Governor Ron DeSantis must be doing something right.
The Left’s outright lies about the Florida Republican suggest that they fear him and aim to sandbag him through their usual methods: Rampant deceit and racial division.
First, CBS News’ 60 Minutes concocted an elaborate fiction in which DeSantis supposedly arranged for Palm Beach County seniors to receive COVID-19 vaccines through Publix, as a payoff for the grocery chain’s $100,000 donation to his re-election campaign. This pay-to-play fantasy began to unravel when Publix explained that its stores had administered seasonal flu shots for years, and the company had volunteered to offer COVID shots on a non-exclusive basis. (RELATED: DEROY MURDOCK: Here Are Some Shining Examples Of Pure Dem Insanity)
Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi confronted DeSantis in person and then edited his response with unvarnished malice. DeSantis turned the tables on 60 Minutes. He released his team’s unedited video of his comments and exposed CBS’ reckless disregard for the truth as they slapped together this steaming pile of misinformation.
“60 Minutes just gave Ron DeSantis a massive gift,” a CNN headline declared. Even Dave Kerner, Palm Beach County’s Democrat mayor, slammed 60 Minutes’ “intentionally false” fairy tale.
Next, Left-wing journalists, politicians, and the neo-radical Walt Disney Company accused DeSantis of signing the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill and dragging gay rights in Florida back to the dark ages before 1969’s Stonewall Riots.
In fact, nowhere in the 1,307-word Parental Rights in Education Act does “gay” appear. This statute is as silent as the Sphinx about “gay,” “straight,” and “celibate.”
This law does say that “classroom instruction…on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3.” Waiting until at least fourth grade for such lessons seems perfectly reasonable to most normal Americans, including millions of gay people who have absolutely zero interest in sexualizing children. So, DeSantis’ enemies flat-out lied about this measure, to tar him as a monstrous homophobe.
Third, Leftists play the race card as routinely as most Americans breathe. So, naturally, when DeSantis objected to the College Board’s Advanced Placement Black Studies curriculum, they accused him of — what else? — a racist conspiracy to whitewash slavery.
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell outrageously claimed that DeSantis “says that slavery and the aftermath of slavery should not be taught to Florida school children.” After DeSantis’ press team justifiably screamed bloody murder, Mrs. Alan Greenspan conceded that her execrable comments were “imprecise” — much as it would be imprecise to call Florida a Canadian province. Mitchell full-on lied.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also lied about DeSantis: “If you think about the study of black Americans, that is what he wants to block.”
DeSantis, in fact, signed legislation that requires teaching slavery.
Governor Ron DeSantis signs the Stop WOKE Act, which mandates the teaching of slavery in Florida’s public classrooms, on April 22, 2022.
As DeSantis’ Press Secretary Bryan Griffin told me, the governor “proposed, championed, and signed” Individual Freedom — House Bill 7. Approved last April 22, the “Stop WOKE Act” established “Required instruction” in K-12 government schools including “The history of African Americans, including the history of African peoples…, the passage to America, the enslavement experience, abolition,…the vital contributions of African Americans to build and strengthen American society and celebrate the inspirational stories of African Americans who prospered, even in the most difficult circumstances.”
This law also encourages teachers to discuss “how the individual freedoms of persons have been infringed by slavery, racial oppression, racial segregation, and racial discrimination, as well as topics relating to the enactment and enforcement of laws resulting in racial oppression, racial segregation, and racial discrimination and how recognition of these freedoms has overturned these unjust laws.”
Rather than promote white supremacy, DeSantis endorsed this bill, which expressly rejects ethnic exceptionalism as well as collective racial guilt. Specifically, DeSantis signed this language into law:
School instruction and materials in Florida “must be consistent with the following principles of individual freedom:
(a) No person is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex.
(b) No race is inherently superior to another race.
(c) No person should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, disability, or sex.
(d) Meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are not racist but fundamental to the right to pursue happiness and be rewarded for industry.
(e) A person, by virtue of his or her race or sex, does not bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.
(f) A person should not be instructed that he or she must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress for actions, in which he or she played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.
DeSantis also signed House Bill 1213 on June 23, 2020 mandating that Florida students learn about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre, an atrocity perpetrated by Democrat Ku Klux Klan members and some 250 white racists who fatally shot, burned, and lynched an estimated 30 to 35 black Floridians to stop them from voting and scare others from the polls.
A DeSantis Administration task force’s 22-page report proposed six teaching recommendations on March 1, 2021, including “Educator Training modules” and a website “with direct links to supporting materials,” such as historical documents on Ocoee.
After implementing what he supports, DeSantis recently opposed specific topics within the AP course that go far beyond slavery into something resembling, at best, Black Lives Matter propaganda. A small sample:
- “Intersectionality and Activism” features readings by former Black Panther Angela Davis, the 1980 and 1984 vice presidential nominee of the Communist Party USA.
- “Movement for Black Lives” highlights Rutgers sociology professor Leslie Kay Jones who wrote: “Every day, black people produce an unquantifiable amount of content for the same social media corporations that reproduce the white supremacist superstructures that oppress us.”
- “Black Queer Studies” showcases Yale Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies professor Roderick Ferguson who explains: “It means building forms of queerness that reject the given realities of the government and the market.”
“Florida statute requires the teaching of slavery and its aftermath,” DeSantis’ deputy press secretary Jeremy Redfern noted February 22 via Twitter. “We just know that ‘queer studies’ has nothing to do with Jim Crow.”
The Democrats’ intellectual and public-policy bankruptcy is confirmed by the fact that Leftist politicians and journalists (if that distinction remains) do not challenge Ron DeSantis’ pro-American, pro-freedom, pro-market governing philosophy. Instead, they yell, “Crook!” “Homophobe!” “Racist!” and lie, lie, lie as loudly as possible.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.