If Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis were a vaudeville duo, their signature song (with apologies to Irving Berlin) might go: “Anything mean you can do, I can do meaner.”
Their policies would be easier to bear if they weren’t larded with so much malice and cruelty. Trouble is, cruelty is the point. It’s how would-be dictators bend free people to their will.
Trump’s vendetta against unauthorized immigrants is far more expansive and ruthless than simply sealing the border. He relishes hurting them. He wants to spread terror — and he’s succeeding. No matter the subject, his language, especially in his Truth Social posts, is consistently violent.
He’s no Mr. Nice Guy, and neither is DeSantis, the most humorless, confrontational Florida governor in memory.
Not to be outdone, Trump’s former protégé in Tallahassee is trying to prove himself as tough on immigrants, if not more so, than the president. He’s equally zealous at extinguishing diversity and in his determination to marginalize Blacks, Hispanics, LBGTQ people and in pretending that America never had a race problem.
Not satisfied with banning diversity from public education, DeSantis is now erasing it from Florida’s streets — literally.
His own Department of Transportation actively encouraged communities to have street art at their intersections. The DOT even sponsored a design contest for elementary school students. About 400 examples of street art beautify Florida roads.
But all of a sudden, we’re told it’s bad for safety and consistency.
That’s an outright lie. DeSantis has simply opened another front in the culture wars — because so much of that art consists of LGBTQ pride rainbows.
Picking public fights
These most recent cruelties, erasing colored pride displays and other art from road intersections in Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Daytona Beach, Delray Beach, Key West and elsewhere are in one way the most startling because he’s picking fights where there weren’t any.
The erasure of the Pulse nightclub massacre memorial at Orlando was especially vile. It deliberately dishonors the memory of the 49 people who were killed and 58 injured in Florida’s worst mass shooting.
In DeSantis’ blinkered eyes, however, what matters was that most were gay.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis spoke the truth when he said: “There seems to be an irrational vengeance on the part of the state to erase images that reflect the LGBTQ community. This is a culture war. Let’s call it what it is.”
Rainbow crosswalks and other targeted designs graced ugly highway blacktop with beauty and made them safer for pedestrians. The DOT certainly seemed to think so.
But now, after two fourth graders in Orlando saw their winning design painted on bike lanes outside the school, their achievement is being erased, too. So is the checkerboard pattern outside Daytona International Speedway. NASCAR fans, take note.
“We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes,” DeSantis says.
That’s a hoot. Everything DeSantis says is couched in political propaganda. So is every statement from his media office and from his agencies on those rare occasions when they actually answer inquiries.
His war on unauthorized immigrants is another example of his innate cruelty. To earn his chops with the haters, DeSantis is deliberately depriving Florida’s three major industries, agriculture, hospitality and construction, of the workers they need to remain economically viable.
Not the state’s job
Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility. A prudent governor would have left it at that. But this governor had a message to send.
“Alligator Alcatraz,” the too-clever-by-far name for his Devil’s Island in the Everglades, was chosen purely for shock value. There are underutilized prisons he could have put to use as detention centers if it were necessary — but it isn’t.
We have written about the pace he’s setting to have carried out more executions than any predecessor before he leaves office.
Now, his Board of Education has ruled that children who are too disabled to earn regular diplomas will no longer receive certificates of completion.
What does that accomplish except to inflict hurt?
The board points to this year’s massive education bill, which provides other pathways for graduation, but none seems appropriate for severely disabled students.
To his credit, DeSantis did sign legislation to improve Florida’s existing programs for autism. But there was no need to do away with the completion certificates.
That idea, it turns out, originated in legislation filed by the notably nasty state Sen. Randy Fine before he was elected to Congress.
It figures.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2025/08/29/the-meanness-of-trump-and-desantis-editorial/
