George Takei 
🏳️🌈🖖🏽We must prevent, at all costs, the presence of an authoritarian wannabe in the White House. There are two men in Florida who currently want that position and that power. Either would be a disaster for America.
Douglas Phillips Books@georgetakei anyone interested in throwing Florida out altogether? Then if they want back in they have to pass a civics test.
DressToKILT@dpscifi @georgetakei we should have some empathy for the people who are living under a proto-fascist regime. The majority living there did not vote for this.
@DressToKILT @georgetakei they just reelected the guy, 3 months ago. It wasn't even close, DeSantis won 60% of the vote. They know who he is, and they like him.
@dpscifi @georgetakei pretty easy to do since he got to choose his voters. Saddam Hussain won 100%, do you think those were legitimate as well?
@DressToKILT @georgetakei there is no evidence of large scale voter fraud anywhere in the US. That's the big lie Trump has been pushing for years. It's simply not true.
@dpscifi @georgetakei there's a vast difference between the "large-scale voter fraud" narrative pushed by Trump and the gross manipulation of elections done under the color of law, like purging voter rolls and making it increasingly difficult for some people to vote.
@DressToKILT @georgetakei voter suppression in Florida is absolutely real, but I've searched for evidence that it gave DeSantis a false victory and found none. Most reports attribute the DeSantis victory to turnout (like the link below). Turnout was higher for Rs than Ds. You could say Ds were intimidated, but unless all the news reporters are biased, I'm not even seeing cases of that. To win, Ds need to do better getting young people and Hispanics to vote.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2022/11/09/republicans-dominate-florida-elections-democrat-turnout-low/
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2022/11/09/republicans-dominate-florida-elections-democrat-turnout-low/
@dpscifi @georgetakei That is... shockingly naive and takes the 2022 election in a complete vacuum. He won by 0.4% in 2018 to get into office - do you really believe that the purge of thousands upon thousands of likely Dem voters didn't sway that?
Democrats (as usual) responded to a fascist by nominating an actual Republican. His overwhelming victory in 2022 was because he was an incumbent who just had to get through two primaries.
@dpscifi @georgetakei In every election Democrats seem to reinforce their long-held belief that centrism wins. 2016: "Oh we lost! I guess our candidate wasn't centrist enough!" 2020: "We won because we ran the most centrist candidate we could find!"
Florida 2022: "We ran an actual Republican and got blown out of the water by a guy who literally ran on a campaign of genocide. GUESS WE BETTER RUN TO THE RIGHT!"
@DressToKILT @georgetakei agreed, centrists are the wrong answer. Voter registration and turnout are the right answers. In Florida, Rs are winning both.
@dpscifi @georgetakei And the more entrenched they get, the more they strip away voting rights. It's a death spiral that guarantees them a permanent majority while they claim to be paragons of democracy.
Democrats, on the other hand, couldn't wrangle the good Senator from Coal Industry to protect voting rights, and still they worship at the altar of centrism.