WHAT IS THE RON DeSANTIS VISION FOR FLORIDA?

…Ron DeSantis

The DeSantis term “monkey-up” appears to have been: “used intentionally for racial motives”.

The Republican running for governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, seems to have some supporters that personify the old saying: “Birds of a feather, flock together”.

The Washington Post previously reported that DeSantis spoke four times at conferences organized by David Horowitz, a conservative activist who has moved further into the far-right fringes in recent years and has actually said that “African Americans owe their freedom to white people and the country’s ‘only serious race war’ is against whites.”

During a speech at a 2015 event in Charleston, DeSantis praised Horowitz saying: “David has done such great work, and I’ve been an admirer.  I’ve been to these conferences in the past, but I’ve been a big admirer of an organization that shoots straight, tells the American people the truth and is standing up for the right thing.”

DeSantis has gotten national attention for embodying one of the worst criticisms of Trumpism: the idea that his campaign traffics in the promoting of white supremacy.

The latest example of that recently went public when it was revealed that one of his donors, Steven Alembik, used the “N-word” in a tweet criticizing former president Barack Obama. This same donor helped arrange for DeSantis to give a speech at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago club

In another case, the DeSantis campaign told the Associated Press (AP) that the thousands of dollars from Steven Alembik’s company, SMA Communications, was accepted and spent before the Aug. 28 primary, but that DeSantis’s campaign wouldn’t be accepting any more donations from him. The AP reported: “SMA Communications donated $2,000 to DeSantis’ campaign and $2,000 to DeSantis’ political committee. Another $11,000 in donations from Alembik and SMA were returned in June.”

DeSantis campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson, rejected any idea that his boss supports Alembik’s use of a racial slur against the former president.

“We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: we adamantly denounce this sort of disgusting rhetoric,” Lawson told the AP news service.

But the problem for many watching this race is that DeSantis actually has a history of racial controversies and insensitive remarks.

Last month, The Fix reported that less than 48 hours after the primary elections in Florida, DeSantis was harshly criticized after he went on Fox News and described his Democratic opponent, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, as “an articulate spokesman” for those holding “far-left views.” His caution to voters about what could happen if Gillum, who could become Florida’s first black governor, was elected DeSantis actually said: “The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state. That is not going to work. That’s not going to be good for Florida.”

His team denied the idea that his words were racist, calling the suggestion “absurd” and Lawson claimed that DeSantis was using a slang comment that was actually attacking Gillum’s “socialist policies."

However, in checking out that his statement that was said to be a “common slang statement” that meant “messing up a situation”, The Fix personnel were unable to find that slang statement from any slang dictionary. In fact, here is what an expert at the American Heritage Dictionary stated: “I tried to look up variations of "monkeying up something" or "monkey something up", or "monkey it up" and all I found were the results of this particular “monkey up” statement made by this Florida politician. Generally the results about this particular statement was that it was used intentionally for racial motives.”

When former congressman Ron DeSantis launched his campaign to be Florida’s governor, he promised voters that he would be a localized version of President Donald J. Trump, the man who endorsed his campaign after repeatedly watching him defend and support the Trump administration on Fox News.

Earlier this summer, DeSantis made questionable comments about New York Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez which were deemed both racist and sexist.  DeSantis said:

“You look at this girl, Ocasio-Cortez or whatever she is, I mean, she’s in a totally different universe. It’s basically socialism wrapped in ignorance. And it’s problematic.”

Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter to call the then lawmaker out on his comments, writing: “Rep DeSantis, it seems you‘re confused as to ‘whatever I am.’ I am a Puerto Rican woman (not a girl). It‘s strange you don’t know what that is, given that ~75,000 Puerto Ricans have relocated to Florida in the 10 mos since María. But I’m sure these new FL voters really appreciate your comments!”

Gillum has repeatedly responded to DeSantis’s words as divisive and inconsistent with what the Florida voters want. After news broke about the Republican’s controversial donor, Gillum told the AP: “It is up to Congressman DeSantis to explain to Floridians why he has chosen to associate himself with right wing extremist groups and divisive individuals who want to pit us against one another."

DeSantis is currently trailing Gillum by six points according to the most recent Reuters Poll, but the election is still more than a month away. Prior to 2016, these repeated headlines would have toppled the DeSantis campaign, but in these post-Trump years, (Remember, Trump won even with an endorsement from the Ku Klux Klan), it’s not surprising to see that he is still competitive, despite comments that make many Floridians wonder what the DeSantis vision is for Florida.

Copyright G.Ater  2018