DeSantis repeats GOP talking points on Fox while Floridians endure economic woes

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has frequently focused on fighting conservative ideological battles as part of a strategy to raise his profile above those of other presidential candidates like former President Donald Trump, has all the while neglected to address issues affecting residents of the state he governs.

DeSantis officially launched his presidential campaign on May 24 during a Twitter Spaces interview with Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk. According to NPR, DeSantis told Musk: “Biden’s allowed woke ideology to drive his agenda. We will never surrender to the woke mob, and we will leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history.”

DeSantis, like other Republicans, has co-opted the term “woke,” originally used by Black activists to describe awareness of social issues such as systemic racism, and used it as a label to attack progressive ideals and policies.

Since winning election to Florida governor in 2018, DeSantis has pursued his ultra-conservative agenda in frequent Fox News appearances. Trump used a similar tactic before the 2016 presidential election to appeal to conservative voters.

An aggregate of national polling on Republican presidential candidates has shown that Trump and DeSantis are the most popular in the field. However, Trump still has a significant lead of 33.3 percentage points over DeSantis.

Emails obtained by the Tampa Bay Times in 2021 showed that DeSantis’ office was in frequent communication with Fox News. This was a change in strategy for DeSantis, who, the Times reported, had avoided appearing on Fox for most of 2019, but then returned to the network after Trump lost his bid for reelection in 2020.

DeSantis has used appearances on Fox to attack critical race theory, a term for the academic study of systemic racism that Republicans have also co-opted and used as an “anti-woke” weapon, and to tout his actions in Florida to stop teachers who were purportedly teaching it. At the same time, he pushed Florida’s law that places restrictions on classroom instruction on gender identity (described by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law) and has approved of restrictions on curriculum content that have led to some books being banned in Florida schools.

At the same time, school districts in Florida have faced shortages of teachers and bus drivers. A 2022 report by the National Education Association had Florida ranked in the bottom five for teacher pay among all states and Washington, D.C.

A February 2022 report by the nonpartisan Florida Policy Institute described the state as making an “ongoing underinvestment in K-12 public schools,” and in 2021 the Education Law Center rated Florida an F for the level of school funding and how funds have been distributed.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fox has continually misinformed its viewers about the virus, downplaying risks and attacking efforts to promote vaccination.

DeSantis has been a part of this campaign and has appeared on the network attacking COVID-19 vaccination efforts by the federal government; he appointed vaccine skeptic Joseph Ladapo as the state’s surgeon general. It later emerged that Ladapo’s office omitted information from a recommendation his office released to the public that showed a greater risk of cardiac-related death from the virus than from vaccines.

DeSantis’ focus on conservative wedge issues has continued while his policies have increased health care costs for Floridians. DeSantis has refused to accept federal funding under the Affordable Care Act to expand Floridians’ eligibility for Medicaid.

When improvements have come to Florida, they have often been despite DeSantis’ efforts.

Voters approved a constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage, which will go from $8.65 an hour in 2021 to an eventual $15 an hour by 2026.

In 2020, when an increase in the minimum wage was on the ballot, DeSantis opposed it, claiming it would “close small businesses, kill jobs and reduce wages.”

DeSantis and Fox News have attacked the Walt Disney Company for criticizing DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ policies. Disney recently announced it would pull out of a plan to construct a $1 billion campus in Florida that was projected to bring 2,000 high-paying jobs to the state.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.