I currently split my time between my off-grid life in the Appalachians that we're working on making a real full time homestead and suburban Florida. Every time we take a little time up north and then come back south I swear it's noticeably further to the political right. I'm going to preface this with the fact that I am vehemently anti-DeSantis, so don't come at me with any "DeSantis apologist" crap.

This is going to be unpopular amongst most of the people that I follow on here, but, I think it needs to be said, so I'm going to say it.

I see a lot of posts about Florida teachers here, and understandably so, there’s a lot of wild stuff coming from the Governor’s office. Unfortunately probably 99% of those posts come from outside of the state and I’m here to tell you something.

I don't know exactly how to say this, so I usually stay outside of political conversations here, but, calls for a teacher strike or all of the "I'm outraged at Florida" posts really reek of outsider echo chamber. I don't want to be the "Sure that sounds great, but" guy all the time, so I just don't get into it. They just aren’t representative of the people in Florida, though.

Know what DeSantis does? He comes through with a pay raise for teachers every single year. Know how many of those there were before him? Off the top of my head:

One for $2500 by Rick Scott over his 8 years. Charlie Crist vetoed one that passed the state legislature. Jeb Bush talked about it? Maybe went through with one? I’m honestly not sure on that one, but that gets you back to the 90's.

Are those 30% of teachers who identify as liberals mad? I’m sure they are. I’m sure you can even get quotes from a lot of them. I have this general discussion with friends who live on the west coast and other liberal areas all the time. It’s like a different world down here. It *feels* like there should be outrage. I get it. However, teachers down here aren’t largely ideologically against DeSantis and they’ve seen more raises the last four years than they’ve ever seen before. The population at large is even less liberal than the teachers and they think DeSantis is the greatest thing ever.

I guess my point is this. If you think there’s about to be an uprising against DeSantis in Florida it’s not going to come from some silent majority. They don’t exist. Point to Florida from wherever you are and say “Let’s not end up like that here” but, honestly, stop acting like the people here don’t have the government that the majority want. Florida has moved from a swing state to a solidly republican majority.