To put it kindly, Florida is an interesting state. Within this state is Jacksonville, the City of Bridges, or South Georgia, as we like to call it, since, unlike the majority of Florida, we do not have gated communities, snowbirds (people who come to South Florida for the winter), or outfits that put aqua and coral together. We brag that our football stadium has swimming pools, we have The Florida Theatre and we have The University of Florida which, among intellectuals, is known as "the Ivy League of the South". We are the birthplace of Lynyrd Skynyrd. You can see why bragging is not a major pastime with us.
That is, until COVID-19.
In May of this year Jacksonville made national news because of how low our pandemic numbers were. We were even used as an example for other cities on how to handle COVID-19.
It seems we are getting a second 15 minutes of fame. Since every other choice city turned him down, Donald Trump will be hosting the RNC convention here in Jacksonville.
The University of North Florida did an outstanding job in a recent poll. Outstanding because the margin of error is only 1.95%. This poll says that, despite being a Republican city, 58% of those polled do not want the convention here and 71% were gravely concerned about the repercussions from the virus. The poll included Republicans as well so this is not a "leftist conspiracy" pole. This also means that even some of Trump's die-hard supporters are concerned for their safety because of the convention.
Why was Jacksonville chosen? Trump is losing in the polls right now. He needs important states and with Biden currently leading in Texas, he must have Florida to win and Florida as been leaning left recently. But most likely we got stuck with this because no one else would acquiesce to Trump's demands for a packed arena and mask-less faces. It is disturbing that our president and our local government care more about walking the party line than they do our safety.
UPDATE: Jacksonville's mayor Lenny Curry has mandated mask wearing for indoors and when social distancing is not possible beginning at 5:00 PM yesterday.
Does this invalidate our concerns? Not in the least. When has a law or regulation ever stopped Trump from buying or threatening his way into getting what he wants, even before he was president? August is many weeks away, giving him enough time to find a way for this convention to be an exception to our safety mandates.
Add to this a nation that is already in turmoil. Left and right both have a minority who are irrational, violent and fearless. Our fair city will have these people coming to us from all over the country. When the two sides meet, and the radicals clash, are our streets going to burn too?
The final blow (no pun intended) is that this will happen at the height of hurricane season. I hope Curry has planned how to either quickly evacuate or shelter and feed all these extra people, people who most likely cannot be trusted in same shelter together. If you think this is far-fetched look at Fox News and CNN. You have footage of all the violent intolerance that has already happened, plus you also have opposing ideologies with the same level of hated on either side.
An entire book could be (and probably has been) written about the phenomenon that is The Trump Era but frankly I do not care. We are in a pandemic. We will be at the height of hurricane season. We are hosting two groups of angry people and a history of conflict resolution through violence. All I care about is my city and the people in it and how we will get through the rest of 2020.
This post is dedicated to my father. I have done major editing in an attempt to write an unbiased piece after he read the first one and said it was another anti-Trump article. Dad, this is the best I can do.
