For months, Republican governors eager to get a piece of Donald Trump's ability to get attention through race-baiting have engaged in a bizarre and dehumanizing stunt: Sending busloads of often deeply confused refugees to places perceived as "liberal enclaves." Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has sent buses of immigrants to Washington D.C. and New York City, claiming that he's somehow exposing the hypocrisy of Democratic leaders who have said immigrants are welcome. In April, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced plans to use taxpayer funds to bus migrants to blue states, saying, "if you sent them to Delaware or Martha's Vineyard or some of these places, that border would be secure the next day."
The ugly troll leveled up this week, when DeSantis did just that, chartering planes to Martha's Vineyard carrying about 50 people who recently arrived from Colombia and Venezuela. Martha's Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, is known as a vacation spot for wealthy East Coast types. It's clear DeSantis was hoping to elicit an outraged reaction from residents that would "prove" his point about blue state liberals. That ended up backfiring, as the migrants received a warm welcome instead of a hostile reaction. As Heather "Digby" Parton wrote at Salon, the locals at Martha's Vineyard offered "the new arrivals food and shelter, along with legal advice and emotional support." Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., responded by tweeting that "Massachusetts is fully capable of handling asylum seekers." It was soon revealed that the refugees had been recruited to get on the planes with lies about how they were going to Boston to find jobs.
