Joe Biden’s victory can benefit Florida. Here’s how | Editorial

Joe Biden is president-elect. Kamala Harris will be our glass-ceiling-shattering vice president.

They are committed to pulling this nation back from the brink of insanity, of meanness, of hostility — so wearying over the past four years with a lying toddler in charge. They are accomplished in governance. They are nice.

The one thing they are not, however, miracle workers. Despite pretty platitudes about “healing” and “unifying” this nation, despite that fact that while almost 75 million voters exhaled in joy and relief on Saturday, another 70 million grimaced and groaned at the election’s outcome.

Bottom line: The nation’s long nightmare under Donald Trump is not over. It’s simply entering a new phase.

Trump is leaving, Trumpism is here for the foreseeable future, unfortunately. The underlying resentments and hostilities that he exploited are now a movement — one of obstreperous hatred, of spurning science, of targeting immigrants and embracing racism. And they will endure.

Biden and Harris won no thanks to Florida, a purple state that swung red. Only Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties went Democratic.

With Democrats in the White House and a Republican at Florida’s helm, we can only hope that Florida will not be dinged, or penalized, or disconnected.

Gov. Ron DeSantis was Trump’s mini-me in the state, for good or for ill — and in this year of the pandemic, mostly for ill. Floridians can only hope that, as coronavirus cases edge back up in the state, DeSantis no longer will be the rogue leader who’s afraid of mask mandates, sidelines scientists and pushes Trump’s medical advice.

We can only hope that, with environmentally aware leaders in the White House, we can drive a stake through the heart of the perennial push to drill for oil off Florida’s coast. It’s a threat that the state never seems to be able to fully vanquish, despite the best efforts of a bipartisan coalition in Congress.

And maybe the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — will get a reprieve. Miami-Dade County leads the nation in enrollees, which should send a message to Floridians in Congress that it’s not as bad as the Trump White House and its legislative enablers made it out to be. In fact, Republican candidates, congressional winners Carlos Gimenez and Maria Elvira Salazar backed off the GOP’s “kill Obamacare” mantra, opting for the kinder, gentler — and more common-sense — approach of improving it, as the Editorial Board has always urged.

And if Biden rejoins the Paris Climate Accord, it could be a signal that the United States is taking the issues of climate change and sea-level rise far more seriously. This, in turn, could spur Florida leaders, if they are truly worthy of the description, to take it more seriously, too. The governor initially showed his environmental astuteness early in his administration. So there is the opportunity for consensus here, which could result in more federal resources for Florida to fight this battle.

With a Democratic administration, there is also a chance for Florida’s wannabe presidents to prove they’ve got the right stuff. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, plus DeSantis. We already know what they look like as partisan hacks for Trump. It will be to everyone’s benefit if they refuse to exploit this nation’s divide and become the thoughtful leaders this state and the nation need.