Ron DeSantis: more Trumpist than Trump (and perhaps the next president of the United States)

Democrats, activists and big business, including Disney, a force in the state, fiercely oppose and criticize it; they warn of its dangers and, like many ordinary citizens, promise to fight it. For Ron DeSantis, the governor who proudly affixed his signature to the text this week, it’s just another victory.

With this law, only one of the measures with which Florida is attacking and curtailing the rights conquered by the LGTBI + community, DeSantis continues to cement himself as the most influential Republican star in the culture wars that since Donald Trump became president they have taken a central place in the political life of Americans. Nothing on the governor’s agenda escapes the most reactionary positions that the right has embraced on issues such as abortion, voting rights, race or immigration, or the fight against the covid pandemic.

DeSantis’s is an ideological battle being waged on familiar ground where conservatives clamor for “freedom” and against “socialism,” “Marxism,” and the “radical left.” –dialectic from which Ayusismo and Vox also drink–. But the governor, who claims to have made Florida “the freest state” and “the forefront of liberty,” has put the weight of state power and executive action behind proclamations and culture wars. And he has come to embody what one of his allies defined in ‘The New York Times’ as “competent Trumpism.”

DeSantis, for example, has banned transgender athletes from colleges and universities and recently issued a proclamation (no more than token value) not acknowledging swimmer Lia Thomas’s recent victory in the varsity championships. He has also supported legislation that criminalizes those who provide minors with medical services as hormone therapy and gives immunity to doctors and insurers they refuse to pay attention to the LGBTI community for “religious, ethical or moral beliefs & rdquor ;. He also vetoed giving funds to provide psychological assistance to the survivors of the massacre at the Pulse gay club.

The governor, who last year banned the teaching of Critical Race Theory -a theoretical framework that addresses racism as a structural phenomenon- in the state (although it is not part of the curriculum), also has on his table awaiting his sign the stop-woke law (concept that alludes to the awareness of gender, race and class), which stipulates that “an individual [se entiende que blanco] You should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress because of your race & rdquor ;. The law, which also urges patriotic teaching and educating in “the virtues of limited government”, is modeled after the controversial Texas abortion law, putting its execution in the hands of ordinary citizens, since it is the parents who could file lawsuits.

In abortion, precisely, DeSantis has also placed Florida among the states that are most restricting access. It is already prohibited to use funds from Medicaid, the public health system for the poor, and the governor has called “very reasonable & rdquor; A law, awaiting his signature, prohibits terminations of pregnancy after 15 weeks and does not include exceptions for rape or family abuse.

Also in 2021 DeSantis signed a law “combat violence, disorder and looting and protect law enforcement & rdquor ;. Although a judge has paralyzed its application, the rule, created after the protests over the murder of George Floyd (although in Florida they were not particularly significant), includes the protection of those who run over protesters with a car. It also eliminates state aid to local governments that reduce their budget for the police and allows anyone who finances or organizes a meeting that ends in “disorder or violence” to be prosecuted with the laws against organized crime.

The racist overtones are not only in that rule and DeSantis is also a prominent figure in the Republican assault on voting rights that affect mostly minorities. First, the governor, elected in 2018, invalidated in practice a law approved by referendum in those same elections that restored the right to vote in Florida to former prisoners, by forcing them to pay what they owe in fines or expenses of their processes, something that most cannot do. In 2019, the governor approved one of the toughest laws in the country limiting voting by mail, or mailboxes to deposit ballots, or prohibiting paying attention or giving water or food to those waiting in line to vote.

In addition, DeSantis has proposed creating what would be the first US police force especially dedicated to investigating alleged electoral fraud (which would report to the Secretary of State, named after him). Just this week, moreover, he has vetoed the redesign of electoral maps proposed by the Republican-controlled legislature, because he wants to advance an even more extreme redesign (inspired by Steve Bannon and potentially unconstitutional) that would eliminate two seats in black electoral districts.

In immigration DeSantis signed a law in 2019 that vetoed the so-called “sanctuary cities & rdquor; (although Florida had none). Despite the fact that a federal judge has blocked most of that rule, the governor has not relented in his crusade and has prohibited local agencies from doing business with federal contractors that transport immigrants, from airlines to bus companies or organizations, in addition to ordering close shelters.

If something has especially cemented DeSantis as an icon of the right, it has been his positions and measures during the pandemic. Florida was one of the states that later imposed restrictions and one of the first to lift them. In May of last year, he signed an executive order that invalidated any local mandate that restricted the rights or freedoms of companies and individuals. And this week he has led a lawsuit filed by 21 Republican states against the federal government for extending the obligation to wear masks in transportation until April.

DeSantis calls for “freedom against Faucism & rdquor ;, a play on words with fascism and Anthony Fauci, the main epidemiological authority in the US. At a recent rally with high school students, the governor mocked those still wearing masks. He has given a press conference with anti-vaccines and has suggested that serums can cause infertility. And he has also chosen Joseph Ladapo, who has also questioned vaccines, for the main health position in the state.

That radicalism has made him gain ground among the most radical bases against Trump, who has publicly defended vaccination. And the two positions have led the two to confront each other, one of the elements that creates tensions between the former president and DeSantis, whom Trump gave his support in the campaign for governor in 2018 and whom he now sees as his main rival in a potential race to return to the Oval Office. Although DeSantis has not officially declared his intention to run for the 2024 presidential election (nor has Trump), the governor’s ambitions are crystal clear, who previously faces re-election in November, but who is the clear favorite to renew his mandate.

In that potential duel with Trump, the governor of Florida, 43, has some advantages. De Santis, who comes from a middle-class family but went on to study at Yale and Harvard and spent time as a lawyer for the Army in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq, He does not have the charisma of the former president but neither does he have his impulsiveness or his penchant for chaos.. He shares populist energy with Trump, but he is intelligent and disciplined, methodical. He controls the legislative process, pays attention to detail and has carried his entire political career, which he began as a congressman in 2012 with his wife, Casey, as chief adviser, with military discipline.

DeSantis, who wrote in 2011 a book focused on the attack on Barack Obama in which he postulated his conservative credentials in fiscal policies or in favor of social cuts, came to Congress with the support of the Tea Party and helped form the Freedom Caucus. He then had a brief Senate run in 2016 that was aborted when Marco Rubio abandoned his presidential aspirations. His fleeting step, however, opened the door to donor contacts. He now has the fundraising machinery throughout the country very well oiled, including some who also continue to support the former president.

Without a Twitter veto, DeDantis personally and through his spokesperson uses the social network to stay focused on his message. This and his face, moreover, have been made inescapable throughout the conservative media microcosm, where he is one of the most frequent guests. It was precisely his appearances on Fox that once caught Trump’s attention. In Congress, DeSentis had already proposed defunding the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller and in his 2018 campaign for governor he appeared in a video reading ‘Trump, the art of negotiation’ to one of his three sons and with another daughter building the border wall with a set of blocks.

Now the disciple can turn against the master. And DeSantis is already identified by influential conservative voices like Rich Lowry, editor of the ‘National Review’, as “the voice of the new Republican party.” What that voice says, and what DeSantis does, is what compels you to pay attention.