MSNBC opinion writer, Michael A. Cohen wrote an anti-Florida propaganda piece lambasting Florida. So you don’t have to torture yourself reading it, here are the takeaways: it’s false, it’s embarrassing, and it leaves out several key details.
Mr. Cohen calls Florida the “Hot Mess State” and “the most intolerant and authoritarian-minded state in the country.” But this is a clear exaggeration. Florida had some of the shortest Covid lockdowns in the country. The state also made mask and vaccine mandates illegal.
Maybe Cohen’s definition of freedom is different than Floridians. Many leftist commentators cite New York City and San Francisco as examples of successful leftist policies. But when you compare the crime rates in these areas to cities in Florida, it’s not even close. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement 2021 Uniform Crime Report, crime in Florida is at a 50-year low, with a 14% drop in crime from 2019 to 2020.
Florida is not just winning on fighting crime, the Sunshine State is also dominating the financial game. According to Bloomberg News, Florida had a $21.8 BILLION budget surplus as of last July (a state record).
So, it’s safe, sunny, financially sound and free from mandates? Yuck! Who would want to live like that? Clearly a lot of people. According to USA Today, nearly 65,000 New Yorkers traded in their state driver’s licenses for Florida’s in 2022. Additionally, Business Insider says, “The sun is shining bright on Florida. The population of the aptly named Sunshine State exploded over the coronavirus pandemic: Roughly 752,000 residents moved to Florida from July 2019 to July 2022 and it is now the fastest-growing state in the US according to Census Bureau estimates.”
So if Florida is the “meth lab of American democracy,” why are so many people coming? Perhaps Cohen should ask his MSNBC colleagues on Morning Joe; Joe Scarborough and Mike Brzezinski live in the Abacoa neighborhood of Jupiter Florida and film their show there more often than not.
So, if Florida is so bad that MSNBC has to publish an article about it, why would they allow their employees to live there? We all know the answer. The narrative that Florida is poorly governed is a lie designed to push a political agenda. Facts tell the real story and by every metric, Florida is winning.
