Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is an ill-informed racist bigot who
is dumber than a rock. Cite
this Vox.com story with this headline:
“Ron DeSantis’ war on wokeness is a war against the
First Amendment”
The Florida governor (and likely presidential candidate) appears
to believe that government exists to advance his ideas — and to suppress
dissent and he isn’t exactly hiding what he’s up to.
Earlier this month, the DeSantis appointed Chris Rufo, the
architect of the “2021 moral
panic over critical race theory” to the board of a public liberal
arts school in Florida. Rufo told New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg,
his goal, and the goal of several other DeSantis appointees to the New College
of Florida’s board, is: To transform
New College, a liberal bastion in the South, into something more like Hillsdale
College (a conservative school in Michigan with close ties to Trump).
The one positive thing
that can be said about this appointment is that it is, at least, legal —
something that cannot be said about many of the governor’s attempts to sic the
government on institutions he deems too liberal.
DeSantis isn’t just
determined to use his public office to suppress dissenting voices and promote
his own reactionary views; he’s also quite willing to thumb his nose at the
Constitution in order to do so.
Indeed, DeSantis often seems to revel in his contempt for
the First Amendment, even fundraising off of it. Shortly before DeSantis
signed unconstitutional
legislation punishing the Walt Disney Company for criticizing one of his
policies, he sent out a fundraising email to supporters touting the
fact that he was doing so saying in part that Disney was being punished after
it “tried
to attack me to advance their woke agenda.”
Examples of his harsh
free speech suppression:
1. He
signed legislation imposing speech codes on university professors, as well as legislation attempting
to seize control of content moderation at sites such as YouTube, Twitter, and
Facebook.
2. He
attacked classroom teachers with vague, unconstitutional laws stigmatizing LGBTQ people.
3. He
threatens drag performers with criminal charges.
DeSantis in his reelection
speech pledged to: “To fight
the ‘woke’ in the legislature, to fight the ‘woke’ in the schools, and to fight
the ‘woke’ in corporations.”
One of DeSantis’ lawyers
later clarified that the word “woke” means “… the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need toaddress them.”
My Note: “Woke” is defined like this from Cambridge Dictionary and other reputable sources this way: “A state of being aware, and especially of social problems such a racism and inequality.”
As a constitutional matter, a governor is allowed to give speeches arguing that the United States is somehow miraculously immune from systemic injustice.
He may sign legislation repealing programs intended to cure these injustices.
He may appoint officials to public school boards that share his belief that the U.S. is immune to these injustices.
He may even enact
policies that help perpetuate these injustices, assuming that those policies
violate neither the state nor federal constitution.
But DeSantis goes much further. He wields the government’s sovereign powers to sanction speech he does not like, and to punish institutions that criticize him.
DeSantis, in other words, does not seem content to simply enact policies that hew to a right-wing economic or social vision.
He wishes to use the sovereign powers of government
to shape public discourse itself — punishing some ideas, rewarding others, and
conscripting public schools and universities into his culture war.
To be fair, DeSantis is hardly unique among Republican state
governors in this regard. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) signed legislation targeting
social media companies that is even more aggressive than Florida’s.
DeSantis is also widely viewed as a leading contender for
the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, so he is uniquely positioned to take
his speech war national if elected president.
Much, though admittedly not all, of DeSantis’s agenda clearly violates
the First Amendment:
The government may
not punish its critics for their speech.
It may not, as a federal
appeals court explained in a decision blocking a Florida social media
law, seize
control of content moderation at Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.
While Florida does have
some control over what state-employed teachers and professors say in their
classrooms, the government cannot terrorize those instructors with vague laws that do not communicate what sort of
classroom instruction is permitted and what is forbidden.
Related article here from Politico with this headline:
“Florida nixes African
American studies course, claims it lacks educational value”
The Florida Department of Education left the door open for
possibly accepting the course eventually, but only if the content is tweaked to
meet state guidelines.
Stay tuned for more
on this topic.
My 2 Cents: Gov. DeSantis as I said and as the two above articles show and prove is a racist bigot way out of control just like Trump.
He must never be anywhere near the White House,
except maybe for a visit but certainly not behind the desk in the Oval Office –
never, ever.
Thanks for stopping by.
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