Nate Monroe: DeSantis attacks Jacksonville Pride display once again, masking cruelty with fake patriotism

COMMENTARY | In 2021, when the Florida Department of Transportation ordered officials in Jacksonville, Pinellas and Sarasota to shut off rainbow-themed lights on their local bridges that were intended to recognize Pride Month, people naturally looked to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who bears ultimate responsibility as Florida's chief executive and is hardly a self-professed champion of LGBTQ people.

And indeed, it's rather far-fetched that DOT officials across Florida had come to separate, spontaneous conclusions about Pride light displays that had until then been uncontroversial (In Jacksonville, the local transportation authority regularly and without complaint uses the dazzling light display on the state-owned Acosta Bridge to celebrate holidays, causes and Jaguars wins). But DeSantis' administration blew a gasket over any accusations that he was responsible, calling it an "outrageous conclusion" and "disinformation." DeSantis "wasn't involved in this bridge issue in any way," one of his spokespeople insisted at the time. It was a "conspiracy theory" to suggest otherwise.

DeSantis' DOT lamely explained at the time that there were unspecified "several complaints" about the display in Jacksonville that necessitated the strong-armed shut-down. But after the uproar, the lights ultimately went back up on the Acosta Bridge, a rare moment of retreat for the strident governor. And that was the status quo through 2022 and 2023.

Alas, the clock strikes 13 and new marching orders have arrived: No longer is it absurd to believe the governor would deign to interfere in the local display of some bridge lights. No, no, now it is a patriotic duty for the governor to do so. This summer, DeSantis' DOT has restricted the display of lights on state-owned bridges to the colors red, white and blue only, allegedly in observation of something the state is calling "Freedom Summer."

Apparently no longer a conspiracy theory, DeSantis' unseemly mouthpieces are now celebrating the governor's crackdown. "Red, White & Blue are the colors that unite all Americans," one of DeSantis' paid sycophants tweeted this week. "That’s why the media is so mad. They profit from dividing us."

The edict from DeSantis' DOT means the Jacksonville Transportation Authority can't light the bridges up to recognize Pride Month, or Juneteenth for that matter, or a host of other causes that were otherwise slated for this month. Nope, in the Free State of Florida we do what we are told. And we like it.

The diktat is of a piece with the DeSantis era: a centralization of power over matters important and picayune in Tallahassee. Cities, once widely considered laboratories of democracy, are now social-studies experiments for hayseed legislators and one very angry governor.

"It's a real slap in the face to multiple different communities, especially when people claim that it's a patriotic thing or that they care about freedom," Jacksonville City Council member Jimmy Peluso told my colleague David Bauerlein. "Juneteenth is the day we literally celebrate freedom so it's a fascinating way to spin something that truly is about attacking certain groups that some folks in our government don't seem to like."

Of course, in strong-arming cities into displaying certain colors and not others, DeSantis is committing the very sin he claims to be fighting against: virtue signaling to cancel out virtue signaling, ripping away autonomy in lieu of performative patriotism.

Back in 2021, DeSantis' goons were actually right about one thing: Interfering with pride light displays on local bridges is beneath him.

Nate Monroe is a metro columnist whose work regularly appears every Thursday and Sunday. Follow him on Twitter @NateMonroeTU.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Nate Monroe: DeSantis attacks Jacksonville Pride display again, masking cruelty with fake patriotism