Neoconservatives and “Never-Trumpers” alike have been endorsing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in droves in an attempt to do away with the American First policies spurred by Donald Trump and realign the Republican Party with corporate interests.
“Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stomped his Democratic opponent Charlie Crist on November 8th, picking up a second term with over 59 percent of the vote and painting the map of Florida red by winning 62 of the state’s 67 counties.
The incumbent’s victory in the Sunshine State – which has voted Republican more often than not since the late 1990s, but has swung wildly in presidential elections, may have been made possible in part thanks to his state’s efforts to crackdown on vote rigging, including through the creation of an ‘Office of Election Crimes and Security’.
Before joining the race for governor in 2018, DeSantis was a run-of-the-mill Republican congressman. A Yale graduate and member of the school’s ‘St. Elmo Society’ (the same secret society former George W. Bush attorney general and Patriot Act architect John Ashcroft is a part of), DeSantis served as an officer in the U.S. Navy in the 2000s, working at the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, where the U.S. has held and in many cases tortured terror suspects detained without trial. He deployed in Iraq as a legal aide to the Navy SEALs between 2007 and 2008. DeSantis began his congressional career in 2013.
During his tenure in the House, DeSantis was assigned to the committees on foreign affairs, the judiciary, oversight and reform, and the subcommittee on national security, where he served as chairman. Before Trump descended down the escalator of his New York skyscraper in 2015 and proceeded to shake up the political landscape inside the GOP, DeSantis stuck to conventional, off-the-rack Republican positions on issues like climate change, healthcare, and the Second Amendment. His only notable piece of legislation was the ‘Faithful Execution of the Law Act of 2014’, a failed bill designed to prevent the president from being able to ignore Congress’ will by forcing the Department of Justice to report to lawmakers on any cases of federal agencies failing to enforce laws and regulations.
In the 2016 election, DeSantis actually endorsed Marco Rubio over Trump in the primaries, switching allegiance only well after it became clear that Trump would win the nomination.
After Trump entered the Oval Office in January of 2017, DeSantis transformed himself into a Trump Republican, with the president endorsing his 2018 gubernatorial campaign, giving him a massive boost in the primaries. During the election, DeSantis’ campaign copied Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘Build the Wall’ slogans, allowing him to coast to victory.
Amid his status as a rising star among Republicans and potential challenger to Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024, DeSantis has not matched the president on one issue important to many observers of American politics: foreign policy.
Unlike Trump, who slammed the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a ‘big fat mistake’, and initiated a drawdown of American troops from the country in 2020 under pressure from Baghdad and Iran, DeSantis has refused to publicly disown the neocons’ biggest foreign policy blunder of the early 21st century.
DeSantis has taken neocon stances on other global hotspots too, from Latin America and Iran to the ongoing security crisis in Ukraine. Last month, DeSantis praised SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk for spending tens of millions of dollars a month to keep the Starlink satellite service in Ukraine up and running. DeSantis, coincidentally, is Musk’s favorite for president in 2024.
Trump has already prepared an epithet for DeSantis - ‘Ron DeSanctimonious', adding to the toxic stew of names he used successfully in 2016 to defeat ‘Low Energy Jeb’ Bush, ‘Sleepy Ben Carson’, ‘Lyin’ Ted’ Cruz, ‘Little Marco’ Rubio, and ultimately, ‘Crooked Hillary’ Clinton”. -Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik News
With establishment Republicans fawning over Ron DeSantis, it becomes all the more apparent that the Florida governor does not express the same sort of nationalist sentiment that spawned Donald Trump’s political success.
On April 29th, 2019, Governor DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet met in Jerusalem to proclaim their support for the Jewish state and declare that he, DeSantis, was committed to being the most pro-Zionist governor in all of the United States.
House Bill 741, passed unanimously by the Florida House (114-0), defines anti-Semitism as:
- “A certain perception of the Jewish people, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jewish people”.
- “Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism directed toward a person, his or her property, or toward Jewish community institutions or religious facilities”.
The bill also provides many examples of “anti-Semitism”, including:
- Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews, often in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
- Accusing Jews as a people or the State of Israel of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
- Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interest of their own nations.
The bill also provides that examples of anti-Semitism related to Israel include:
- Applying a double standard to Israel by requiring behavior of Israel that is not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, or focusing peace or human rights investigations only on Israel.
- Delegitimizing Israel by denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination and denying Israel the right to exist.
Undeterred by the Florida First Amendment Foundation filing suit against this anti-American disgrace, this violation of Florida state law by holding that meeting abroad is a clear demonstration of the way in which the GOP has been rendered totally incapable of defending either American interests or American rights.