"I Don't Understand How This Could Happen - We're Very Conservative Here" - Welcome To Florida

[hatrack]

The Florida we know and love is ruined. That’s our new reality and people are living it in this beach town. Naples beaches are known as some of the state’s best for their tidy white sands and pristine waters, but the toll of the toxic red tide invasion is relentless. No, the environmental disaster that appeared last fall — and kept us away all summer — hasn’t gone away even though your friends may be posting on social media pretty sunset pictures.

EDIT

The Florida we love is being destroyed by Big Sugar and other agricultural and development polluters enabled by Scott and his administration with the full cooperation of the GOP. I don’t understand how this could happen. We’re very conservative here,” my hotel checkout clerk in Naples said, trying to explain what I had just experienced on the beach.

That’s how ignorant Floridians can be about state government. Even a person whose job in the tourism and hospitality industry is being affected by red tide and algae bloom disasters doesn’t get it, although he can see with his own eyes his hotel is empty on a great-weather weekend.

It hurts deeply. It angers you to see in person the miles of dirty beaches and algae-infected waterways. It’s sick to say it, but there’s no better way to experience the debacle than by making a trip to Naples, home of Florida’s governor.

EDIT

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fabiola-santiago/article219330305.html

[zipplewrath]

1. It's so frustrating

It's the "forest for the trees" problem in Florida, and to some extent much of the south. They tout how great their conservative policies are, all the while the schools consistently rank in the bottom 10% of the country. They hand out corporate welfare to companies trying to get them to move here. Yet, when they lose the Google or Amazon or any number of other Fortune 500 that are looking to expand or relocated, they get told the same thing over and over. Your schools suck. The public transportation sucks. There are no arts or other cultural features. You have no skilled work force from which to draw. It's a tourist based economy and infrastructure that won't support any sort of high tech manufacturing or development type industry.

So the GOP goes and cuts taxes again.