Florida Governor Ron DeathSentence is one of the foremost practitioners of the peculiar Republican strategy of trying to kill off their own base, by opposing mask mandates and vaccine passports.

This week, he took exception to the widespread observation that those who are unvaccinated and refuse to wear masks are causing the recent upsurge in COVID cases. “I’m sick of all this judgmental stuff. Nobody is trying to get ill here!” he declared, despite evidence that reckless actions by the unvaccinated and anti-maskers have caused the spike in COVID cases in Florida and other parts of the nation.

DeSantis has chosen to exacerbate this phenomenon with his latest action to ban mask mandates imposed by local school districts who were following revised CDC guidance in an attempt to combat the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant, which studies suggest may be spreadable even by vaccinated individuals.

It should be noted that, although DeSantis styles himself a conservative, this is not a conservative approach. Conservativism preaches the benefit of pushing power down to the most local level possible, where the people can readily hold officials accountable, echoing Jefferson’s pithy quote, “the government closest to the people serves the people best.” It is not conservative for the State government to bigfoot local governmental bodies to prevent them from taking actions to protect the health of the local population.

DeSantis, instead of protecting public health, wants to prevent public health measures. Why? To pander to anti-mask Trumpsters. So he engages in dangerous political theater, with real world consequences, as he has threatened to withhold state education funds from school districts that have the temerity to attempt to protect the health of their students, teachers and staff.

His efforts have already paid dangerous dividends, as the state’s second largest school district, Broward County, announced that, in light of the new executive order, it was rescinding its mask mandate so as not to lose state funds. Of course, it could be argued that DeSantis would be happy with either outcome — cutting off education funds or foiling a mask mandate — as stifling education also appears to be a mainstream Republican goal.

As new Florida COVID cases surged from 73,000 to 110,000 in one week, DeSantis apparently made a quick recovery from being sick over “all this judgmental stuff,” and in true Trumpian fashion, he blamed the “fearmongering” media for reporting the numbers, as well as blaming President Biden’s supposedly porous Southern Border, hundreds of miles from Florida, for the increase.

Deflection, absolving himself from all responsibility even while taking wrongheaded actions that endanger his State’s public health, and blaming the Democrats and the old bogeyman of immigrants pouring through the Southern border – no wonder DeSantis views himself as the rightful heir to Donald Trump.