Governor Whatever

I do not believe Governor DeSantis is a communist even though he sometimes acts like one. I feel I can speak with some authority on this issue because, a s a senior at Lakeland High School in the 1960s, I took a required course on Americanism vs. Communism.  And since then, I’ve spent time living and teaching in communist China.

 One important thing I learned in my high school class and from my China experience was that communist governments control their populations partly by indoctrinating them through the educational system. Of course, we were being indoctrinated at LHS by being forced to take the Americanism vs. Communism course, but since it emphasized the American value of free speech, it seemed pretty benevolent.  

 Free speech is enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution. In a communist country like China, free speech is not guaranteed. Government control over speech is a bad idea. China is a great country in many ways, but it is a failure where free speech is concerned. And China also fails to protect teachers from partisan meddling. Chinese teachers are forced by the State to teach only “The Party Line.”  

 I believe in free speech both for ordinary citizens and for classroom educators.In respectable American schools and universities free speech is protected by the tenure system. Tenure is designed to protect educators from being punished by politicians for failing to follow some leader’s idea of “the Party Line.”  Communist schools don’t, as a rule, have tenure  because communist leaders want to punish any educator who deviates from the Party Line.

 I taught for a year in communist China, so I know first-hand how political leaders enforce the Party Line there.I had been warned early on not to discuss China’s suppression of the Tibetans in my classroom. But one day I carelessly referred to that suppression in passing. Class discussion was suddenly and aggressively halted by the class monitor whose job apparently included keeping me from straying away from the Party Line. Educators like me, who were not protected by tenure, simply had to teach what the State demanded and could not express any independent thought, especially if such thought made the political leaders look bad. China’s communist dictatorship was exactly as I had been taught in my Americanism vs. Communism class!

 Today Governor DeSantis threatens educators for not following his idea of the Party Line. and this makes him look like a communist dictator. But I think he is probably not a communist.  Yes, he does have authoritarian tendencies. He wants to suppress teaching about injustices experienced by African Americans just as the Chinese communist leaders didn’t want me to teach about the Tibetans’ experience of injustice. Also, DeSantis criticizes tenure. But still, I don’t believe he is a communist.

 I do wonder if Governor DeSantis has thought about how he will keep Florida’s educators from straying from the Party Line in the future. Other than by doing away with tenure, I mean. Is he going to assign class monitors like the one the communists assigned to my class?

 Like the Chinese communists, DeSantis wants above all to wield power. Though the governor may want to do away with tenure and force educators to toe the Party Line, I nevertheless, don’t believe he is a communist. Real communists promote working class revolution, but DeSantis no doubt sees the working class as an obstacle to his own grab for power. I also don’t believe he is a Nazi, though his racist policies will certainly appeal to the pro-Nazi wing  of the Republican party.

 DeSantis is neither a communist nor a Nazi; he is a DeSantist. He will embrace whatever policy he thinks will help him slide his way into the White House. He only adheres to policies that he believes will strengthen his bid for the presidency. His obsession with doing or saying whatever he thinks will help him become president is so front-and-center that I’m surprised Trump hasn’t labeled him with an appropriate nickname, one more to the point than “Meatball Ron.” Since his plan is to follow whatever policies he thinks will catch the current political winds, maybe Trump should start calling him Governor Windblown.  Or even Governor Whatever.