Next, internment camps in Orlando for Chinese-Americans or anyone who looks foreign

Ron DeSantis will do whatever it takes to be President

Manzanar (New York Times)

Those who don’t know history are condemned to…oh, never mind….

• Me

Once upon a time, Floriduh was a tropical Paradise, a place where people went to escape the winters in the northern tier states. It was relatively carefree, and people could do what they wanted without worrying about anything. Sure, it was a reliably red state, but that was to be expected. When you have a state whose residents trend toward octogenarian retirees, things will trend Conservative.

Then Rick Scott became Governor, and his “What, me worry?” ignorance and corruption began to turn the Sunshine State into a place where the reflexive hatred of Democrats and Democratic ideas became de riguer. Scott even refused a sizable federal investment in high-speed rail because…well, because a Democrat was in the White House.

And because he was just that partisan. So Floriduh went without high-speed rail and the infrastructure that would’ve accompanied it. So Scott’s short-term ignorance and partisanship “triumphed” over Floriduh’s long-term economic prospects, but he could say he said “NO!” to Big Government spending.

Way to stand up for what’s right, Batboy!!

But Rick Scott looks like a Cub Scout compared to current Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s turned Floriduh into his personal fiefdom. The laws DeSantis has succeeded in getting through the legislature to fight the “war on woke” and increase his personal power are stunning.

Now Gov. DeSantis is looking to get his very own Chinese Exclusion Act passed into law.

Fresh on the heels/heel turn of his stupid fight with Disney, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis seems to have found another strategy to be awful to Floridians and to damage Florida's economy in the pursuit of the 2024 GOP nomination. The Florida state House yesterday passed a bill aimed at preventing the Chinese Communist Party from buying land in Florida, but goes well beyond that by forbidding anyone who's "domiciled" in China from owning any real estate in Florida, unless they're a US citizen or permanent resident. The bill also includes other restrictions on some foreign ownership of properties near military bases or "critical infrastructure," but the blanket ban on owning any property in Florida applies only to Chinese nationals.

By golly, it's a throwback to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, when America decided it could admit loutish Irish, swarthy sex-crazed Italians, and anarchist Rooshians, but Chinese immigrants were some kinda threat.

Ah, the good ol’ days, when you could look at someone and discern by their eyes or the color of their skin whether or not they represented a potential threat to the Fatherland.

Sort of like post-9/11, when good, God-fearing White Conservative Christian heterosexual patriots could harass Muslims because they might represent a threat. Remember when [insert action here] while Muslim was something patriots legitimately feared?

Yeah, I know; it turns out it was our paranoia speaking, but we never knew when some swarthy Allah-worshipping madman would take down another plane, a McDonald’s, or even a doughnut shop. So we had to be on guard 24/7/365…BECAUSE WE JUST DIDN’T KNOW.

THESE PEOPLE WANT TO DESTROY US AND OUR WAY OF LIFE!!

Then The Former Guy tried to ban Muslims or those who looked Muslim from entering the US, and REAL Americans breathed a sigh of relief. That was until the ban was overturned by a crybaby Liberal bleeding-heart judge who lacked the cojones to do what needed to be done.

So now Gov. DeSantis thinks he can save Floriduh from the threat of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) buying up all the prime beachfront property for their party apparatchiks. And the way he’s going about it may be a wee bit ham-handed, but it’ll get the job done, no?

Supporters of the measure, Senate Bill 264, claim it's absolutely necessary for US national security, and for that matter some say that anyone opposing it is probably a Chinese agent too.

That's exactly the kind or rhetoric that has led real estate interests and Asian Americans in Florida to say that the bill is rooted in xenophobia, and will lead to anti-Asian discrimination, particularly since, as the Miami Herald explains,

it would require home and land buyers to sign an affidavit that they’re not prohibited from buying land. Realtors would be subject to “civil or criminal liability” if they have “actual knowledge” that the transaction violates the law.

So, they’d have to sign an affidavit saying, “I am not Chinese, and, to the best of my knowledge, have never been Chinese nor a member of the Chinese Communist Party.” Well, maybe not that exact wording, but something close to it because what it comes down to is anti-Chinese discrimination.

And since most Americans couldn’t tell the difference between Asian ethnicities if you held a gun to their heads, we’re talking about the potential for some serious anti-Asian discrimination. Because when you can’t tell your Chinese from your Japanese from your Koreans from your Malaysians from your Indonesians…well, you get my point, no?

And I really love this part: “supporters of [SB 264]…claim it's absolutely necessary for US national security, and for that matter some say that anyone opposing it is probably a Chinese agent too.”

So, any REAL American would support SB 264, and anyone opposed to it is probably a Chinese agent. Way to frame the debate there, y’all!!

At hearings on the Senate version of the bill last month, the Herald notes, more than 100 people testified that they've been subjected to racist slurs already as paranoid rhetoric about China "gobbling up" huge tracts of US land has ramped up in rightwing media. On Saturday, Asian Americans across Florida rallied against the bill, arguing that it will lead to stereotyping and more acts of discrimination, and that it could imperil their own small businesses if they run afoul of the law, which requires Chinese "domiciled" owners to divest their Florida properties within two years.

‘Course, no White Conservative Christian heterosexual patriot is going to care about what those folks think because they’re probably Chinese agents, anyway.

If you, like me, have a sense of history and are thinking, “Wait a minute; we’ve seen this movie before, haven’t we?”… you’d be onto something, cowboy.

This law would be a great and perfectly “legal” way to mess with a business that may be owned by a Chinese national living in mainland China but managed by a family member living in Floriduh.

If the American branch of the family can't come up with the capital to buy out the relative, or the relative doesn't want to sell — or give it as a gift and eat the tax losses — well, here come the fines, and the forfeiture of the property. The LA Times notes that such property grabs were a common feature of anti-Asian laws back in the 19th Century, too.

In an editorial yesterday, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel argued that DeSantis's push for the property ban and other anti-immigrant legislation will "cast a spotlight on anyone who talks with an accent. Or wears clothes that reflect a different heritage. Or speaks a language other than English," regardless of their actual citizenship or immigration status, which of course is the point for DeSantis.

The editorial argues that the impact of the bill will be pretty obvious:

Anyone who looks Asian will become much more likely to be questioned or turned away from financial transactions, and potentially have their homes or businesses seized. We can’t imagine anything in modern law that comes close to that.

Not to worry, though, because as any patriotic Floriduh politician will leap in front of a microphone or television camera to tell you, SB 264 is SURPRISINGLY popular within Floriduh’s Chinese-American community.

Not only that, the only vocal opposition you’ll hear from the Chinese-American community is from people bused in from out of state, some from as far away as Texas.

Bizarrely, some Florida pols are suggesting that the bill is actually super popular with Chinese Americans, but that you're only seeing protests by opponents because that's exactly what the CCP wants, and welcome back to McCarthyism. State Rep. David Borrero (R) insisted that "Chinese Americans and Chinese residents who are here in Florida have been silenced, likely by China, for merely speaking out in support of this bill," and Democratic co-sponsor Katherine Waldron

told lawmakers that she heard the protesters were bused in from Texas. She and Borrero said they know of Chinese Americans who have been threatened from speaking in favor of the bill and silenced on WeChat, the dominant phone app in China.

“Do not be intimidated by the vocal and aggressive actors we’ve seen in the past few weeks, who do not have our country’s best interests in mind,” Waldron said. “The communist threat to our nation is real.”

Ergo, no "good" Asian Americans really oppose the bill; those people saying it'll lead to discrimination are OUTSIDE AGITATORS AND COMMUNIST AGENTS TRYING TO WHIP UP FEAR BECAUSE THEY HATE AMERICA. Please remain calm and purge them, so we can institute government by conspiracy theory.

That’s right; “good” Asian Americans know their place and know it’s in their best interest to keep their mouths shut about SB 264. Because, as any good, God-fearing White Conservative Christian heterosexual patriot knows in their heart of hearts, “The communist threat to our nation is real.”

Wait… didn’t the Cold War end in, like, 1989? And when it ended, didn’t it take the “communist threat” with it? So are we looking at a possible resurgence of groups like the John Birch Society and the House Un-American Activities Committee? Are we going to resume blackballing actors and writers for communist affiliations?

If you thought all of that died when Sen. Joseph McCarthy was disgraced, you might want to take a good look around you. I won’t say that Ron DeSantis is the corporeal embodiment of Sen. McCarthy, but he does affect the mien of someone willing to do anything to be President.

And if “anything” means ruining lives and careers along the way…well, that’s just the cost of doing business, knowhutimean?

That’s what fascism looks like.