June 25th 2020

By Hunter

Daily Kos

A new University of North Florida poll of Duval County voters suggests that the locals are none too happy about the Republican Party's decision to saddle them with the Pandemic Funtime Hitler Show, aka the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville, Florida, at the end of August. The poll shows 58% of county residents "strongly or somewhat" oppose hosting the convention, compared to 42% in support.

More importantly, 71% of those polled were "very or somewhat concerned" that the convention would result in COVID-19 transmission. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis might be doing his best to pretend that the state has the ongoing pandemic somehow under control, but those voters aren't buying it.

Despite Donald Trump's insistence that the party put on a lavish show for his renomination, there are still good odds that the Jacksonville convention gets canceled—or scaled back, anyhow. Current data suggests Florida is on the cusp of a substantial COVID-19 wave, and there is no evidence that wave will break before a true "second wave" escalates things further in the fall. The plan to ignore the virus to see what would happen appears to have resulted in, well, what experts warned would happen.

While it will infuriate Trump himself, if the COVID-19 pandemic is raging in Florida in mid-August, then it's not clear how many delegates will really hop on a plane to party in the Republican petri dish. And if the crowd starts to look as weak as it did in (ahem) Tulsa, Oklahoma, there will be pressure to shrink things down considerably rather than hand Dear Leader the embarrassment of addressing a thinned out audience.

Or not. We've all seen how delirious Republican diehards get when it comes to demanding other people die for the sake of Dear Leader's ego. Perhaps the Party really will Jonestown themselves into oblivion for the pervert tax-dodging racist's sake.

Aug. 24 is two months away. During a pandemic, two months is a very long time. As stupid as it sounds to fly delegates from around the country to one of the states with the worst emerging outbreaks, it may sound even worse four or five weeks from now.

Posted with permission