The Wokeness of Ron DeSantis
Florida's prickly Governor takes the same approach to public policy as those he rails against
projection (noun): the attribution of one's own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects
Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Governor, is fond of describing his state as “the place woke comes to die”. He backs up his words with an agenda aimed at social justice and culture war policies associated with the Left, specifically programs that promote diversity, equality, and inclusion. His relentless attacks on these programs in government and public education are prime examples. As I previously wrote, in service of this agenda, Governor Ron pushed legislation such as the “Don’t Say Gay” Act (The Parental Rights in Education Act) and the S.T.O.P Woke Act and threatened to remove the College Board’s Advanced Placement courses from Florida’s high school curriculum. He is using his authority as governor and the power of the state to promulgate an ideological agenda. And that would seem to be no different than the doctrinaire approach taken by the proponents of the “woke” policies DeSantis criticizes. At the very least, the Governor is out to prove that irony is not dead.
Among contemporary Republicans, DeSantis is the most visible of the self-styled conservatives. Forget about traditional American conservatism based on small-government, business-friendly dogma, and the primacy of individual liberty: DeSantis and other self-styled conservatives have borrowed the brand name but not the substance. As a Republican governor with Republican supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature, he runs the government as an autocracy. Here are a few examples of his administration by fiat:
Last Spring, when the legislature presented a plan for re-districting Florida’s Congressional districts, DeSantis rejected it as not sufficiently gerrymandered in favor of the GOP. The legislature promptly surrendered and adopted a district map that DeSantis proposed that was even more friendly to Republicans.
Last year, Ron DeSantis removed the elected State Attorney for Hillsborough County, Andrew Warren, from office because he pledged not to prosecute people violating the state’s new abortion laws. DeSantis didn’t suspend Warren for refusing to prosecute people who violated the law but did so because Warren said he wouldn’t do it in the future. (Source: Florida Politics) Warren sued in Federal District Court but the decision last month was mixed: The judge ruled that DeSantis had violated Warren’s First Amendment right to free speech, but was constrained by Florida law from ordering Warren’s reinstatement.
As for being a business-friendly Republican, DeSantis’ retaliation against Disney, Florida’s largest private employer, for the company’s public criticism of the “Don’t Say Gay” Act indicates the Governor is amicable to business as long as it complies with his social and cultural preferences.
Last week, in a move many speculate is part of DeSantis’ pre-announcement tour for an expected Presidential run in 2024, he traveled to Staten Island in New York City to blast New York on crime-related issues and to invite NYPD officers to relocate to Florida. New York’s crime statistics are significantly lower than Florida’s, so either DeSantis is ignorant of that irony or he’s just trying to score points with the GOP base by “owning the libs” in the capital city of the coastal elites.
On Saturday, Forbes reported that Republican State Rep. Alex Andrade introduced House Bill 999 that, if enacted, “would dictate university curricula, ban any funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at Florida institutions, take the hiring of faculty out of faculty hands, and give governing boards the power to review the tenure status of college faculty anytime they please. The bill also calls for the rewriting of university mission statements.”
These moves are all in service of the DeSantis agenda, attacking what he views as a liberal bias in government, public education, and parts of the private sector with the aim of replacing it with his personal ideology. While he and his supporters call it conservatism, it is truly “woke”, waging a war of cultural issues.
In fact, it is a classic case of projection, doing exactly what you accuse others of. It is difficult to know whether or not DeSantis, a Yale alumnus and Harvard Law School graduate, truly believes his own rhetoric; or is he cynically exploiting the ignorance of his supporters.
Or maybe, just maybe, he is the vanguard of The New Woke.