So, uh, we decided, uh, to go first to Florida. We flew in from, uh, Geneva. Florida, because it’s considered as a a lab of some kind of [inaudible 00:14:25], uh, uh, government, with Ron DeSantis policies. And also because I read that, um, some important right-wing figures are a- attracted to, to, uh, Florida, especially to Sarasota, which is this beautiful town so- south of Tampa. So, uh, basically we arrived there, like, five weeks ago. Some troubles, uh, when we arrived because no lugGEge. This happens many times, so, uh, we had to wait two days for lugGEge. Which is, I’m telling you that because it helped me… Uh, well, anyway, I tried to use it when I went to a store to buy some makeup, Macy’s, so this, uh, sales, sales woman, uh, was very nice, connected me to another sales woman who is a Republican, who connected me to some other Republican woman.
We decided to rent Airbnbs because it’s really, uh, difficult to eat in a restaurant and every day for five weeks, though we did go out to, uh, oh, obviously to some diners and restaurants to talk with people and listen to the [inaudible 00:15:33] there as we, as we call it, the, the opinions of many people of the street. This is, this is just to emerge ourself in the situation. And, uh, I think the most difficult part was to get in touch with this, uh, far right, very conservative, ultra MAGE people because they don’t even answer to mails. I mean, I send out, I counted them. I send, it’s 35 mails to different Republican orGEnizations and only one who answered me was the spokesperson for one Republican representative from Nebraska.
And this spokesperson, a man, answered me, “Yes, uh, I like Switzerland. You know, I dated once a Swiss girl.” Um, I guess that’s why he answered me. But he, kind of, wrote a few lines about how nice it was dating this lady and detailing where he met her and where she was from in Switzerland. And I asked for an interview of his representative, and I got the interview, which is quite rare. Because as a Swiss journalist, American representatives, they have no interest in, uh, talking to us.
The people in Switzerland, they see mostly Florida as a vacation place, as the Disneyland location. And we are gonna show them maybe the other side of this, how and why far-right leaders, like, Janal Finn, settle down there. And how, uh, local action can have an effect on the national level. So when I came there, obviously, there are many old people. We were always shocked when we saw some young people. They are not very common, so at least in Sarasota. And then I discovered a whole other aspect of that.
Meaning, that in Sarasota, for example, there’s a very lively cultural out scene, there are good restaurants, uh, uh, people are really nice. And then when you dig in, what you see, what’s really happening, uh, on the political ground, which is another story completely other story, and more dark story. We thought sometimes Florida is known as the Sunshine State. Um, sometimes were worrying if the sun will not set down on Florida and would be a more darker state.
