Unbelievable videos emerge showing Ron DeSantis' trumped-up election fraud arrests

At the beginning of August, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida did one of his publicity stunt press conferences where he appealed to the basest fears of the conservative world. No, this wasn’t the time he went after LGBTQ+ children or teachers. No, this wasn’t the millions of dollars in taxpayer money he used to separate immigrant families in order to score political points with xenophobes. This was the time he announced that he was going to create a Gestapo-like outfit of election fraud law enforcement officials. Like everything DeSantis has done, it costs the taxpayers a lot of money in order to punish a few (almost always entirely innocent) people.

Subsequently, DeSantis announced with confetti that his crack squad of election-fraud-stateers had arrested “20” Florida residents for illegally voting in the 2020 election. It turns out that the number was 19, and it also turns out that most of the people in that number were Black (at least 13 of the people taken into custody), 12 were registered Democrats, and virtually every single person arrested by the DeSantis goon squad were told in one form or another that they could vote by various Florida officials. The move works on two levels: 1) DeSantis gets to make a big splash with the national Republican base by championing the conspiracy theory bullshit that fires up their old racism, and 2) DeSantis creates fear of voting among communities unlikely to vote for a dirtbag Republican in Florida. The cost? Some citizens’ freedoms and lives.

Now video of a few of the arrests through police officer body camera footage has been obtained by the Tampa Bay Times. It shows Florida citizens absolutely baffled and demoralized while apologetic police officers arrest them on these politically motivated hack charges.

RELATED STORY: 'It’s really unconscionable': The more we learn about DeSantis’ election victims, the worse it looks