Author

Diane Roberts

Diane Roberts

Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee, which probably explains her unhealthy fascination with Florida politics. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo.

COMMENTARY

Game time: College football reflects America as it really is

By: - September 18, 2023

It’s college football season in Florida and you know what that means: trash talking, martial metaphors, peculiar rituals involving animals, bizarre clothing in colors not found in nature, bad grammar, mansplaining, and racism. College football is violent. Beat-your-brains-out violent. Repeated hits to the head cause degenerative brain disease. The guys who play the game risk […]

COMMENTARY

Welcome to Florida: Crazy and cruel sell well here

By: - September 11, 2023

Florida, eh? If it isn’t hurricanes, it’s massive oil spills. If it isn’t the court slapping down the governor’s racist congressional map, it’s some of his Nazi pals putting on a sidewalk parade in Orlando. Then there’s Florida’s 2024 U.S Senate race. As you probably know, Rick Scott is running for reelection. Or is he? […]

COMMENTARY

Ron DeSantis is a tad more diplomatic than George Wallace was

By: - September 3, 2023

Despite all those Ohioans and Michiganders moving to The Villages or Margaritaville or other white folks’ play pens, despite the cosmopolitan sheen of the coastal cities and the impossibility of getting decent grits in Miami, when it comes to race, Florida is a Deep South state. Florida’s plantations were worked by thousands of enslaved people; […]

COMMENTARY

The Republican candidates met to yell at each other in an alternative universe

By: - August 28, 2023

In case you missed last Wednesday’s Dadaist performance piece, the one called “Republican Primary Debate,” when one woman and seven men shouted for two hours on live TV, here’s the highlight reel: Things started off grumpy and soon deteriorated. Fox moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum played “Rich Men North of Richmond,” a hit song […]

COMMENTARY

In DeSantis’ Florida, we’re raising our children to be closed-minded and ignorant

By: - August 21, 2023

School’s in session. The kids have their new shoes and backpacks. The teachers have their new marching orders. In Ron DeSantis’ Florida, teachers are expected to present a version of the world in which “gender” is not to be spoken of, “gay” likewise, there’s no climate crisis — the weather’s always changing! — Shakespeare needs […]

COMMENTARY

Ohio’s defiant embrace of democracy gives Floridians a reason to hope

By: - August 14, 2023

Let’s talk about Ohio. No, really. Seven presidents were born in Ohio, all Republicans, two of whom were assassinated. Ohio has produced a number of dubious politicians, including the shouty Rep. Jim Jordan and the faux-billy Sen. J.D. Vance, who sometimes pretends he’s from Kentucky. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sometimes pretends he’s from Ohio, but […]

COMMENTARY

GOP death cult is holding the Earth hostage to white privilege

By: - August 7, 2023

People, it’s too hot to be this stupid. A new NPR/PBS/Marist poll shows that nearly three-fourths of Republicans don’t think the climate crisis is a big deal and we don’t need to do anything about it. I guess the good news is that 56 percent of all political persuasions say the climate crisis requires urgent […]

COMMENTARY

On Slavery: Gov. DeSantis and his crack education team are all about facts

By: - July 31, 2023

THE OLD PLANTATION — Here in Florida, we’re teaching our young ’uns the God’s own truth about history. Not what a bunch of book-reading, degree-holding, data-citing, socialist, so-called professors say. The Indians were glad to go live on reservations. The change of scenery inspired them to make a good living crafting souvenir jewelry and decorative […]

COMMENTARY

FL Republicans are taking out their hangups against the state university system

By: - July 24, 2023

Republicans are scared. They’re scared of citizens voting, so they make it as difficult for us as possible. They’re scared of women taking charge of their own bodies, so they demand the right to track their movements and seize their medical records in case they go to another state for an abortion. They’re scared of […]

COMMENTARY

The Republican Party is dropping its Klan hood

By: - July 17, 2023

In a recent CNN interview (and on many previous occasions), Alabama U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville insisted that the phrase a “white nationalist” simply meant someone who’s “a good American.” When reporter Kaitlan Collins explained — slowly — that “a white nationalist is someone who believes that the white race is superior to other races,” Tuberville […]

COMMENTARY

Ron DeSantis’ very gay ad: Who made this steaming pile?

By: - July 10, 2023

Ron DeSantis wants you to know he’s a manly man, a manlier man than any manly man ever born, with mighty currents of 100-proof androgen surging through his sinews. If you took a bouquet of other masculinity-mongering Republicans — your Josh Hawleys, your Jim Jordans, your J.D. Vances — put them in a blender with […]

COMMENTARY

We’re the Mommies for Liberty and the future belongs to us

By: - July 3, 2023

I am a Mommy. A Mommy for Liberty. I will use my personal liberty to shield my precious children (and yours) from gays. And history. And Black people. And sex.   I told Brayden Jr., there are certain things you won’t need to know until you’re at least 28 — he’s 17 and a varsity defensive […]