The Republican Party can be summed up in the lies and abusive bigotries of many of its elected officials. One of the most overrated of those officials is Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Ron clearly wants to run for president of the United States and has gone about it by attacking marginalized groups of people, doing a boring imitation of Donald Trump, and raising money. DeSantis has about the same chance of winning a primary against Donald Trump as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio did before him.
This is in part because he is a true lightweight who can only handle the spotlight when there isn’t even a wisp of pushback. When DeSantis is asked the simplest of questions that do not align perfectly with his self-delusional statements, he falls to pieces. On Thursday, the governor’s featherweight political acumen was on full display. DeSantis did what he usually does: He stood in front of a microphone to take credit for something he really shouldn’t be taking credit for. In some cases DeSantis is taking credit for human and civil rights violations that include terrorizing children and families. These are horrible things to be taking credit for.
On Thursday, DeSantis was trying to take credit for something he didn’t actually do: provide major funding for rural broadband infrastructure. You see how positive that is? DeSantis couldn’t even make that happen without someone else, namely the Democratic Party, making it happen. Things started out poorly at the event as Gov. DeSantis’ signage on the front of his podium was giving too much away, reading “Expanding Rural Broadbrand.” Yes, press conferences with Ron DeSantis are only a (misspelled) branding exercise. But it got even better after that.
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We should start with the sign.
Then Ronnie announced his big rural broadband initiative, saying he was awarding $144 million in grant awards to rural broadband projects around the Sunshine State. Where is all of this money coming from? Mar-a-Lago? Nope. Surprisingly,* Ronnie D forgot to mention how Florida was putting together this nine-digit award. That was until he was asked by a reporter whether or not this money was coming out of Florida’s coffers or from the federal government and President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better infrastructure plan. You know the Build Back Better plan: the one that only 13 Republican reps voted for (none of whom represented Florida); the same one that both Republican Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio voted against.
After pointing to people on the dais that seemed to know a lot more about what DeSantis was holding forth about, Ron had to admit that the money was all coming from the “federal government.” Before we cue the sad trombone sound, let’s look at the face of a man entirely too weak-minded to step on the national stage.
Let’s watch it all unfold in real time.
I suspect that reporter won’t be allowed back into a Ron DeSantis press conference.
*See not surprisingly.
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Listen to this episode of The Downballot for an in-depth analysis of the 2024 Arizona Senate race and the implications of Kyrsten Sinema's re-election decision. Special guest Victoria McGroary, the Executive Director of BOLD PAC, will also discuss the efforts to prevent losses among Hispanic voters and the fight against disinformation in Spanish language media.