Over in the Sunshine State. Ronda Santis has declared himself a general in the War on Woke, and he's attacking teachers, medical providers, and marginalized communities all to score political points. Schools have become political battlefields, and educators are fleeing faster than Floridians in a rainstorm. Florida's teacher to population ratio has plummeting
faster than a roller coast. Also, strict anti abortion and anti translaws are scaring away medical provider leading to longer wait times than ers and less attention in Classter. It's like a never ending roller coaster over there in Florida, and these battles are leaving more scorched earth than sunny days. But grab your popcorn and stay tuned for more drama. This article is from The Sun Sentinel by Ray Liner from October twenty ninth, twenty twenty three. Jimmy Junior, what
do you have to say? I thought that the author's comment that these policies and laws have created an incubator for harm in similar states was really brilliant, because I've never really associated the term incubator with kind of the birthplaces, if you will, of some of these more harmful laws that seem to transcend state lines. And so we know that a lot of these states that share maybe similar values, similar demographics, kind of have these same harmful laws taking effect.
They've seen it all across maybe the Deep South. But I really don't want to harp too much on that because I want to pivot to another point. Just a personal pet peeve of mine, and that's hearing politicians, among
others, use warlike terms and inflammatory rhetoric to describe issues regarding legislation. So when I hear like athletes, for example, talking about, you know, we're at war or we're bringing out the big guns, or hear certain groups taking a certain position, politicians, you know, political parties, whatever that may be, it always strikes me as like being a little bit cringe worthy.
Might be due to some of my military service, maybe some of the images that I have in mind, but whatever the case, I try not to romanticize this kind of thinking or this kind of imagery or stance. But while it may not necessarily be warlike, or I think it might be cringe worthy. Like I said, on the other hand, this kind of thinking really does make it warlike for the people that are being victimized and who are
on the receiving end. So we have like members of the African American or LGBTQ excuse me, LGBTQ communities that have really been impacted by harsh laws that really seek to discriminate people, and so they might feel like they are in some kind of crisis, some existential threat is taking place because they have people with this warlike combative mindset. And I really just think that it's this kind of language and this kind of attitude that causes people to fear for their own
safety, their own futures, their children, really is quite divisive. So I'm sick and tired of hearing politicians equate legislation to battlefield because it does nothing but put other people on edge and makes everybody anxious, and it's really just inappropriate in my mind. What do you think? Yeah, I think the entire JOPI movement right now is based on fascist principles and nothing else, the
main one being the strong man defense. You know that you need, you absolutely need a strong man in order to get out of whatever solution situation you are right now, and the idea that only a strong man can solve the party or the country's issues. It runs deep in the US is psyche. Uh, it's because it's intertwined with the gun culture, exceptionalism, misogyny, and and other deeply deeply rooted ways of thinking. And you know, every hero needs a villain, so if you don't have a villain, you just
make one up. And that's what the UP has been doing since pretty much Reagan, with increasing strength and precision. Work is great because it's a vay word, and every time you see on camera a right winger asked to define it, they just can't because it's too vague, and so it's it's it's it's really great for for for them because you can ascribe to it whatever you want, whatever you don't like. So it's pretty much like communism back in
the day, the previous iteration of the same trigger world. So it's not surprising to realize that this so called war on woke basically shoots itself in the foot because the population is meant to attract is already known to vote against its
own interest very very often. They're against socialism, as they say, well at the same time being the population with the highest use of footstems and federal assistance so yeah, you have one population that's flamed up with with the use of that of that world so that they can vote against their own interest by people who just want to rule them and not lead them. So it's I don't see how the US can can get out of this in the current situation.
One quick point note that Jimmy Jr. You were talking about the warlike language, and it always seems like the people who use that kind of language aren't the people who have actually been there, So you know, it's kind of a weird dichotomy to me. But I'm going to be the odd man out on this segment. I think one of the things I really had a real problem with this article about was that the author seems to think that the
whole thing started in Florida. It's all about Florida. The whole war on woke is Florida, and it's just spreading out from Florida, And that's not the case. DeSantis is just following a playbook that was already established. Has he been able to implement it better? Yes, Because he's the governor of a large state. He's gotten a lot of press lately because he's running for president. As he runs for president and he's losing. He's getting a little
bit more radical and a little bit more anti woke. But I don't think we can blame this all on DeSantis. I don't think he's a good guy in any way, shape or form. But I think we have to remember that this isn't just a Florida thing. This is a nationwide thing. And just this week he was endorsed by the governor of Iowa, of all places, Kim Reynolds, and she's been overseeing her state in pretty much the same exact way. So, like I say, I want to make it clear
that this is not just Ron DeSantis. This is going on everywhere, and I'm going to pass it down to Aaron. Yeah. So don't forget that the word woke they seem to kind of be using as a pejorative, but what really means just being kind to people and listening to what they have to say, and listening and believing them when they share their experiences, When they when they share their experiences that are negative in the world and that cause them pain, we just we just need to they want us. We need to
listen and help them and make the world a better place for everybody. And this war on Woke is really annoying at best because it just shows that the GOP really they really have no policy platform anymore. They really have no laws
that they want to put forth other than culture war bs. They just they want they want people to be who they want them to be instead of trying to make this country a better place and pass laws that actually help people, laws that actually help move us forward and make our country a better place. And how do we get out of this mess? I think Cindy asked that is going to take a lot of work from a lot of people to combat these ideas and to stand up and show up and and and and you know,
counteract these policies and these these ideas. Jimmy, Yeah, I like that you kind of pointed to Cindy's analysis because I thought it was very astute. And I think the idea of needing a strong man, especially in the
GOP or what we understand now to be the GOP. I think that some former Republicans would argue that the Republican Party is dead and is long gone, but what we identify now as the Republican Party, I think it's it's very much in their playbook and to Kelly's point about Rod DeSantis becoming more enraged, more more boisterous in his approach to how he kind of sends his message out,
I think is very much the playbook as well. I think we're seeing a person that realizes they're probably not gonna achieve the goals that they want,
I'll say that, and so they're just reacting harshly. I also think that while it's not spreading in Florida, or not necessarily only in Florida, Kelly, I will say that the Governor of Iowa's endorsement is probably just made in an attempt to kind of divert away from the MAGA crowd, and they probably see DeSantis is the only real alternative instead of going down the road of MAGA, which surprisingly I think a lot of Republicans actually don't want to do.
Probably many of them feel compelled to do it. But anyway, what I wanted to get to though, was that this all is not in just Florida. To Kelly's point, you know a lot of these states are attacking doctors,
they're attacking teachers. The mass exodus of teachers that this article references is something that is incredibly important I think to our country because as we see them, as we see them move on because they're expected to take on more for not any increased pay, things like you know, expecting to provide security and overall health and welfare to children, when when they're really not getting recognized for
those things, they're dealing with heavy government intervention telling them how they can and can't teach, what they can and can't do in the classroom. That is so far outside of what's expected for a teacher. You know, a teacher should be able to relate to their students, but this kind of anti woke
legislation is preventing them from doing that. And so we're starting to see that this warlike tone, this strong man trying to lash out at whoever they can, often victimizing teachers and doctors and students in states like Florida, but not only Florida, And so I think everybody's analysis kind of comes together in that
way. How does this relate to what we do at the ACA, Well, it's because Christianity and these rights wingers tend to hijack the moral high ground and kind of point the finger at the rest of us who don't agree with him and call us woke. As a pejorative like Aaron manche Sidney. Yeah, the summer thing that I wanted to address. The first one is the reason why the article calls Florida the incubator of this war on woke is because
the scientists made it his trademark and he was elected for that. And remember he was elected in a landslide. So on one hand, it's what he wants, But on the other hand, he's also stuck now because even though he realizes that many of his positions are too extreme to be accepted by most of the population of Florida, he's stuck with it because people ask for it, and he knows that if he doesn't provide, he won't be re elected and he wants to be president one day, so he cannot fail. So
he is stuck right now. And I would love to be in his inner circle, to be able to speak to him and see what's what's in his mind, because how do you succeed in in flaming people if you don't believe yourself what you're selling. I mean, it's and I'm not trying to evoke sympathy for him because he really doesn't deserve it, but it's still quite interesting
a position to be in in my opinion. So yeah, Kelly, Well, I did do a little bit of diving into some of the problems that were mentioned in this and one of them was that there was a shortage of obgy obgyns in Florida. And it turns out it's not about the war and
woke and it's again something that's happening all across the United States. In fact, the US Department of Health and Human Services estimates the will be a shortage of into it, there'll be a shortage of five thousand obgyns and twenty thirty all across the country. And this isn't a new trend either. It's been going on for decades because of the ever increasing population, and Florida is one of the states where the population has been increasing the fastest and the longer the
problem goes on. The more people are being born, and they just aren't getting enough people to do the doctoring, which may be an economic problem since the job doesn't pay as well as it did, say thirty years ago. Cost of education insurance is skyrocketed. Doctor Ashley Hill with Advent Health in Florida, whose job it is to recruit obgyns says the lack of doctors applying to these programs in central Florida has little to do with state restrictions and more to
do with the population. In fact, she says, one of the reasons we have a shortage is we are not training enough younger doctors who are taking the place of older doctors who are retiring and all of the people moving into this area. And then she goes on to say that only a handful of prospective recruits have actually mentioned Florida as abortion restriction, so apparently that's not causing
a shortage of doctors in the area. However, and you mentioned it, teachers, this has on the other side of the coin, this has hurt edge vucation really really bigly on the Is there a single school with or library board actually anywhere in the country that hasn't experienced something like this or had to
deal with somebody. I live in a place where there's like very few people on our library board and our local school board has both had war on woke people running for the boards been very vocal at meetings and yeah, it's happening everywhere, just everywhere. I want to get like quick thirty second answers and ask because I think education is probably what's hurt been hurt the most, but I'd like to get a quick thirty second answer from the panel to see what
they think. Aaron, what do you think has been hurt the most by the war on Woke? Well, education certainly has been hurt. Education is critical to a functioning democracy. I think the war on Woke is just our ability. The biggest thing that's been hit is our ability to listen and believe people and compromise and try to make the world a better place. I mean, when you when you turn other people's experiences into a war, that's you're
just You're not going to be able to move forward. You're not going to
be able to be harmonious and come together. Jimmy, I think the quality of education that students are going to receive is going to decline, if it hasn't already having a mass exodus of teachers who have already gone through the training and education to be able to do their job leave, who are they getting replaced with people that are you know, fast tracking their training or who maybe are not as qualified and a probably the second or third tier in the hiring
pool. And so I think that the education system as a whole, especially in these states that have these laws that target teachers, are probably going to suffer. Sure, I think that'll be a long term problem to analyze, but it's certainly not a good thing when one of the professions that's so critically undermanned starts to see a mass excidity. Yeah. I agree that education is going to suffer a lot. But to me, the worst thing about this so called on woke is that, as Aaron said earlier, Walk is just
trying to be nice. And when this is uh turning too being the bad the bad guy, it means that the assholes are being the nice ones and and and and that reverse is to me, uh, the scariest part of of all of this, because suddenly you live in a society where collaboration is not seen as neither beneficial or even even a good thing. So the US is already very very uh a place where being competitive and uh and where singiler
people are are always always a better view than than collectivities. And so I think that this is getting worse, much worse, And and I again I don't see how you can go back against that. All right, thanks, And nobody mentioned the marginal as of minority communities, including the LGBTQ community, which I think is a big problem to you. I'm not sure which is worse that one or the education, but they're right up there with each other.
To me quick update, in the recent elections, the War on WO candidates did not do very well in school board elections all across the country, so that's maybe a hopeful thing. And I want to mention that if you want to check out lots of cool ACA merchandise, you can go to tiny dot cc Aca merch