The Tribune

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis got lost on his way to the nomination for Republican candidate for US president in the 2024 election.

With only ten months to go until a new president is elected, the once promising candidate with a chance to rival the popularity of disgraced but powerful former President Donald Trump, DeSantis is falling farther and farther behind in the polls. He’s become the kid in a race who runs backward to get attention and does it so fast he earns his one minute of fame as the announcers talk about the kid doing record time in reverse before they shift their attention back to the main event and the kid is forgotten. According to one poll this week, even Chris Christie, who was all but last in the polls despite being possibly the most qualified to run, is now ahead of DeSantis.

None of this at this juncture of the US presidential election process would mean that much to us in The Bahamas if DeSantis had not brought us into the middle of the harrowing ordeal. It began shortly after the terror group Hamas attacked and killed more than 1,200 Israeli men, women and children in a shocking mass terrorism stampede in the Gaza Strip on October 7. Rockets and missiles blew bodies and lives apart, tore up buildings, destroyed sections of central and southern Gaza.

DeSantis came out firing on all fronts. He could win any war, including a hypothetical one with the neighbouring Bahamas, he boasted and bellowed, aiming to paint a picture for the American public as the tough guy who would annihilate a small country as an example of how he would lead a war. He’d just go out and flatten the attacker. It’s a line he has used repeatedly despite the absurdity of the imagery.

He reiterated the posturing as recently as last week at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, pounding the parable into the ground as surely as one would drive rebar or form lumber to begin laying a foundation.

“If someone was firing missiles from the Bahamas into, like Fort Lauderdale, we would never accept that,” he told the pro DeSantis crowd. “We would flatten… It would be done like literally within 12 hours. It would be done.”

It is hard to ignore the opportunity for a touch of sarcasm since he is now saying it would take 12 hours to flatten the Bahamas. In early December, when he first tried the analogy of how he would deal with a small neighbouring country should it ever try to attack the great United States of America, he said it would take five minutes to wipe them out.

It was a comment that sparked an instant response from the Charges d’Affaires at the American Embassy in Nassau, Usha Pitts reminding us all that the US and The Bahamas have had which she called “an enduring and unique relationship” for the past 50 years and hope to continue for many more.

While we all understood that DeSantis was trying to retain momentum for Israel as memories of new atrocities from both sides pushed who started the war into the background, he picked on the wrong country as a potential enemy. His comments left us as bewildered as we were shocked to the point of shaking our heads, eyebrows knitted, wondering if we heard right.

After all, isn’t it true what the old-timers used to say, When America sneezes The Bahamas catches a cold. Aren’t we joined at the hip?

What could the man be thinking, the man elected as the highest official in the third largest state in the United States of America, a state with a population of more than 22 million. And he picks on the tiny, outwardly peaceful, law-abiding Bahamas, a speck on the map that has never asked the US for a thing except a hand in times of emergency or to help catch drug and human smugglers whose final market was the US anyway.

Did he forget that The Bahamas was an independent nation of less than two percent of the population of his own home territory? Did his handlers or campaign advisors and spin artists not bother to learn that The Bahamas has never attacked anyone? That we don’t have an Army? Or missiles? At best, our police officers who only a few years ago used Billy clubs as their toughest weapon, have now progressed to gun holsters no longer held together by hope and diaper pins?

The Bahamas would be as prepared to attack America as a six-month-old experimenting with crawling would be to qualify for a track event at the Summer Olympics in Paris. When it comes to war, we are, thankfully, totally unprepared, ill-equipped and most importantly, not the least bit interested.

Remember how DeSantis’ campaign started? His attractive wife cozying up to him and smiling into the camera, saying the man she knew stood by her side when she was fighting a life and death battle against cancer. She portrayed him as a loving husband, great father, human and every bit a dependable human being, the kind of guy you would invite over for Sunday barbeque. Then someone decided soft would not work, the war broke out and a new DeSantis – or maybe the one that lurked beneath all the while – broke free. Overnight, Mr Nice Guy turned into Mr Tough Guy.

And he picked on The Bahamas? Are you kidding?

DeSantis, if you have any chance of regaining even the slightest bit of popularity, focus on something other than flattening The Bahamas. We are doing enough damage to ourselves without your interference. You might also show a little more respect to the good people of The Bahamas who consider Florida their neighbourhood shopping centre and spend untold dollars there, contributing to your economy.

And, oh by the way, more than 20,000 Bahamians call Florida home.