While Democrats and ideological liberals do not like Governor Ron DeSantis, he’s basically proven to be a “majoritarian” in office, zig-zagging from conservatism on social issues to an anti-free market populist on fiscal issues. But one thing may trip him up which is his fealty to developers and anti-environmental forces while rhetorically being green, because being green is popular. What’s worse is he actually knows it.

Very rarely has DeSantis not been self-assured enough of his position to openly play both sides of an issue, but after he cast a deciding vote at the Cabinet meeting earlier this week in favor of allowing Miami-Dade County to go ahead in its planning of the highly-controversial the Kendall Parkway, he said this:

“It’s not like this is going to happen. I mean they’ve got to go through all those environmental reviews,’’ “ If some of the things that are happening that are positive do happen, I don’t think it’s going to get permitted by the South Florida Water Management District. I just wasn’t convinced that this all needed to happen on the front end.”

DeSantis per The Miami Herald, June 18

So based on this the Governor immediately was trying to be “against” the Parkway minutes after he was for it. Basically DeSantis is claiming he voted to keep the project going though he thinks it should be killed. Confused? So are we! (well not really.)

So what exactly was DeSantis doing at the Cabinet meeting? His justification seems to be his vote and that of his Republican colleagues Attorney General Ashley Moody and CFO Jimmy Patronis was simply meant to remove the prohibition by a court order of building this expressway through critical wetlands areas.

On the surface, DeSantis duplicitous pro-developer (which is what this ridiculous and unnecessary highway is) and pro-green positions are completely hypocritical. But as usual DeSantis knows what he doing and has a good chance of fooling the public with it.

What appears to be happening is DeSantis is throwing the developers a bone as he seeks campaign cash for his reelection before he directs state and water management agencies to kill the highway closer to the election, therefore further burnishing his “green” credentials.

It’s a game, isn’t it, Mr. Governor?