US economy

Socialism in Florida


The sunshine state is smiling on journalists and political junkies everywhere. Tuesday’s gubernatorial primaries in Florida have thrown up the perfect contest — between a proxy for Donald Trump and a proxy for Bernie Sanders. Political lines do not get drawn much brighter than this. Whatever the Michiganders and the Pennsylvanians tell you, Florida can still lay claim to being the ultimate swing state. Control of Congress will be settled in November by the outcome to 435 separate House races plus another 33 Senate battles. But the mood for the Democratic 2020 primaries will be disproportionately shaped by the result of the Florida governor’s race. The Democrat, Andrew Gillum, is the liberal African American mayor of Tallahassee, the state capitol. The Republican, Ron DeSantis, is a former Navy Seal and a mini version of Trump. The race, unfortunately, promises to be as nasty as it will be consequential. The stakes are very large.

Presidential aspirants will monitor Gillum’s fate particularly closely. He campaigned with little money and virtually no name recognition to take the nomination against the odds. Late in the game, the biggest liberal donors swung behind him. These include George Soros and Tom Steyer. Bernie Sanders’ endorsement also helped. But what excited the liberal base — and brought a surge in turnout, especially among younger voters — may not work in a general election. Florida remains a low tax, centre-right, racially divided state. Gillum’s stances include impeaching Trump, which is a precondition for Steyer’s funding; abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency; single payer healthcare for Floridians; and a $15 minimum wage. Some of his stances, such as abolishing ICE, are easy to exaggerate. Like other Democratic socialists, Gillum wants to replace the notorious agency with something less draconian. But he will be faced with an onslaught of ads claiming that he supports open borders. He would also be wise to drop all talk of impeachment. Governors don’t — and won’t — have any say in whether Trump is impeached, and it is guaranteed to ensure high conservative turnout against him.

That said, DeSantis has all but guaranteed a high liberal turnout against him. The morning after his victory he told Fox News that Floridians could not afford to “monkey this up” by embracing a socialist agenda. The word “monkey” was not so much a dogwhistle, retorted Gillum, as a “bullhorn”. To make matters worse, he described Gillum as “articulate”, which is another tried and tested racial chestnut. It would take an act of God, or perhaps an invasion of Florida’s algae-fuelled red tide, to prevent this election from turning racial. In spite of being Ivy League educated — or perhaps because of it — DeSantis has gone to cartoonish lengths to prove he is an authentic Trumpian. He released clips of himself reading Trump’s Art of the Deal to his children. He also linked his son’s toy walls to support for a US-Mexico border wall. Whatever else happens in the next 10 weeks, Florida will not be overlooked. So what could go wrong?

On the plus side, Gillum offers a quiet rebuke to the zero sum — and utterly false — debate between identity liberals and economic populists in the Democratic party. His campaign ignored both camps and aimed to address the concerns of ordinary voters about poor infrastructure, bad public education, the exorbitant cost of Florida’s sky-high rates of incarceration, and the need to invest in people. If he can focus on such bread and butter themes, and ignore the dog whistles, he may be capable of pulling off an upset — and it really would be an upset. But he will need to stop talking about impeachment. That is not Florida’s job. Render unto Robert Mueller what is Robert Mueller’s. Stick to what governors can do. Rana, am I missing something?

Andrew Gillum

Recommended reading

  • My column in this Friday’s Financial Times looks at the cautionary tale of Lindsey Graham, who has to deliver a eulogy at John McCain’s memorial service on Saturday that doesn’t offend Trump.
  • Talking of which, Robert Merry has a sharp piece in the American Conservative about the stubbornness of Trump’s numbers. Last week’s judicial convictions of Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort did almost nothing to dent Trump’s public approval ratings. Merry reminds us that we are in uncharted political hinterlands and it would be unwise to discount Trump’s staying power.
  • My colleague Gideon Rachman wrote a bracing column about the appetite of Brexiters for an end-of-days conclusion to today’s political morass — or a cliff edge no-deal Brexit, if you prefer. “In their refusal to compromise they risk jointly unleashing a dangerous crisis, whose endgame they can neither predict nor control,” he writes.
  • Finally, do read Louis Menand’s mellifluous review of Francis Fukuyama’s latest book, Identity, in the New Yorker. Fukuyama is postponing the end of history, he points out — possibly for good. I am looking forward to reading Fukuyama’s book.

Rana Foroohar responds

Ed, your note gets at a political turning point that may become an economic one as well. The record turnout for the Florida primary tells me that young Democrats are fired up and ready to turn out for the elections this autumn in a way that they traditionally haven’t been. Secondly, Gillum does indeed bridge identity politics and populist economics, and he’s not the only one. Alex Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” who recently won a crucial New York primary, does too. It’s hard to imagine that the blue wave won’t push for a very different set of rules for business than we’ve seen in the past 40 years. And this is happening at a time when technocratic central bankers are saying monopsony is the biggest headwind to growth, and Republicans like Orrin Hatch are calling for the Google antitrust case to be opened. What’s the trade here? I’m thinking its short the dollar, sell Wall Street, and buy Main Street.

Your feedback

We’d love to hear from you. You can email the team on swampnotes@ft.com, contact Ed on edward.luce@ft.com and Rana on rana.foroohar@ft.com, and follow them on Twitter at @RanaForoohar and @EdwardGLuce



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