A gunman killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub in 2016. A rainbow-painted crosswalk was installed to memorialize the victims. Governor Ron DeSantis ordered the crosswalk repainted, ending the memorial, which Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer condemned as cruel and premature politics. Dyer said the crosswalk was installed with state coordination and national standards, and Orlando will continue to honor the victims; a survivor said solidarity had been erased. DeSantis argued the state won’t allow streets to be used for political purposes. The dispute highlights tensions between a Democratic-led city and a Republican-led state, amid broader debates about rainbow crosswalks and road safety, including federal guidance to standardize markings and studies suggesting such crossings can slow drivers and improve safety. The 2016 attack was claimed by the attacker to be linked to the Islamic State.

You want the plain truth with the word off it: this isn’t about safety signs or traffic math, it’s pure power theater dressed up as civic etiquette. DeSantis flips on a dime and suddenly a memorial is “political,” because anything that reminds people you stood with them gets in the way of his political narrative. The city says it was a joint effort, following standards, but that’s just a convenient shield for his base-appeal stunt. And the survivor talking about solidarity erased? That isn’t a misprint, that’s a slap in the face to anyone who believes public spaces should stand for unity, not for losing a partisan argument over memory. The crosswalk became a symbol, and symbols scare politicians who crave control more than compassion. Federal guidelines and safety studies be damned when they conflict with the optics of a red-meat moment for voters. So we get lipstick on a memorial while real issues—safety, inclusion, memory—are weaponized, and the public gets served with a spectacle instead of substance. This is how power operates: memory is a lever, and the moment it becomes inconvenient, the lever gets pulled and the message gets rewritten. And yes, the media will spin it as local squabbles, but behind every spin is someone counting votes and erasing a show of solidarity to fit a political script. End of story? Not by a long shot, because the fight over what our streets remember is the fight over who gets to tell the story of us.