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A prominent columnist at the South Florida Sun Sentinel announced his retirement in a column Friday, stating that his decision was motivated by the state becoming a “gay-bashing authoritarian dystopia.”
Columnist Fred Grimm said goodbye to his South Florida audience in the piece, recounting his 56-year-long journalism career and lamenting how most people in the state are now supportive MAGA candidates, and opposed to Disney, the LGBTQ movement and other progressive causes.
“Not that it hasn’t been fun chronicling Florida’s descent into a waterlogged, python-infested, uninsurable, hurricane-pummeled, book-banning, gay-bashing authoritarian dystopia, but I’m outta here,” Grimm opened his farewell column.
For the first half of the piece, Grimm noted that part of his exit from the industry could be his “old age.” “At 76, my arthritic fingers no longer dance along the keyboard,” he declared.
He also wondered if he’s just tired of this line of work, noting, “Maybe I’ve been worn down by so many hours staring at a blank computer screen, deadline looming, desperation building and inspiration lagging.”
Grimm also offered being burdened by the “cumulative effect of chronicling so many awful disasters” as another possible reason, though he stated that the state’s conservative politics were definitely one of the reasons he is done with the industry.
“Another factor has sucked the joy out of journalism,” he said, explaining, “A nasty, mutant strain of populism has taken hold of Florida and the rest of red-state America. Facts don’t matter. Medical science is rejected. Literary masterpieces are banned. Abortion is outlawed. Teachers are persecuted. Disney is villainized. MAGA pols, up to their shins in sunny-day flooding, deny that we’re in the throes of global warming.”
Grimm continued with a laundry list of right-wing caricatures to describe the state and the rest of red America’s political leanings.
“Meanwhile, MAGA heroes’ lies, sexual misdeeds and financial shenanigans are dismissed as media inventions. Jury verdicts and fair elections are disparaged as leftwing conspiracies.”
The columnist accused conservatives of believing that “violent insurrection” is justified and wrote that “Vladimir Putin is a role model” for them.
He also described how “Homophobia, racism and xenophobia provide the subtext of the new politics,” and that a majority of white, working class Americans, including most of my relatives back in West Virginia, embrace politicians who promise to pummel elites and demean minorities.”
Grimm noted that he often feels as though he “was working for the DeSantis campaign” as his “campaign operatives instantly repackage media criticism into fund-raising appeals.”
Lastly, he wrote he just can’t find the optimism to deal with all this, especially with Trump’s continuing popularity, the fact there could be a “hellish hurricane season,” and that NBA star LeBron James “isn’t returning to South Florida.”
“I’m all out of optimism. My reservoir of adrenaline has gone dry. Time to leave this space to writers of the glass-half-full kind. Goodbye. Good luck. I’ll miss you,” he concluded.
