Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — a candidate well known for his support of book bans — started his (not yet official)quest for the White House with a book tour rich with irony.
His book, “The Courage to be Free,” comes from a politician who supported and signed laws prohibiting teachers from talking about Black history and high school students from getting advanced college credit for a course in Black Studies. A much more appropriate title for his book that would reflect his policies would be, “Fear of Freedom.”
During the height of the threat to freedom in the censorship hysteria wrought by GOP Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, moderate Republican President Dwight Eisenhower gave a speech at Dartmouth University with the title “Don’t Join the Book Burners.” DeSantis may not be burning books, but he is burning bridges that would connect him to millions of voters who believe in a just multi-racial society.
Adding to the paradox of his quest for the presidency, he started his tour on the last day of Black History Month and extended it through the first week of Women’s History Month, which is awkward since the governor apparently doesn’t support African American studies or a woman’s right to abortion access.
Every presidential campaign needs a theme song, as well as a book tour. Franklin Roosevelt’s signature music was “Happy Days are Here Again.” DeSantis should use the signature song “Those Were the Days” from the sitcom “All in The Family.” Archie Bunker’s archaic take on the times —“A guy like me had it made” and “Girls were girls and men were men” — was played for laughs. It seems DeSantis is dead serious about rolling back the clock.
Archie Bunker is the protype Republican voter, while the show’s the young couple, Mike and Gloria Stivic, and “The Jeffersons” are friendly to Democrats. The Florida governor pitches his politics and policies to dependable GOP voters, the white men and senior citizens who fear the changes that are transforming America from a bastion of white power into a minority-majority nation.
But DeSantis and like-minded Republicans will learn the hard way that you can slow change down, but you can’t stop it. The U.S Census Bureau has estimated that the United States will be minority white by 2045. That means children born this year will live in a minority majority population by the time they graduate from college. DeSantis rails against “woke ideology” — social justice and equality — while America changes complexion.
Politicians should lead the charge against the turmoil that comes from the transition to multi racial society, not provoke it like DeSantis does. The great Spanish philosopher George Santayana likely had people like the governor in mind when he wrote “Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The failure to teach young people about violence against African Americans is an engraved invitation to relive it.
The governor’s support for censorship extends way beyond race. In Florida, educators aren’t free to say the word “gay” if they teach young students. He used his political power to punish the Disney Company for what he calls “trying to inject woke ideology” into its programming. DeSantis’ strict and authoritarian policies in Florida would be pretty scary stuff at the national level.
DeSantis is the GOP presidential candidate that Democrats should fear as much or more as Donald Trump. Trump and DeSantis share many of the same policy positions, but the governor is smoother and less threatening personally than the failed former president.
DeSantis has a military background, a stable and attractive family, as well as an Ivy League education. His youth offers a clear contrast to his toughest opponents, Trump and Joe Biden.
DeSantis has won two gubernatorial terms of one of the biggest states in the union, In his successful bid for reelection last year, he won the support of Latino voters and residents of Miami-Dade County, home to Miami and its suburbs. There aren’t many Republicans with those kinds of political credentials.
Polls show that Trump tops the GOP leader board, but the Florida governor is a serious threat to win the nomination. Many prominent Republicans are looking for a fresh face to replace Trump, who weighs down the GOP with enough baggage for a yearlong international tour.
DeSantis doesn’t make sense for real friends of freedom. President Biden has moved mountains to bring the issues of disenfranchised Americans into the mainstream and give them the freedoms that white Americans have long enjoyed since the founding of our great nation. In contrast, it seems DeSantis would only further marginalize minorities, which is the last thing we need in a society that is changing color right before our eyes.
Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster, CEO of Bannon Communications Research and the host of his weekly “aggressively progressive” podcast, “Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.” Follow him on Twitter: @BradBannon