Taking a Break From The News in the Land of Trump

My Florida vacation

Leonardo Del Toro
4 min readJul 3, 2024

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Photo by Ben Cheung

I like the South a lot. It was my port of entry into the United States when I came to live with my uncle in Atlanta. At that time, I didn’t know what the South was or what liberals or conservatives were. So, to me, there is always this quasi-romantic thing about Southern hospitality, which by the way, does exist.

What am I doing in Orlando, Florida? I came to visit my nephew and his beautiful wife, who are from Brazil and live in a large Brazilian community right outside Orlando. With wide streets, huge houses, and millions of cars, no one walks here. The heat outside is industrial strength, but we don’t feel it because we’re either driving or inside our air-conditioned large homes with all the comforts of the good old U.S. of A. No one talks about global warming here because it doesn’t exist.

But for a moment, I will just forget about all our troubles, the planet's warming, and everything else, like the demise of our democracy and, most of all, the image of Trump. I will focus on the fun of just being here. And not a word about politics. I want to see it for what it is and not follow my prejudice or preconceived bleeding-heart liberal ideology.

I step out to the pool deck outside in the morning for some stretches, and I hear dozens of buzzing motor…

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