Florida And The Useless Act Of Rebellion

The State To Give Up On

Both my parents are Montrealers by birth, and so it understandably holds a close place in my heart. I love the city more than anywhere on earth, and I have never had anything but happy moments there. I love it with everything I have, but it’s not just the physical geography that makes me love it. Everytime me and my Dad would go to the city, he would make a big show of calling one of the main roads through downtown by the old name - it isn’t Rene-Levesque Boulevard, but Dorchester. That, and him telling me that it is still Dorchester in Westmount, are two things I can’t help but remember whenever I think of Montreal, or when I’m there.

Rene Levesque was the first separatist Premier of Quebec, and so my father’s - and many others’ - act of rebellion is to still call it Dorchester, because we ought not celebrate a man who wanted Quebec to leave Canada. It’s an act of rebellion, a point of pride, and as useless as everyone knows it is, it is a cultural language in a sense. It’s never going back, they’re not going to take the sign down and change it back to Dorchester, but it’s a siren call of a certain kind of person in a certain place.

Dorchester Square is my favourite place on earth, the small patch of grass between the Street Formerly known as Dorchester and the street one north of it, and I go there every time I’m in Montreal. I love the city, and I love it even more so because of the history. Dorchester Square looks upon the Sun Life building where my Grandfather worked for decades, and in that square, I feel it all - the history, of both sides of my family and also my own, having gone there many times myself. I appreciate the act of Anglo rebellion that calling that street Dorchester represents, even in spite of the fact that it is the most useless act of rebellion that exists.

Sorry, scratch that, the second most useless act of rebellion that exists - the first is spending money trying to flip Florida blue.

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There was a St. Pete’s poll of Florida out on Tuesday which is making me think of this, because it is full of a lot of good news for Democrats, if you want to be optimistic. Charlie Crist is up 1.5% in the poll, Ron DeSantis is underwater on approvals, and, oh yeah, the poll has Crist only winning Black voters by 52%, meaning that in (some amount of) theory, the lead could be even bigger for Crist, right? Yeah, no, and here’s where the bad news comes in - this poll is so favourable for Democrats because it only has DeSantis winning whites in the state by 12%, down from Trump’s 22% margin, and down 9% from his own 21% margin in 2018. What’s it all mean? Same as it always does - the poll’s trash, and it should be taken as such.

Yes, if you really squint hard enough you can maybe convince yourself that Crist could do better than Gillum with whites - after all, Crist outran Gillum by just over 7% in his suburban district in 2018, and Crist is a former Republican and has held moderate views over the years. Crist, in his 2014 run for Governor as a Democrat, only lost by 1% on the same night Democrats lost Governorships in Maryland and Massachusetts, so he clearly has form as a good candidate. The problem is, he’s now running in a much more red state than he was then. In 2012, Florida voted about 3% right of the nation, and in 2020, it is 8% right of the nation. Oh, and did I mention the Marco problem? Given that DeSantis is getting to run with Rubio on the ballot this time, it is highly likely the GOP are going to get Trump levels - if not better than Trump levels - of support in Miami, given Rubio’s well established strength with those voters. If Democrats can’t rely on reversion with Hispanics, then they are going to need a whole lot of swing with white voters - which, I mean, in theory Crist can do. But this is where the faith flies out the window.

Evan Scrimshaw @EScrimshaw

Digging into Florida data (yes, I know how to spend my Friday nights well), and god did those polls miss badly. We all know about Dade, but whites with degrees: Monmouth: Biden +19 NYT: Biden +4 Quinnipiac: Biden +7 Morning Consult: Biden +1 Trump won them by 13%

There is nothing to be said at this point except believing that these sorts of white reversions in one cycle is either asinine or insanity. It’s asinine if you know better and still maintain that there is anything that can cause that sort of white swing in 8 months, and it is insanity if you just take it at face value because a poll said so. Even look at the Georgia runoffs, and you’ll see a lot of the polls were way low of the GOP margin with whites, even as the averages worked well. The reason? The outlier polls that had Democrats way too high were cancelled out by partisan R pollsters, or pollsters got near the right toplines by being too low on Democratic margins with Black voters and too high on their performance with whites, which doesn’t inspire any confidence.

Crist could win, but he would be one of the most singularly surprising election winners since 2008 if he were to pull off the trick, given Florida’s rightward trend, the unlikely nature of much, if any, Dade reversion, and the fact that no Democrat has won the Governor’s Mansion in Florida in my lifetime. Treating Florida like it is still a swing state is an act of rebellion, but the most pathetic part about it is that those who do it are not even self-aware enough to recognize it for what it is. My father has never been in any doubt about whether or not they’d restore Dorchester to that hallowed street, and his act of rebellion was always understood to be a useless act. An act of defiance was all it ever was, and it was always understood that way. Those who advocate for a retrenchment and added focus on Florida are similarly tilting at windmills, but without the self awareness that made my father’s constant reminders charming, and not immensely annoying. We will not win the state, nor do we need the state, and treating it as anything other than a deeply expensive money pit needs to be understood as an act of useless rebellion. And this time, the stakes are a lot more substantial than me having to pretend I didn’t already know it’s still Dorchester in Westmount.