Is Erasing Rainbow Crosswalks Really the Hill to Die On?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
With all the real problems today, is erasing rainbow crosswalks
really the heel that people.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Want to die on?

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to hashtag go right with Peter Boykin. Today we're
diving into a story that goes far beyond paint on pavement.
It's about liberty, hypocrisy, and whoever the Republican Party is
wasting political capital fighting symbols instead of defending principles. Let's
start in Gainesville. Back in twenty nineteen, rainbow crosswalks were

(00:35):
painted downtown. They weren't paid for by taxpayers. The community
raised the money themselves. These crosswalks welcomed residents and honored diversity.
But now they're being erased, not because Gainesville wanted it,
but because the State of Florida threatened to withhold millions

(00:59):
in critical funding. The city faced in an impossible choice
keep the rainbows and the culture or lose its bus
system and road repairs. As Mayor Harvey Ward put it,
Gainesville would be giving up its buses, its roads, everything.

(01:20):
It's not local self government that's coheresion in Gainesville isn't alone. Orlando,
Florida watched the Pulse Memorial crosswalk installed by the state
in twenty seventeen to honor the forty nine lives lost
in the worst mass shooting of its time, scrubbed away overnight,

(01:46):
no discussion, no ceremony, just gone. The state left the
city with an eighty five thousand dollars bill for removals
of other things in Orlando as well, it didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Even ask for.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
In Daytona, Daytona's checkered flag crosswalks tied to the race
and culture ordered plain gray, seminole counties, green safety crossings erased.
Even colorful crosswalks near schools designed to keep kids safe
now collateral damage. The justification quote uniform safety standards, but

(02:28):
the evidence doesn't back it up. Bloomberg's Asphalt Art safety
study found crashes involved pedestrians and cyclists dropped by fifty
percent where crosswalks were painted. Injury crashes fell by thirty
seven percent. Driver yielding went up by twenty seven percent.

(02:51):
Colorful crosswalks make roads safer, not more dangerous. If this
was about safety, the state would be repainting every faded
crosswalk in Florida, not erasing bright ones that work. So
what is this really about politics? Governor Ron Desantas signed

(03:12):
a law banning what f DOT calls quote social political
or ideological messages and crosswalks. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy went further,
saying taxpayers expect safe streets, not rainbow banners. Desantas himself said, quote,
we will not allow our state roads to be comandeered

(03:35):
for political purposes.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
That's the spin.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
But the truth is the post memorial wasn't political propaganda.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
It was community funded remembrance.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Gainesville wasn't breaking rules, it followed them. These projects were
not taxpayer burdens. They were grassroots investments. And now because
of politics, Orlando stock with an eighty five thousand dollars
bill to erase perfectly good paint. Now, before we continue,

(04:07):
I just want to tell you my main idea after
all of this, If the federal government wants to put
forth and say that only money will be spent on
specific uniform highways and things like that, I have no

(04:29):
problem with that. Taxpayer dollars should pay for the plane,
default whatever safe according to them, and of course anything
above that should be even an exception, which in these
cases a lot of these were already exceptions and should
have been grabbed favored in or the community pitches in

(04:52):
and pays for them. The biggest problem was that when
they put this out, they literally said that the ones
existing had to go. Instead of leaving them alone, they
had to go, and they use the ultimatum of if
you don't pull them up, will take away your future money.

(05:16):
That's where there's no compromise. That's where they literally are
targeting rainbow cross walks and everything else's collateral damage. That
is where I disagree with, not that the fact that
taxpayers should be paid for these, because a lot of
people responded to me that taxpayer should pay for it.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
I completely understand.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
That, but individually, custom you know, paint jobs, and the
culture that goes behind these in these different areas, for
bringing in tourism, et cetera, et cetera, as long as
the city pays for as long as the county pays
for it, as long as individuals pay for it.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
And what's the problem.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
So let's move on. Here's the hypocrisy. Conservatives rallied against
Cracker Barrel when the company tried to swap its rustic
logo for a brand bland, new one. Social media exploded.
Trump himself weighed in and guess what the people forced
Cracker Barrel to reverse course. They reversed course so much

(06:27):
that they're not even going to redesign the stories. That
was celebrated as a victory for tradition and a stand
against corporate blandness. But when the state of Florida are
the United States itself imposes bland uniformity on communities, suddenly
many of those same conservatives are silent, are worse cheer

(06:51):
it on. Blandness is tyranny when it comes from corporations,
but liberty when it comes from govern That's not principle,
that's partisanconvenience. And it shows the deeper breakdown of our politics.
Nobody is willing to compromise. Everything gets shoved under the

(07:13):
label of quote dei or quote woke, and nothing is sacred,
not even a memorial for forty nine murdered Americans at Pulse,
not even community funded safety murials at schools. And a
time when leaders talk about cutting waste, this crusade actually

(07:35):
created waste. Eighty five k wasted in Orlando alone.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Perfectly good streets were destroyed and repainted gray because the
state demanded conformity. As Ronald Reagan once warned, freedom is
never more than a generation away from extinction. Pride at
its core was never about indoctrination or sex. It was

(08:00):
about surviving, about preserving rights, about saying no one has
the power to erase us. And yet here we are
erasing symbols of memory under the guise of quote safety,
while studies prove those symbols save lives. So let me
ask the question plainly, is erasing rainbow crosswalks really the

(08:24):
heel that my fellow Republicans want to dial While inflation rages,
while roads crumble, while our borders face crisises, do we
really want the fight to be over paint on asphalt?
Because this isn't just about rainbows. It's about whether local

(08:45):
communities can govern themselves without state cohesion. It's about whether
we're going to be consistent on liberty are only defendant
when it suits our politics. Here's the call of action.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Speak up, contact your legislatures, demand that f dot follow
evidence not ideology. Stand up with your local leaders when
they fight for the right to honor their communities, and
don't let party loyalty blind you to government overreach. Because

(09:20):
if they can erase a rainbow today, they can erase
anything tomorrow. This is bigger than paint. This is about
liberty Gainesville, Orlando, Daytona. Their communities were silenced by the
stroke of a paint brush. But we still have a voice,
and if we don't use it, liberty itself will be

(09:43):
painted over in grant. Remember we fight for what's right,
because it's time to go right.

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