The Florida GOP may just be the most wretched in the nation, and that’s saying quite a bit—Arizona GOP, I’m looking at you. Now admittedly, I don’t live in Florida, but the news coming out of the Sunshine state about how they’re scheming to protect Byron Donalds, an objectively bad candidate (but the preferred pick of the establishment), is really quite disgraceful. (Some rumors suggest Donalds’s protected candidacy has Susie Wiles’s fingerprints on it.)
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First off, the Florida GOP schemed to exclude major contender James Fishback from a debate with Donalds—they don’t want the voters to know how bad Donalds really is—because as they rigged it, Fishback “didn’t qualify.” These people are no different than those who worked to hide Biden’s decline and ineptitude, rejecting debates with Donald Trump during the run-up to the 2020 election. They’re simply trying to install him, without giving voters the opportunity to hear what candidates say, and make a decision that best suits them.
So then Ron DeSantis came out to address the absurdity, saying if the party had pulled this same stunt during his 2018 run for governor, he too wouldn’t have had a chance to speak to voters or hold his opponents accountable:
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis slammed the Florida GOP after the Sunshine State Showdown revoked gubernatorial candidate James Fishback’s debate invitation and announced that only Byron Donalds had qualified.
— AF Post (@AFpost) June 13, 2026
DeSantis argued that, under similar standards, he would not have… pic.twitter.com/SnYmeQADz7
DeSantis rightly acknowledged that the GOP has no right to “engineer outcomes,” and that an “open process and having people be able to have their say is always better….” Transparency and debate—what a concept!
Yet, Donalds refuses to debate. At the time I’m writing this, Donalds has still not accepted to appear with the other primary contenders in a major CBS News debate.
Secondly, Republicans and conservatives reject DEI privileges and hires, but that’s exactly what Donalds is. Who touts education while standing in front of a badly misspelled word? This isn’t even satire:
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Byron Donalds: “Our kids need to be prepared to hit the ground running.”
— James Fishback (@j_fishback) June 14, 2026
Also Byron Donalds: I can’t spell “achievability.” pic.twitter.com/gTPrsDLgA9
If any Democrat had done this, there would be a field day with right-wing bloggers. But because he’s a DEI “Republican” who’s been selected by the establishment, he gets a pass, and I have yet to hear his backers admit this is quite an embarrassment. Absolutely pathetic.
Let’s also remember that Donalds was passed over by the Trump administration for a cabinet position because he was such a problematic candidate, and wouldn’t have been able to make it through the confirmation process.
This boots-on-the-ground conservative activist also made this observation:
Byron Donalds has been campaigning for a over a year and has received numerous endorsements from Trump. He has been on Fox News consistently for over a year as well, with no other candidate running against him until recently. He has amassed millions of $$$$ in donations. Yet, we…
— Dr. Maria Peiro 🇺🇸 🐊 (@MariaPeiro305) June 15, 2026
I find this all quite disgusting, and to be frank, triggering, because this is the exact playbook of the Arizona GOP—they pick their sh*t candidates, foist them on the people, and ice out any America First challengers. In many cases it works—consider that the GOP (from the state on down to the Pima County apparatus) helped Martha McSally hand over a whopping three federal seats to Democrats…and sometimes it doesn’t—the proud abortionist propped up by the Pima GOP, a killer who’d been a lifelong Democrat, lost her primary in 2022 (I happily had much to do with that).
The Democrat party went off the cliff some time ago, but the Republican Party isn’t too far behind.
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