On Sunday night at the National Conservative Conference in Washington, DC, Ron DeSantis was the undisputed highlight. The governor of Florida addressed a number of pressing issues in his recent speech, including the lack of enlightenment in the business sector and the Republican Party’s slavish devotion to an unworthy Wall Street.
Given that Republican voters are universally despised by Wall Street, the latter is especially galling. Republican leaders, on the other hand, often place high importance on the support of a group that donated three times as much to Joe Biden in 2020.
But DeSantis isn’t like other Republicans. He is in tune with the times and will say what other Republican politicians are too timid to say. This caused many people to feel insulted as he spoke. As an example, there was this jab at COVID-19 vaccinations that set the crazies into a frenzy.
Take note of what is absent from Chait’s critical statement. Specifically, substantive response to DeSantis’s claims. The reason he didn’t provide an explanation is unclear. The governor of Florida is, in fact, correct. The government made false claims regarding the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines, saying they had successfully halted further outbreaks. Then, based on that fabrication, they pushed for unconstitutional mandates with no real basis in science. In the end, you aren’t “protecting” anyone by making people be vaccinated against the coronavirus if the virus transmits amongst people regardless of whether or not they’ve been vaccinated.
“They were wrong about the efficacy of the mRNA vaccines.” DeSantis keeps courting anti-vaxxers pic.twitter.com/q0jxOjUxgo
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) September 12, 2022
However, Chait’s criticism shows how far the left has fallen. They blindly follow government pronouncements, even when they run counter to facts and common sense, in a cultish manner. It’s not that DeSantis was wrong, then. He wasn’t. Instead, they are upset because DeSantis had the nerve to say something that ran counter to the accepted narrative.
This has been a consistent tenet of the governor’s administration and a major factor in his popularity. He’s not only a supporter of the libs, though, though they certainly need our help. DeSantis is unafraid to address the elephants in the room when it comes to the GOP’s own blind spots. For instance, he criticized Republicans for worshipping abstract market forces over the welfare of society.
It’s important to note that DeSantis’s criticism is not meant as an outright rejection of free markets but rather as an acknowledgment that when large firms exploit them to monopolize and control, they are no longer truly free. The fact that such conduct generally results from pressuring the government to rig the game emphasizes the argument. The future of the Republican Party does not belong to Republicans who put corporate tax cuts for their enemies ahead of the needs of their voters.
That’s not to imply reducing taxes is a terrible idea. In fact, they turn out to be quite nice. What really separates DeSantis from the other candidates is his openness to discussing the social effects of government policy. This is why he has been the national leader in challenging Disney and other megacorporations over their promotion of toxic leftist ideology in schools. The proper action may be the most challenging option.
Furthermore, if the left is freaking out, it’s a good indication that he’s gone too far.