Healing America’s Narratives: Are You an Innie or an Outie?

[Part of a series, this essay focuses on the governor of Florida’s desire to make the United States more like his state — in the context of Healing America’s Narratives: the Feminine, the Masculine, & Our Collective National Shadow — Now available]

We’re not talking belly buttons here, although “navel warfare” is not an unreasonable metaphor for our dilemma.

One oversimplified but accurate perspective on the polarization in the United States — both historical and current — is between those folks who work toward increasingly inclusive legislation, court rulings, and policy (the innies or inlaws) and those folks who work toward increasingly exclusive legislation, court rulings and policy (the outies or outlaws).

Another way to say this is that some folks — the innies — want as many American citizens as possible to have equal access to the freedoms and opportunities that are allegedly available in the land of the free-ish and the home of the occasionally not-so-brave. Historically, proponents of the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments have been innies. The outies opposed the provisions of these Amendments so they opposed ending slavery, they opposed providing for equal protection of the laws, they opposed allowing formerly enslaved males to vote, and they opposed allowing women to vote. Outies have opposed much of what is embraced by most folks across the political spectrum today.

Critics of the innies often refer to them as northeastern elites because of the educational institutions they attended or where they’re from — even though many innies hail from and were educated in institutions all around the country, and many outie leaders past and present (think the Bushes, Ted Cruz, Donald Rumsfeld, Josh Hawley, et. al.) graduated from Ivy institutions. Sweeping generalizations just never seem to hold up.

Which brings us to a paradox of our current time. One of the primary outies in the United States is the governor of Florida who aspires to be president. Ron DeSantis is a product of Yale University and Harvard Law and he served in the U.S. Navy. Despite his elite background, he is a capital-O Outie and would like to spread his exclusionary virus beyond the Sunshine State into every sunny and shady inch of the country. In his (or his webmaster’s) own words, he offers “a bold agenda to transform Florida into a blueprint for the Nation’s revival.”

Yikes.

Among his bold agenda and some of its consequences are:

• “Replacing the woke mind virus with reality, facts, and enduring principles,” and “holding woke corporations and school unions accountable” without defining “woke”
• “Eliminating CRT” without defining critical race theory
• “Expanding education freedom” and choosing “Education over indoctrination” by limiting what history can be taught, how it can be taught, and banning books — Kristofferson had it right: in DeSantis’s world, freedom may very well be “just another word for nothing left to lose.”
• “Protecting the unborn” with apparently little concern for the education of Florida humans once they’re born (next two bullets)
• “Creating a universal school choice program” while keeping Florida’s teachers salaries among the lowest in the country — ranked 49th and 48th out of 50 in 2020 and 2021.
• Florida receives the third-largest amount of federal K-12 education funding because the state government funds education at a lower per-capita rate than most states. Florida ranks 42nd in spending and 43rd in funding.
• In 2022, Florida ranked 36th of 50 on the Commonwealth Fund’s 2022 Scorecard for State Health System Performance.
• In 2019 and 2021 Florida averaged 12.6% of its citizens not having health insurance — only 4 states had higher percentages.
• And the magic of manifesting “The tired dogmas of the past are inadequate for a vibrant future — we must look forward, not backwards” by restoring “sanity to our nation,” returning “normalcy to our communities,” and reestablishing “integrity in our institutions” — all part of the “Nation’s revival.” This guy had access to truly elite educational resources and he seems to think that a “revival” that includes “restoring,” “returning,” and “reestablishing” is forward-looking.

A majority of Americans asked regarding “Make America Great Again,” for whom, and when was it great, exactly? The new question we’re called to ask is, sanity, normalcy, and integrity according to what standard?

There’s more, but this suffices for now.

As William Kleinknecht wrote in Time regarding the challenges of reporting on Floridian policy and governance under DeSantis in March 2023, “How do you delve into the state’s tax policy when your governor is flying planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard or declaring war on Disney for issuing a statement in opposition to the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay Law”?”

So, are you an innie or an outie? An inlaw or an outlaw? Who is in your ingroup, and whom do you exclude? What do you think should be omitted from history and who might gain or lose by such omission?

Regardless of where you stand regarding “woke” and CRT debates, if someone put a microphone in front of you, could you define either (especially without saying something like, “Well, it’s kind of like, you know, it’s like when…”).

What, exactly, about the current state of affairs in Florida would you like to see enacted across the United States?