If anybody is still looking for a way “to save our democracy,” this is it:

It’s official —Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill ending Disney World’s special status in the Sunshine State. DeSantis went after the House of Mouse after it announced public opposition to his Parental Rights in Education bill.

The constitution was written when there was the state and the citizen. Now, we have an oligarchy, a weak shadow of the state, and something only vaguely resembling a citizen. The oligarchy has methodically shredded our constitutional rights and turned the state into its servant. And as I explained in my first video, no nation-state means no democracy.

In a nation-state (which is the statehood model that gave us our constitution to begin with), public education is a crucial tool used by the state to create the cohesive culture of “we, the people.” Unless the state reclaims its exclusive prerogative to define the public school curriculum and completely ejects the oligarchy from that process, we won’t have a nation-state. That people don’t get this and even argue about “Disney’s right” to have input into public education shows how far we have traveled down the road of destroying the nation-state to please a tiny group of extraterritorial, supranational oligarchs. “Where are your conservative principles?” they moan. My conservative principle is preserving the nation-state, not sticking my head in the sand and pretending that the constitution isn’t being reduced to a Bounty paper roll.

I’m in awe of DeSantis. I’m stunned that he gets all this. Nobody else seems to. Trump never did anything half this gutsy or pro-nation. (If he did, please give examples. I’m eager to be proven wrong). We need more politicians like DeSantis. We need to support DeSantis in what he’s doing.

This is a hopeful moment, folks. With what’s going on in Ukraine,* with the UK’s flourishing after leaving the EU yoke, the solidarity in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, and now a major US politician, a governor of a crucial state making a series of bold moves as if the nation were still real. I don’t know if it’s all going to work but there’s reason to hope.

Have a happy Holy Saturday!

* I’m referring to the Ukrainian search for a nation-state model that will avoid the pitfalls of the digital totalitarianism, corporate wokeness, and Western self-effacement.

This was done by the Franco dictatorship after the civil war of 1936-9. Children of Republican families were forcibly removed and handed over for adoption to regime-friendly families for reeducation. Many of the children were so small that they had no memory of their real parents. This only started coming to light in 2002 and onwards. Some of these children managed to locate their already very elderly parents. Many were too late and only found graves of their moms and dads. I did some research on this a while ago, and it’s heartbreaking.

In the 1970s, this strategy was adopted by the military junta in Argentina. Children were handed over to the literal rapists and torturers of their parents. Some grew up calling their mom’s rapist “dad.” Imagine what they felt when this all started to be revealed. DNA was very helpful in reuniting families.

Russians are in great company here. Franco, the junta. Unsurprisingly, Franco was a great admirer of Hitler and the Argentinian junta engaged former Nazis hiding in Argentina in teaching torture techniques to the junta butchers.

Flexible, fill and flood – three words pointing to fluidity in one short message. There’s even alliteration – f, f, f – that imitates the sound of flowing water.

No, I don’t think he’s doing it “on purpose.” Who cares, though?