A Cloud in the Sunshine State

The resounding defeat of Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback in Tuesday’s vote in Florida is an occasion for celebration but not for complacency. The race, won by, in Byron Donalds, a contender endorsed by President Trump, was to succeed Governor Ron DeSantis, who is term-limited. Mr. Fishback, who secured the endorsement of Tucker Carlson, garnered some 10 percent of the vote. Too much, for our taste.Messrs. Fishback and Carlson are two peas in a pod. The Floridian, just 31 years old, is aligned with the so-called “Groyper” precinct of the right, whose leader is another podcaster, Nick Fuentes. Mr. Fishback has praised Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, and, in respect of the sacred side of the Second Temple at Jerusalem, declared, “I am not going to kiss the stupid wall.” He vowed to liquidate Florida’s Israeli bonds and calls visits to the Jewish state a “career loyalty test.”Mr. Fishback has also used the term “goyslop,” which originated in the swamps of online message boards as a reference to ultra-processed food. On the hustings in February he declared that “if you wanted to set our kids up for failure, you would feed them the absolute goyslop in our cafeterias.” He referenced his opponent, who is black, as “By’rone.” Mr. Fuentes urged his more than one million followers on X to vote for Mr. Fishback.The Times’s Michelle Goldberg, in a profile of Mr. Fishback published in March, reckoned that he “doesn’t represent the mainstream of the Republican Party today, but he’s showing us one vision of a post-Trump Republican future.” Ms. Goldberg, no friend to the Jewish state, nevertheless reasons that Mr. Fishback “performs a slick two-step routine when it comes to Jews.” The candidate’s resounding loss suggests that future is some way off. While Republican voters largely eschewed that advice, there is some early evidence that Mr. Fishback resonated with college voters, with clusters of support around the Sunshine State’s campuses. Mr. Fishback was overperformed by a Republican candidate in Florida’s Sixth Congressional District, the outright antisemite Dan Bilzerian, who was defeated by Congressman Randy Fine but still collected 18 percent of the primary vote.A conservative stalwart, Ambassador Mike Huckabee, declares that Mr. Bilzerian has deployed “possibly the most disgusting political” rhetoric he has ever encountered, and reckons that Mr. Bilzerian “has taken Jew-hate to a new low.” Mr. Bilzerian has claimed that his district “understands the Jewish problem,” hailed Yahya Sinwar as a “hero,” and has called to “revisit that Austrian painter’s opinions,” a reference to Adolf Hitler. As these columns have noted, the Democrats face their own antisemitism problem — one that, to our lights, is more dire. A candidate backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, Oliver Larkin, won nearly 40 percent of the vote in Florida’s 25th Congressional District. Mr. Larkin, who is backed by yet another antisemitic podcaster, Hasan Piker, lost to the incumbent, Jared Moskowitz, who offered Mr. Piker his “condolences.”Garnering 40 percent of the vote in a district that is 25 percent Jewish, though, is no mean showing. Mr. Larkin denounced Israel as a “religious supremacist regime” and accuses the Jewish state of “genocide.” He echoes the politics of DSA-aligned figures like Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan’s Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. Florida’s Democratic primary for Senate was won in an upset by an anti-Israel leftist state representative, Angie Nixon.If the firewalls of both parties are showing cracks, the one manned by Democrats appears more porous by far. There is nothing yet on the GOP side to mirror the growing electoral strength of the DSA, before which establishment figures like Senator Charles Schumer appear less than in command. The possibility of Mr. Carlson launching a third party is worth watching — as is the Groyper temptation that has — so far— melted in the Florida sun.

A Cloud in the Sunshine State

A Cloud in the Sunshine State

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