During Gun Violence Awareness Month, mothers from across the U.S. united at Jacksonville’s Angel of Mine Brunch to remember children lost to gun violence. Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, urged families to keep hope and continue advocating for change in their communities.

Gov. Ron DeSantis praised the World Cup for giving visiting fans from other countries a chance to see America directly.

“We do have a really great country. I know there’s a lot of problems. I know we see a lot of things that we wish we could change immediately. And I know there’s a lot of work to do, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” DeSantis said.

The visitors, he added, have gotten to see “firsthand both the generosity of the American people, but also that this is a good country.”

He is right.

But we’re pointing out these comments not just to show he is right, but also to show how he, like many of our leaders, are directly responsible for painting such a grim picture that leads to people’s negative views of this country to begin with.

DeSantis’ own political brand — the one that got him elected twice, launched a presidential campaign, and made him one of the most influential Governors in the country — is built substantially on the premise that a vast, organized internal enemy is destroying this country.

Teachers and school administrators who discussed gender identity in classrooms weren’t misguided or mistaken, they were “groomers.” Corporate executives who supported diversity programs were carriers of “the woke mind virus.” California is “a civilization in decay” leading “an attack on the American family.”

We could go on. This is not the rhetoric of someone who thinks America is a good country being pulled in the wrong direction. It is the rhetoric of someone who believes powerful forces within it are fundamentally opposed to everything good about it.

Trump has made the same argument in far more extreme terms. On Veterans Day 2023, at a campaign rally in New Hampshire, he declared: “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” Not misguided opponents. Not people with different values. Vermin — a word chosen with precision by Trump’s team and consistent with his repeated use of dehumanizing language toward political adversaries.

A month later, he described immigrants arriving in the United States as “poisoning the blood of our country,” a phrase with frightening historic parallels. These were not offhand remarks; they were delivered at rallies, posted to Truth Social, and repeated at subsequent campaign stops. Again, we could go on.

Democrats have found their own ways to corrode the thing they claim to be defending. The “threat to democracy” framing — once reserved for specific and serious institutional attacks — has been applied so broadly and so constantly that it now means approximately nothing. Every Republican appointment is an existential threat. Every policy disagreement heralds the end of constitutional order.

The World Cup has produced, almost accidentally, what American political culture cannot seem to produce on purpose: a setting in which people from wildly different countries interact with actual Americans and discover that the caricature is wrong. Fans from Scotland, Iran, Brazil, Morocco, and Australia arrived with whatever impressions their politics and media had given them, and found something different. They’re acknowledging that this is a good country, DeSantis said.

They are. The more interesting question is when the people who govern it are going to start acting like they believe the same thing.

In the meantime, sit back, have a drink with a stranger, and go Team USA.

Now, it’s onto our weekly game of winners and losers.

Winners

Honorable mention: Largo. Largo Mayor Woody Brown opened the June 2 Commission meeting by reading a Pride Month proclamation — a gesture the city had planned to drop from the agenda entirely before word got out and dozens of residents showed up to object.

Many of them arrived directly from the ribbon-cutting for Horizon West Bay, the $85 million mixed-use development anchored by the city’s new City Hall, and used their public comment time to make clear they hadn’t come just for the building.

That same Commission, it should be noted, recently passed an ordinance creating a new open-container entertainment district in the blocks surrounding that building — a program called “Sip and Stroll” that lets patrons walk freely through designated downtown zones with drinks purchased from approved local businesses.

Abner Morales, who owns Wepaa Puerto Rican Restaurant nearby, is already designing custom branded cups. “That’s awesome because we have like 16 employees. We want to keep running this business,” he said. One Cozy Smoke Shop employee told Fox 13 she sees the district becoming “almost like Bourbon Street in New Orleans.”

So the city is clearly looking to support its citizens. But on the Pride proclamation, the  pressure the city was operating under was real.

In a June 1 online chat with residents, Brown explained that new legislation barring local governments from spending on diversity, equity and inclusion-related events and initiatives doesn’t technically take effect until Jan. 1. But with the budget still unsigned, Brown said the Governor could still cut off funding streams Largo depends on, including dollars for stormwater infrastructure.

“We’re trying to keep a relatively good relationship with our state folks,” Brown said, “and they’ve made some rules around that.”

Planning Board Chair Matthew Faustini, who is running for a Commission seat in November, pushed back, arguing a law that isn’t even in effect shouldn’t be tying the hands of local officials.

“You’re not willing to stand up for the residents of this city,” he said directly to Brown.

The most significant moment belonged to Commissioner Michael Smith, who is gay. Smith described spending 28 years of his life in the closet. He said the near-removal of the proclamation felt like “a real slap in the face.”

He acknowledged having considered ending his life when he was younger because of how different he felt. He said he cannot hold his partner’s hand in a restaurant without risking being called names or worse. He spoke of the proclamation as an act of faith toward residents who haven’t yet felt safe enough to be visible.

“There are many that are still afraid to come out and speak,” he said, “and many that are being shamed back into the closet. And that’s just wrong.”

Look, Florida has inserted itself into the center of the vulture war battle under DeSantis. Sometimes, they’ve pushed back against ridiculous things on the Left, but often, Tallahassee has overstepped. This proclamation isn’t hurting anyone and is a small thing in practice. But as Smith explained, it means a lot nevertheless to a significant portion of the community. They shouldn’t be feeling any heat from the state on this.

Largo didn’t do this perfectly — in fact, the city very nearly didn’t do it at all. But pushed by residents and remarks from some in charge, Largo ultimately chose its people over its political relationships.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Jared Moskowitz. Moskowitz joined forces with U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Pinellas Republican, to file a discharge petition that would force a floor vote on legislation capping federal student loan interest rates at 2%.

The bill does not attempt to cancel existing debt, a choice both Florida lawmakers described as deliberate. Rather, it’s aiming to put limits on future loans.

“There is broad bipartisan agreement that student loan debt is holding Americans back, yet Congress has failed to act,” Moskowitz said in a joint CNN appearance with Luna.

A discharge petition requires 218 signatures — a majority of the House — to force a vote bypassing leadership, and Luna has experience running them. She filed the first discharge petition of the current Congress in January over a remote voting accommodation for members on maternity leave, and it reached the required signatures before being withdrawn when Speaker Mike Johnson addressed the issue through other means.

Luna is a Republican representing a Trump-leaning Pinellas district. Moskowitz is a Democrat whose district includes Parkland. Neither one let partisan nitpicking stop them from addressing this week.

Also this week, Moskowitz hosted the fourth annual Sneaker Day on the Hill. Moskowitz has run the also bipartisan Congressional Sneaker Caucus since his first year in office. And his own connection to sneakers is personal: His late father used to take him to the mall on Air Jordan release days, and he wears them in the Capitol partly to carry that memory through the work.

Whether it’s a fun way yo bring more humanity to Washington, or reaching across the aisle to deal with a difficult policy problem, Moskowitz is making sure to build bridges in Congress in the hopes that it can break through the toxic and often absurd fake fights his colleagues, and the rest of us, spend way too much time on amplifying.

The biggest winner: FDACS. Florida’s agricultural community is already on its knees. Back-to-back freezes from late December through early February delivered an estimated $1.1 billion in damage to the state’s sugarcane crop alone. Ranchers have spent months contending with rising input costs, drought, and the lingering fallout from one of the most destructive winters in modern Florida farming history.

The last thing producers needed was a new invasive pest.

Enter the pasture mealybug, a small sap-feeding insect that specializes on grasses. It arrived in Florida in late May 2026, first detected on limpograss in South Florida. Since then, infestations have spread to multiple counties, with surveys still underway to determine the full extent of the damage.

Heavy infestations can degrade pasture quality quickly, open the land to weed invasion, and leave cattle without reliable forage. For the sugarcane industry, the pest is one more blow in a year that has already produced more blows than the industry can easily absorb.

“The rapid expansion of the infestation coupled with the quick deterioration of crop quality has taken farmers by surprise,” said Jarad Plair, a sugarcane farmer and past president of the Hendry/Glades Farm Bureau.

The situation was complicated further by the fact that as of this week, no insecticides were specifically labeled for mealybug control in pasture systems. Many common pasture treatments barely affect the pest because it spends much of its life cycle buried in thatch and soil, out of reach of conventional applications.

But the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) wasted no time in acting, urging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to grant a crisis exemption for the use of the insecticide Sivanto Prime.

The Florida Cattlemen’s Association issued a statement crediting Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson directly. “Thanks to the dedication of Commissioner Wilton Simpson, FDACS is recognizing the importance of protecting herds and lands from invasive pests,” the group wrote. “While a long road lies ahead, we are grateful for the support and decisive action of FDACS.”

Simpson was able to move fast enough even as the ground continues to shift under Florida’s farmers.

Losers

Dishonorable mention: María Elvira Salazar. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is one of the most significant federal housing bills in decades — an expansive bipartisan package that touches more than 50 provisions aimed at expanding the housing supply, cutting red tape and limiting Wall Street investors from bulk-purchasing single-family homes.

Salazar recently took to Facebook to celebrate.

“In South Florida, housing costs are one of the biggest concerns I hear about,” she posted. “That’s why I supported this bipartisan legislation. We need to build more housing, cut through unnecessary red tape, and make it easier for families to achieve homeownership.”

The problem is, she did not vote for it, as she was absent due to the death of her mother.

To be clear, that is an entirely justifiable reason to be absent. In fact, it’s hard to come up with a more justifiable reason.

The problem is the Facebook post, which claimed credit for “supporting” legislation on which her name does not appear in the vote record.

Her Office’s statement tried pointing to her prior support — she voted for the bill in the House Financial Services Committee, twice on the floor to advance it to the Senate, and her own RESIDE Act, the Revitalizing Empty Structures Into Desirable Environments legislation she introduced in September, was incorporated into the final package.

That is a legitimate record. It’s also a different thing from the final passage vote, and using the word “supported” in a public statement about a bill you did not vote on in its final form opened her up to attack, justified or not.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) did not wait long.

“If María Elvira Salazar is misleading her constituents and taking credit for votes she couldn’t be bothered to show up for, then Miamians will replace her with a real leader who will fight for their ability to afford housing for their families,” DCCC spokesperson Madison Andrus said.

The DCCC has designated Florida’s 27th Congressional District as a “District in Play” for 2026 and has been building a file on Salazar for months. Salazar has won her district comfortably in recent cycles, taking more than 60% support in 2024. She is not in immediate danger.

But she has missed 212 of 2,820 roll call votes across her career, a 7.5% absence rate that is well above the median for currently serving House members. That number, combined with a pattern the DCCC has spent multiple cycles highlighting — instances of Salazar touting legislation she either skipped or voted against — could give the attack some credibility in the eyes of voters.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Brightline. More than 200 people have now been killed in collisions involving Brightline trains since the company began Florida operations in 2017, a milestone the railroad passed this year.

With 17 deaths recorded through late June, the overall unofficial count now sits at 214.

Brightline emphasizes, with some justification, that its safety picture is improving. The company says incidents — defined broadly as any contact a train makes with another object — have declined 30% in 2026 compared to the same period last year.

It is also midway through deploying $55 million in safety infrastructure: $45 million from a federal grant, another $10 million of its own money. The installations include fencing, warning signs and suicide prevention signage. An Orlando Sentinel analysis from late last year found that 27 months after opening, the route from Cocoa north to Orlando through more rural terrain with 6-foot fencing near the tracks had recorded zero fatal accidents.

That’s all encouraging. And perhaps over the long run it will be enough to rehabilitate Brightline’s reputation.

But that reputation remains relevant. Brightline carries the highest death rate per mile traveled of any railroad in the United States. The deadliest stretch is between Miami and West Palm Beach, where trains run through some of the most densely populated corridors in the state. Many crossings fall within “quiet zones” where trains do not sound their horns. Victims include people in vehicles who miscalculate the speed, cyclists, pedestrians walking on or near tracks, and suicide cases.

And Brightline may not have a “long run” to shed its long-standing image. Brightline lost more than $233 million in 2025. The company carries more than $5 billion in debt and interest.

Revenue reached $214 million in 2025, up from roughly $188 million the year before, but average fares in the first quarter of 2026 actually declined compared to Q1 2025. Ridership hit a quarterly record of more than 900,000 passengers, which is encouraging, though credit-rating agencies have concluded the company needs significantly higher fares or ridership volume — likely both — to reach solvency. A proposed Tampa extension remains on the distant horizon.

Will the train company get back on track before it’s too late?

The biggest loser: Tampa Sports Authority. Ye performed for the first time at Raymond James Stadium on Friday night despite weeks of escalating public pressure from politicians, community leaders and Jewish organizations calling on the Tampa Sports Authority (TSA) to cancel both the Friday and Sunday night shows.

As we spotlighted last week, the opposition was bipartisan, with both U.S. Sen. Rick Scott and former Gov. Charlie Crist leading the charge against the shows.

The TSA wasn’t moved, arguing that no taxpayer money is being used to stage the concerts.

That last claim is technically defensible in a narrow sense — Ye’s promoter is bearing the production costs — but it papers over the reality that the stadium itself is a publicly subsidized facility.

Whether the TSA legally could have canceled is a different question than whether it found itself in a bad situation, and the answer to the former is: probably not. The contract governing the shows includes an anti-cancellation clause that legal experts described as unusual and apparently inserted at the artist’s request, requiring either a federal terrorism threat elevated to Level 5 or a major public health emergency before the shows could be called off without triggering significant legal liability.

Clay Calvert, a First Amendment expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said Raymond James Stadium’s status as a public forum means a performer cannot be excluded based on what they have said or might say.

But the TSA signed a contract that locked in the performances under conditions almost impossible to break. A few miles away, the Florida Holocaust Museum announced free admission for three days in response to the concerts.

Ye published a full-page apology for his antisemitic statements in The Wall Street Journal in January. Whether that is sufficient is a question each attendee has to answer for themselves.

What is not a question is that the TSA is already under scrutiny for its governance of the Rays stadium process, and that it will likely spend the coming weeks answering for this decision.