October is upon us, which means it’s horror movie season. And a new release promises ‘a dark dystopian story’ that depicts ‘terrifyingly evil’ behavior.

But Cockburn raised an eyebrow at the trailer for Florever Purge, which contains very little to fear and a lot to love.

Among the supposedly blood-curdling lines uttered by the movie’s main villain: ‘We trust people to make their own decisions’ and ‘We’re not going to be bludgeoning people with restrictions, mandates, lockdowns or any of that stuff.’ Cockburn is no horror connoisseur, but ‘I’m going to leave you alone’ doesn’t give him goosebumps. For most of the trailer, Cockburn found himself not hiding behind his sofa, but nodding his head in agreement.

The petrifying hellhole depicted is the state of Florida, and the villain in question is its governor, Ron DeSantis. Florever Purge is so hilariously self-defeating that Cockburn briefly wondered whether it had been made by a DeSantis staffer seeking to boost his boss’s reelection chances next year.

Take a look for yourself.

1,000,000 views pic.twitter.com/AyaHQ77fqs

— Remove Ron (@RemoveRon) September 30, 2021

Are swing voters are more likely to sympathize with the melodramatic narrator or the case for limited government calmly laid out by the governor? Cockburn suspects the latter.

But rather than being a cunning conservative false-flag operation, the video appears to be the real deal, from a liberal apparently lacking any kind of self-awareness. The trailer was produced by an anti-DeSantis PAC called Remove Ron. The organization is run by a lawyer called Daniel Uhlfelder.

Cockburn thought that name rang a bell — and then recalled that this Florida man was the Florida Grim Reaper: the guy who spent much of last year tormenting Floridians for taking a trip to the beach. Uhlfelder, hooded and holding a scythe, would lurk on the sand to protest the governor’s decision to reopen the state’s beaches. It won him much praise from CNN anchors and preachy late night talk show hosts. Never mind that there are few places safer during a pandemic than a wide, windy beach.

Cockburn notes that, at 78.6 percent, the proportion of Floridians who have had at least one dose of the vaccine is slightly higher than the national average. It has had fewer COVID-19 deaths per capita than Democratic states like New York and New Jersey. And its governor’s laissez-faire approach has softened the social and economic impact of the pandemic. Its housing market is booming because of the number of refugees from blue-state lockdowns. Less horror story, more success story.