Living in a Right-Wing Fantasy Land – The American Spectator

“When you’re taking flak, you’re right over the target.” Never has the World War II expression been truer than regarding the current liberal wrath over Florida governor Ron DeSantis and his efforts to turn my home state into a modern Constantinople, defying leftist barbarism. The howling that increased last week from the entire political-media-entertainment establishment — and sadly former president Donald Trump — was that of fading shadows losing the power to cloud men’s minds. DeSantis is systematically deflating their fantasy bubble simply by depriving it of hot air — especially its once deemed unassailable pockets such as Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

“We are also going to eliminate all DEI and CRT bureaucracies in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said. “No funding. And that will wither on the vine.” This stated policy drove the already mad progressive influencers even more berserk last week, one of whom, Joy Reid, whose anti-DeSantis screed sounded more like a great campaign speech for the governor:

Not only is he banning books about history and any mention of the existence of gay people from Florida schools, he’s barring public high schools from teaching AP African American studies. He’s taking aim at drag performances, even suggesting that he would urge the state’s child protective services to investigate parents who take their own kids to one. He’s actively trying to ban COVID vaccine mandates and restricting mask rules while at the same time calling for probes into supposed wrongdoing linked to the vaccine. And he’s doing all of this while making sure that anyone can walk around with a gun, no permit required. It’s a right-wing fantasy land.

Wait a minute. Banning history books like those stupid enough to state that U.S. history began not in 1776 but in 1619 with the arrival of the first African slave ship? Barring public high schools from teaching the pointlessly divisive African-American studies? Targeting obscene child-grooming drag shows, and investigating the perverse parents who take their children to them? Banning the now totally discredited COVID vaccine mandates, restricting the provenly useless mask mandates, and holding vaccine wrongdoers culpable? Plus protecting the Second Amendment? This guy’s sure got my vote in 2024 or beyond.

Not to mention that Reid’s description of Florida should become the official motto for its resident-tourist welcoming board: “Come to Florida — a Right-Wing Fantasy Land.” Sounds a lot better than Disney World — which DeSantis also put squarely in its place last year along with its parent corporation — and much less woke. “Florida is where woke goes to die,” DeSantis said in January at his second inauguration. If the Marxist Useful Idiots futilely attacking DeSantis spent less time absorbing cultural rubbish and more studying the Western tradition they decry, they would know and heed fellow — though smarter — leftist Friedrich Nietzsche’s most famous dictum (from The Twilight of the Idols and the Anti-Christ, 1888), “What does not kill me makes me stronger.”

Progressives hit the governor with everything they had only to suffer total ignominy. Less than a year ago, Disney had so much economic force and cultural prestige, company leaders intruded into the political arena, vowing to help repeal DeSantis’s then just passed Parental Rights in Education bill — which they and all of Hollywoke ignorantly called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Had anyone actually watched the 2022 Academy Awards show, they might remember the painfully unfunny female three stooges (Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer, Regina Hall) who hosted it dancing and chanting “Gay! Gay! Gay” to a gleefully screeching audience. Only seven months later, DeSantis was the only GOP bright spot in the dismal 2022 election, winning Florida in a historic landslide, including my formerly blue Miami-Dade County.

As for the corporation that challenged him, Disney CEO Bob Chapek got booted for his political arrogance, with his liberal replacement, Bob Iger, backpedaling from woke politicking faster than a Tour de France cyclist. That the company can’t seem to do the same in entertainment has lost it the former good graces of its longtime family audience, not to mention $123 billion with a 44-percent stock drop in 2022. While DeSantis is redoubling his cultural footprint, particularly in education.

Last month, he appointed six conservatives to the board of trustees of the New College of Florida in Sarasota, completely reversing its liberal academic decline. DeSantis’ chief of staff, James Uthmeier, disclosed that the trustees’ new priority will be a return to classical education — in other words, the abolishment of the racial and gender garbage that has polluted higher education this century. Potentially, then, Florida can be a beacon for young people seeking enlightenment over indoctrination, and ultimately intellectual fulfilment. Which is something that the majority of universities across America have sacrificed on the altar of wokeness.

It’s yet one more reason why DeSantis is currently the undeclared frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. This, however, does not sit well with the declared frontrunner, who has pettily lashed out at the popular governor — calling him names like “Ron DeSanctimonious” much to his own debasement. DeSantis, for his part, has remained above the fray. By pointing out the historic margin of his recent re-electoral victory, he didn’t need to mention Trump’s ignoble defeat. Everyone who heard DeSantis made that connection.

But Trump really devalued himself last week on the Hugh Hewitt Show, claiming DeSantis cried when begging him for his endorsement. “He said, ‘If you endorse me, I’ll win,’ and there were tears coming down from his eyes.” Next year, tears may be falling from Trump’s eyes, as he watches not just Florida, but all America become a right-wing fantasy land.