case, two snooty colleges) where you will undoubtedly become a Marxist follower of that Imp of Satan Greta Thunberg, he bleached that blue collar long ago.
In other words, Ordinary Joe jobs won’t cut it.
The man doesn’t fly commercial.
Anyway, he might not leave Tallahassee at all.
It all depends on his wife, and, maybe, his hand-picked Number Two.
Jay Collins, former state senator, former Green Beret, a man whom DeSantis calls “the Chuck Norris of Florida Politics,” says he and his family have been “praying about” his running for governor.
Collins also says he would consider the “brilliant” Casey DeSantis as his running mate.
Floridians will have Thoughts about this.
First of all, Florida’s First Lady has not ruled out her own run for governor, even though the Current Occupant of the White House has endorsed the 30-watt U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, giving him a large advantage with Florida MAGAs.
She has other political liabilities too, including $10 million in Medicaid overbilling settlement money “donated” to Hope Florida, a charity she founded, which mysteriously (and illicitly) ended up going to an outside PAC.
Investigations continue.
Collins has his own problems. He rejects “the woke mind virus,” but, as right-wing news site “Florida’s Voice” has reported, at Operation BBQ Relief (they provide barbecue meals to disaster victims), the charity he worked for, he was in charge of overseeing their robust DEI policies.
As the few remaining Floridians who aren’t too exhausted to care have noticed, Collins has yet to formally announce his candidacy.
Meanwhile, the seas rise, the heat gets more intense, the water gets dirtier, the rich get richer, the poor can’t afford to go to the doctor, library shelves get emptier, public schools crumble, and people get fired for exercising their First Amendment rights on social media.
This is the Florida DeSantis will bequeath us.
If he and Casey fail to hold onto political power in this state, perhaps they’d like to move to Ohio and immerse themselves in that rich Rust Belt culture.
Or, if all else fails, there’s always Disney World.
Surely, they’d hire him to play a character. Donald Duck, maybe? Or Pluto?
Walking around in one of those big heads, nobody can tell if you forget to smile.