Ron Desantis: A War Against Culture
Ron Desantis’ administration’s recent ban of AP African American Studies in the state of Florida is a reminder of why he is one of the most dangerous politicians in the current political landscape, and it is a reminder that we should recognize just how scary and widespread his influence has become.
Desantis’ influence has played a large part in Florida’s transition from being a “swing state” to becoming a solidly red state in the past couple of years. In 2018, he was only barely able to win his gubernatorial election by 33,000 votes— which equated to a 0.4% difference in the ballot between him and his opponent, Andrew Gillum. However, in Florida’s 2022 gubernatorial race, when Desantis was up for re-election, Desantis expanded his narrow margin of victory into a landslide one, winning the race by a margin of 1.5 million votes, and winning Miami-Dade county as a Republican candidate for the first time since 2002.
What is most scary about Desantis’ meteoric rise to the top of the political ladder is his accomplishments—flipping Florida from purple to red, turning once solidly blue cities in Florida red, and winning the Latino vote as a Republican candidate – were all achieved on the basis of some of the most shameless racist and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric present on the modern political stage.
Ron Desantis has developed his entire persona on the basis of combating “wokeness” in the state of Florida, which has historically been used as a term to blanket various progressive social movements in the United States. His infamous “Don’t Say Gay'' bill, which he proposed in the middle of 2022, banned any mention or discussion of sexual orientation amongst children below the third grade. While not as unabashedly harmful as some of Desantis’ other propositions, it still sets a horrific double standard between straight and LGBTQ+ couples, and it serves to further contribute to the villainization and oversexualization of LGBTQ+ couples as well. The vague language of the bill could mean that LGBTQ+ teachers may not even be allowed to make mention of their significant others in their work spaces without risk of legal ramifications.
However, what is Desantis' most disturbing action is his ban of the teaching of “critical race theory,” a term that has devolved into a blanket phrase that has served to censor anything taught in relation to black history, or sometimes black people in general. Desantis justified his ban of AP African American studies because it “didn’t meet the standards” of the CRT law, accusing it of “pushing a political agenda on our kids.” Following Florida’s ban of the course, College Boards’ revised the curriculum of the course. Some of the specific revisions included banning the teaching of the Black Lives Matter Movement, The Black Panther Party, slavery reparations, and queer theory. Despite the “Black conservatism” was also added as an optional research project in the revisions.
Florida also took issue with the mention of black authors within the curriculum who published writings that “support critical race theory.” Various anti-federalist and federalist papers written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, men who owned and at times even raped slaves, are still essential reading in AP US Government, a class the state Florida has not made any objections to.
Censorship under the basis of barring critical race theory has extended beyond social sciences classes and into math classrooms. In April of 2022, the state of Florida banned dozens textbooks for allegedly violating its law. Examples that were used as justification for the ban were hypothetical graphs in sample questions that made mention of racial prejudice and social emotional learning, concepts that the state argued to be “leftwing ideologies.” It has gotten to the point where anything that even implicitly touches upon the struggles that black people in this country have faced is flagged and deemed as “inappropriate,” while pillars in White American history who have been incredibly problematic are allowed, and even encouraged to be discussed in core curriculums. It is an attempted erasure of history to further a social and political agenda, which is ironic considering that the basis for a majority of these preventative measures is to “prevent political indoctrination of kids.”
Ron Desantis is not some kind of acceptable contrast to Donald Trump. He is every bit as extreme as Donald Trump was and is much worse in many ways. Being less shameless and unapologetically abrasive in your rhetoric than Donald Trump isn't exactly a high bar to meet, and it doesn’t make you a more “traditional” or “acceptable” Republican candidate.
Although he hasn’t announced his candidacy yet, it is practically a given that Ron Desantis will challenge (and likely beat) Donald Trump in the Republican primaries for the 2024 Presidential election. He may be marketed as otherwise, but he is a man who has achieved success running on the same social issues that made Donald Trump initially successful. The only difference is that he is more intelligent and more calculated in his approach. The man who has become the poster boy of the “party of free speech” has instituted more censorship within his state than almost any other governor. If he becomes president, there’s no reason to assume that he would act any differently.
By Kailen Hicks