The clown show being run by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis continues. By designating the fake events by World Wrestling Entertainment as an “essential business” that can stay open during the coronavirus lockdown, DeSantis has made a mockery both of ordinary commerce and of public health.
A spokesman for DeSantis told media outlets that WWE, which has its main training center in Orlando, is “critical to Florida’s economy.” New wrestling events will be allowed to be staged and filmed as long as “the location is closed to the general public.”
Try telling that to all the mom-and-pop businesses closed across Florida because of DeSantis’s shelter-in-place order. By this logic, a small art supply store must remain shuttered, even if parents might want supplies to keep their children productively occupied during their long days stuck inside, but the kids can mindlessly watch overmuscled men pretend to body-slam each other on TV.
Apparently, DeSantis deems those wrestlers’ earnings more “critical” to the state’s economy than those of the shop owners.
It probably doesn’t hurt that WWE is controlled by major Republican power couple Vince and Linda McMahon, the latter of whom was Trump’s chief of the Small Business Administration before leaving to form a pro-Trump super PAC fundraising operation. Nobody who saw DeSantis’ cringe-inducing “I love Trump SO much” TV commercials during the 2018 governor’s race can doubt that pleasing the president is the governor’s greatest political incentive.
From a health standpoint, allowing wrestling is, well, idiotic. At a time when everybody in the country is supposed to maintain 6-foot distancing, so-called professional wrestling involves men and women grappling with and sweating all over each other, and perhaps bleeding as well.
If wrestling isn’t spread-inducing for the coronavirus, nothing is.
Throughout this crisis, DeSantis has acted irresponsibly. He insisted on keeping his state’s beaches open to partying spring breakers despite many public urgings to the contrary. He refrained from strong statewide restrictions until April 1, weeks after other governors had acted, making Florida in late March the only state to remain “open” with more than 5,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Yet, at the same time, DeSantis walked right up to the lines of constitutional and ethical transgressions by ordering state police to intercept any Louisianans crossing state lines into Florida. A healthy family from Louisiana wanting to visit healthy relatives in Florida would be quarantined for 14 days, but now, the wrestlers can do their work even though one of their crew members already has tested positive for the virus.
Through all of this, DeSantis has been acting in a way that, if not unhinged, is at least utterly unserious. His actions are keeping neither his people nor his economy healthy. He probably should never have darkened the door of the Sunshine State’s governor’s office.
