Florida’s gubernatorial race is shaping up to be between progressive Democrat Andrew Gillum and Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis. On the one side, Gillum is running on a platform of fixing the damage done to the state of Florida by Skeletor impersonator Rick Scott, and on the other side is Rep. DeSantis, who seems to be running on being a racist. Rep. DeSantis fully embraced the white supremacist trail that Donald Trump, and frankly the Tea Party, has blazed. Watching his campaign ad was like watching a cult propaganda spoof directed by Christopher Guest. Winning the primary must have felt really good. And then he had to open his mouth.
DeSantis began his primary victory march by saying a vote for Gillum would “monkey this up,” where “this” would possibly mean … white supremacy? Very quickly, DeSantis went into damage-control mode, saying that his choice of words when describing the first black gubernatorial candidate of a major party in Florida’s history was poor. Other Republican luminaries chimed in with their well-crafted pieces of racism wisdom.
Having attempted to put out that fire, DeSantis finds himself now dealing with news reports spreading around the internets that the Trump-endorsed candidate was stepping down from a wildly racist Facebook group he reportedly moderated. The Facebook group, called “Tea Party,” boasted about 95,000 members, and is a gallery of racist, misogynist, tasteless memes—many of which have been taken down recently. Listed among the administrators of the group? Rep. Ron DeSantis. So, strange.
"The Congressman was completely unaware that he was part of the Facebook group, which he was added to without his knowledge or consent. As soon as he found out about it, he immediately deleted it," Lawson wrote in a statement.
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Also listed as an administrator on the page was Mike McCalister, another Florida Republican, who lost the party's nomination for commissioner of agriculture on Tuesday. Kelli Ward, who lost a primary on Tuesday for Arizona's U.S. Senate position being vacated by Jeff Flake, is also listed as an administrator.
McCalister has also denied knowledge of being an administrator. As far as I know, you don’t become an administrator of a group on Facebook without an invite that you must accept.* The fact of the matter is, DeSantis has long been known to chum around with known bigots and hate-speech “patriots.” C’mon, man!
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