Joe Scarborough’s Ignorant Anti-Socialism Exposes Dangers of Conservative Ideology
Anyone who has watched Morning Joe over the past month or so has been repeatedly regaled by self-proclaimed conservative host and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough blast Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for being a “big government socialist.”
Why does Scarborough call DeSantis by this most politically charged and provocative name?
Well, it was really a moment of political opportunism for Scarborough to bash socialism, out of a complete ignorance of what socialism actually is.
Scarborough’s anti-socialist rants, though, in addition to ignorantly characterizing socialism, were oddly timed for this pandemic moment in a way that actually exposed and clarified the dangers and backwardness of conservative ideology, starkly highlighting the small-government and states-rights elements that enable racism, sexism, and other repressive authoritarian politics.
What Scarborough described as “socialism” was DeSantis’s statewide anti-mask mandate, prohibiting businesses, schools, organizations — anyone and any entity — from requiring people wear masks on their premises to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Scarborough went to town on DeSantis, confusing top-down government stupidity with socialism. He ranted:
“Sounds like a socialist to me. When you’re a governor of a state, and you’re telling businesses, small businesses that they can’t run their businesses the way they want to run their businesses, to keep their stores safe, the way they think they can keep their stores safe, and also when you’re telling local school boards, banning them from taking safety measures in their own areas.
Florida is like five different states. So go tell somebody in Broward county, a local school board in Broward county, that they must do the same thing that happens in Walton county, ten hours, twelve hours away, it’s just ridiculous big government, one size fits all socialism. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Let’s first just start with the medical stupidity and small-mindedness of Scarborough’s diatribe from a policy perspective.
To state the obvious, we are dealing with a highly contagious and transmissible virus. The virus does…
