Floride

Just when it seems our politics couldn’t get more absurd, someone finds a new hill to die on—and this time, it’s dental hygiene.

Governor Ron DeSantis and other Republicans have turned their attention to fluoridation, calling it government overreach. In their telling, adding fluoride to public water is on par with vaccine mandates and mask requirements. Once again, basic public health is cast as tyranny in disguise.

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This isn’t a new conspiracy—it’s an old one, resurrected for the outrage economy. Never mind that fluoridation has been endorsed by every reputable medical and dental association for decades. Never mind the mountain of evidence showing it prevents tooth decay, particularly in children. In this political climate, even toothpaste is suspect if it came with a recommendation from the CDC.

What we’re watching isn’t a debate about science—it’s a performance. The point isn’t to protect anyone’s rights. It’s to inflame, to divide, and to keep feeding the narrative that any collective effort—no matter how small—is a step toward totalitarianism.

It’s exhausting. And it’s dangerous.

Because when every expert is painted as a threat and every institution as an enemy, what’s left is not freedom. It’s chaos. A slow erosion of trust in the very systems that have, quietly and effectively, improved millions of lives.

I write to make sense of this kind of madness. To push back, even in small ways, against the tide of performative grievance that now passes for policy.

If you’re tired of watching public health turned into political theater—if you believe clean water and intact teeth aren’t signs of oppression—I hope you’ll stick around. It’s lonely out here, trying to hold on to reason.

But it beats the alternative: a future where conspiracy is king, facts are optional, and fluoride is somehow a threat to liberty.

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