Posted on 06/02/2021 7:04:57 AM PDT by Kaslin
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In an exclusive interview with The Federalist, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis challenged the right to take a proactive stance on cultural issues, not just a defensive one.
“Do you want to be the Harlem Globetrotters or do you want to be the Washington Generals? D.C. Republicans, a lot of them are my friends, but they’re like lovable losers,” he said. “They let the corporate media define the narrative and it’s like trying to fight your way out of a wet paper bag. You have to reject these narratives.”
Recognizing Americans who “aren’t captive to the Acela corridor or the far left coast,” DeSantis noted a hunger for strong and active conservative leadership. “If all you’re doing is, the Democrats propose $2 trillion in infrastructure [legislation], so we say we’ll do $1.5 trillion, that’s not going to animate anybody,” he said. “That’s just Me Too Republicanism and ultimately that’s not going to be successful.”
As someone many Republicans have looked to for leadership in the absence of national power, DeSantis emphasized the gravity of cultural threats the country is facing, and the necessity of engaging them. “As much as I’m a fiscal conservative, some of these battles with what the left is doing are effectively cultural Marxism,” he said. “You can have a successful economy, but if the underpinnings of the culture are being torn apart, I don’t think that’s a society that will be very successful.”
In an exclusive interview with The Federalist, @GovRonDeSantis says that the GOP needs to engage the culture war: "If the underpinnings of the culture are just being torn apart, I don't think that that's a society that's going to be very successful over the long term." pic.twitter.com/BmcFoPAXc8
— The Federalist (@FDRLST) June 1, 2021
While so many Americans feel they’re on the defensive against an onslaught of cultural threats to their faith, families, and patriotism, DeSantis encouraged them to fight back. “The goal is not to just lose ground more slowly,” he said. “The goal is to regain ground in an offensive direction.”
“This last year was a fundamental test [for the Republican Party] about leading against lockdowns and leading to get kids in school and leading to make sure people weren’t under the yoke of oppressive regulations,” said the governor, noting his lawsuit against the federal Center for Disease Control over its attempt to force the cruise industry to require vaccine passports from passengers. “We are going to pry open every portion of this country one way or another.”
“If it’s Florida leading by example, we will do it, DeSantis added. “But there’s also a number of key issues that we really need to be dealing with,” he said, citing his actions on protecting girls’ sports, holding Big Tech accountable for censorship, supporting law enforcement, and fortifying election integrity.
After signing a law to keep biological males from competing against female athletes in Florida, DeSantis emphasized his willingness to stand up to woke corporate pressures. In response to boycott threats from groups like the NCAA, he insisted “we’re not going to let corporations run the state, particularly woke corporations.”
“We’re not going to be bullied by groups like the NCAA,” he added, noting the NCAA has since backed down from its threat to relocate events from states with laws like Florida’s. Still, “I’m totally willing to sacrifice an event in order to stand with the girls of my state,” DeSantis said. “It’s an easy decision, and I don’t view it as pressure as much as saying, ‘the battle lines are clearly drawn, so which side are you going to be on?’ So we’re obviously on the side of the women athletes in this state.”
"I'm totally willing to forego some of these things based on people's ideology if it means that we're standing strong to protect opportunities and the integrity of the competition for women athletes. It's an easy decision," @GovRonDeSantis tells @_etreynolds for The Federalist. pic.twitter.com/ZRvXXqPwMM
— The Federalist (@FDRLST) June 1, 2021
He also slammed the role corporate media has played in the culture war. “You just can’t trust ’em. They’ve always had biases but it’s much different than bias now,” said the governor, who recently withstood a partisan smear from CBS’s “60 Minutes” fabricating a fake scandal about Florida’s vaccine distribution. Corporate media “are basically spinning partisan fact-free Orwellian narratives, so when facts present themselves that undercut those narratives, they will simply either ignore those facts or actually affirmatively try to smother the facts.”
“In some respects, [corporate media] really are the heart and soul of the Democrat Party,” he added. “The politicians are on the side, it’s really corporate media that drives their agenda.”
“I don’t think there’s ever been as many hostile cultural forces, whether it’s corporate media, universities, big tech, now big business,” DeSantis continued. “If you’re an American who believes in the core values of this country — faith, family, opportunity — you are absolutely on the defensive in many respects, so the question is, how do you fight back effectively.”
These voters need strong leadership, he added. “If you lead and particularly if you’re willing to take some arrows along the way, there are voters that will do whatever they can to make sure they have your back.”
“Stop trying to grovel in front of [corporate media outlets], stop thinking that they’re going to like you,” DeSantis concluded, calling for Republicans to fight the narrative being pushed by corporate media as well as Big Tech, the Biden White House, and woke corporations. “Republicans need to understand where the battle lines are being drawn.”
One of the VERY few.
We need to replace 145 that voted to keep Liz Cheney in leadership in Feb.
They knew where she was leading them and it was not to Make America Great Again.
Assistant Democrats is all they will ever be.
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But...but...it we keep pleading with them...if we keep sending money...if we keep voting for them...if we give them another chance to do something...if we are willing to abandon Trump...maybe this time they will stand up to Democrats. /sarc
The capacity of the Republican voter to tolerate weakness, failure, and backstabbing seems to have no limits.
Maybe you ain’t been paying attention - DeSantis also walks the walk...
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HE does. The PARTY doesn’t.
The Republican plantation is as real as the Democrat plantation.
PING!
PRECISELY RIGHT. That lopsided vote told you everything you need to know about the GOP. Make no mistake, Lizard Cheney still has a lot of closet supporters in the party.
That’s why I donate directly to Trump and folks like DeSantis and Marjorie Taylor Greene, etc.
One guy said it would be better to vote for a Dem or stay home than vote for a RINO - we can either support the good ones or just kneel to the Left and kiss their feet now and bypass the waiting.
The GOP barely tolerates Trump supporters. They have a palpable disdain for us. They just want our money and our votes, not our principles and values. Just sayin.
I suspect he might be a FReeper.
Then be the party. Take it over from the ground up. https://precinctstrategy.com/
This freeper is doing so, https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/3964282/posts?page=8#8
At the top state level, the precinct people get to elect none other than the head of the RNC, as of now, Ronna (Romney) McDaniels. Precinct people also have a big say in who's in the primaries. They also get to elect the electors. It's the behind the scenes power. Imagine being abe to replace Ronna with someone who would actually do something about the likes of Mitt, Murkowski, Collins etc. They could withhold funding and access to the RNC/GOP aparatus.
Great sailboat night picture...
If Republicans want to win, then they need to totally eliminate voter fraud. Congressional Republicans had plenty of opportunities since the election of 2000, to get it done. They failed. Didn’t even try. If the Republican Party doesn’t respect me enough to protect my vote, I won’t be voting for anyone, ever again.
And on the Marxist side we have a turncoat - Charlie Crist - and Nikki Fried Brains. Landslide....
Duh😂
Please run, Ron!
I agree - and I will support the very few that do walk the walk.
True - I donate to DeSantis, Marjorie Taylor Greene, President Trump, and a few others - I tell the GOP/RNC solicitors that I don’t donate to traitors and they can go to Hell.
He gets it - which is why the Left has started calling him "DeSatan". They know he is onto them.
They try to duck it because doing so means pointing out the central role of black activist groups and black election workers in carrying out that fraud - which will attract instant screams of "racism" that they as a party still have not learned how to handle.
DeSantis is the best of the lot but seems to be a conventional politician in the end. He’s fine jousting with the media but never directs his verbal jabs at Quisling Republicans or addresses the corruption of our political system. That just not good enough.
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