Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, Launches Presidential Campaign for 2024

“The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Plan for America’s Renaissance” is the name of the book that Ron DeSantis launched at the end of March. The message with which this 44-year-old man has since toured the decisive states in the primaries for the Republican presidential candidacy is simple: no American governor has achieved more for his state than he has. Or even simpler, like his campaign slogan and rallying cry for his supporters: “DeSantis 2024-Make America Florida.”

DeSantis is, for the moment, at the pinnacle of power, having been re-elected by a clear margin at the end of 2022. And this despite the fact that Florida is considered a swing state. A state in which sometimes the Republicans win, and other times the Democrats. But DeSantis also wins over undecided voters, and that may be his advantage in the battle for the White House in 2024.

The governor of Florida gains points in his country thanks to good economic data, tax cuts and a policy during the pandemic under the slogan “freedom against faucism.” DeSantis lashes out at US chief virologist Anthony Fauci, campaigns against coronavirus restrictions and bans companies from asking employees for proof of vaccination. His critics nickname him “Death Santis” for it, but many people in Florida celebrate him for it.

DeSantis and Trump are no longer the best of friends

Even Donald Trump, who was instrumental in elevating his loyal supporter DeSantis, long described his adopted son-in-law as a “brilliant young leader.” Until the former US president realized that he had fathered his own rival and competitor of his. Since then, he’s called him “Ron DeSanctimonius,” an ungrateful hypocritical politician that Trump, he says, will bring some nasty things to the public about.

DeSantis’ strategy for responding to Trump’s attacks: silence. In campaign speeches he doesn’t even mention his name anymore. The governor of Florida tries to present himself as who he is, also a hard-line man and a defender of a strictly conservative policy, but without chaos, without scandals and without lawsuits. As a “Trump with a brain”, as many call him.

But on his way to the White House, he falls short of his rival in one important respect: Whereas Trump can effortlessly whip up a large room to a boil, DeSantis is considered a structured but dull and boring speaker.

Ultra-conservative agenda in Florida

Ron DeSantis might even hope that no speeches are needed at all, that his Florida policies stand on their own as a ticket to the White House. “Florida is the state where ‘woke’ will die,” he says. The Governor has declared a culture war in the Sunshine State and brought it to life with laws like “Stop Woke,” “Don’t say gay,” and the “Parental Rights in Education Law.” Education about homosexuality in schools: prohibited. Topics such as racism and slavery in the classroom: prohibited. Women’s sports for transgender students: prohibited.

And DeSantis also guarantees that abortions are prohibited in Florida after the fifteenth week. After that period, abortions are only possible in exceptional cases, for example, if the mother’s life is in danger. Rape, on the other hand, is not considered an exceptional case.

If DeSantis not only beats Donald Trump in the Republican presidential campaign, but Democrat Joe Biden as well, things are going to get pretty awkward, and not just for the American liberal left. On the US foreign policy commitment to Ukraine, DeSantis said in Fox News that it is not in the “core national interest” of the United States to be “drawn further into a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia.”

(gg/cp)