PREVIEW: Big Government, Furries, and Lousy Chocolate
Nick Hauselman is out of the office, so Jared Yates Sexton is flying solo and covering Ron DeSantis's all-out assault on education, the GOP's attack on "furries" in Indiana's public schools, and this absolutely absurd M&M's debacle that gives insight into where things are going.
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All right.
And now, the show.
Hey, everybody.
It's Jared Yates-Exton.
It has been a long week.
I hope on your end it has been, I don't know, less long, better, something along those lines.
I am flying solo today because our good friend and co-host Nick Halseman is out doing super cool Nick Halseman things.
But I'm here to captain the old podcast, The Weekender, which is good because Nick is going to pick me up next week as I am out running around doing Jared Yates Sexton things.
So I'm more than happy to do that.
Before we get going, a couple of notes.
We've got an exciting thing this Sunday.
I'm going to be in conversation with Ruth Ben-Ghiat.
We're going to do a Zoom call, question and answer, basically an adapted version of my bourbon talks on Sundays.
That is going to be at 8 p.m.
Eastern on Sunday.
That is going to be open to subscribers on our Substacks.
So if you haven't already, go over to jaredyatesaxton.substack.com and get signed up there.
And I'll be releasing the link also to the patrons of the McRake podcast.
So I'll be sending that link out here shortly.
Now, as for the show, unfortunately, as always, we have to talk about right-wing ridiculousness.
who We gotta talk about furries.
We gotta talk about M&Ms.
We gotta talk about Florida, where Ron DeSantis is continuing what I believe is one of the most repulsive Governorships in modern history.
This is Wallace level during the Civil Rights Movement level stuff.
And it's incredible every step along the way to watch it grow more and more egregious.
What has floated up in recent days has been a couple of pushes here.
First of all, the DeSantis administration using their power over education in the state of Florida, which is a constant beachhead in this aggressive push.
It has blocked an African-American AP course, African-American history, saying that it is quote-unquote inexplicably contrary to Florida law.
This is, of course, following in the footsteps of this anti-woke act that DeSantis has pushed and has used every step along the way as a weapon to not only forward the agenda of the right-wing donor class, following in the footsteps of this anti-woke act that DeSantis has pushed and has used every step along the way as a weapon to not only forward the agenda of the right-wing donor class, who are going the right-wing donor class, who are going to figure, by
In this attack on these courses now, the main components that have been flagged as being problematic are elements of the African-American AP course, the African-American history course, that focus on intersectionality, which, the African-American history course, that focus on intersectionality, which, for anybody who doesn't know, is the idea that all these different types of oppression and prejudice, they come together.
That a person can have several different types of privileges and that these privileges often interact with one another and can in fact multiply the effects in terms of power.
There is a problem, according to the Florida Department of Education, with an emphasis on activism.
Which I just want to pause for a second and point out that this would be a course, if it was written up to DeSantis's standards and up to the Republican Floridian legislature's standards, that would not talk about the abolition movement in the United States of America.
That wouldn't talk about the civil rights movement.
That's when you really look at it, when you really think about it, that's about as insidious as it gets, is it not?
The other two components that have been flagged in this situation, feminist literary theory, which means, of course, that the state of Florida will not allow students to learn about feminist thought.
Particularly within the letters, which advocates and creates, and this is what literature is always about, of course, it's about creating an idea about an alternate world or a better world.
And finally, black queer studies, which would effectively erase the existence of queer people.
DeSantis being his usual disgusting self, he said that this was a defense against a, quote, woke indoctrinating agenda.
And I'm just going to read this quote that he said in all of it.
And again, I want to make it very clear something that I've said in the past about DeSantis.
His ability to be cruel and to weaponize that cruelty is something that we cannot understate.
Particularly as, you know, it is so necessary to compare him to Donald Trump and his ability to follow in the footsteps of Donald Trump and possibly be even worse than Donald Trump.
He says, quote, Now, who would say that an important part of black history is queer theory?
Again, just let that wash over you.
Now, who would say that an important part of black history is queer theory?
What an amazing amount of erasure.
And to break it down, what that quote does, because it is just such quintessential Republican bullshit.
Now who would say?
Which gives no humanity to people who would say that, you know, when you're talking about the African American experience, it might help to take a look at the experience of queer African Americans.
Now, who would say means that nobody worth listening to, nobody worth calling a person, nobody worth treating as a person.
Would ever possibly say that.
Which, as the Republican Party has done consistently through its white, heteronormative, oppressive, misogynistic, patriarchal lens, continually only gives humanity and control over history and perspective to themselves.
Everybody else is less than human.
Everybody else is irrational.
Everybody else is dispensable.
God, it's awful.
It's absolutely terrible.
With this has also come word that the state of Florida has handed down communications that all teachers and all schools should be prepared to have every single book within classrooms and libraries either vetted
by a librarian or a, quote, media specialist as not involving indoctrination and not having state denied ideas.
And if they're not, and if teachers or administrators are found in violation, they could potentially be charged with a felony.
That is, that's small government at its best, isn't it?
Every single book.
I, I want to talk a little bit about my history as an educator in a minute, particularly as we start talking about what should be happening right now as opposed to what is happening.
But I just want to reiterate how much this authoritarian push relies Unterrifying people.
You have to be responsible for every single book in your classroom.
Possibly being hauled to some sort of a DeSantis right-wing reactionary person or committee even.
You know, you could find yourself very well brought in front of the Florida legislature to be hammered to have millions of dollars of right-wing donations and funding and campaigns and media apparatuses focused on you.
