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I'm honestly wondering how you could dream that a desantis administration would stop "wokism from above"? The reason the left is pounding this on you is because you have no institutional power at the federal level. He can't even stop it in Florida. His bills are toothless, made-for-tv jokes. His PR stunts, flying illegals and his spat with Disney, did nothing and desantis caved quickly.
And that's even if he could win a general election which he could not because a GOP candidate must win the midwest and desantis wouldn't even win Ohio.
And that's even assuming desantis isn't a neocon neolib pragmatist which he is.
His bills have progressives trying to hide every book in the state currently. He's also actually gone and fired a DA that refused to enforce the law. His admin properly treats enemy media as the propaganda machine it is. And his admin isn't betraying him at every turn while he giggles about it.
He's been a more effective Trump in every way while also not being a nutjob about losing. The only real questions are would he be able to replicate at the Federal level (we already know Trump cannot) and what his foreign policy would look like.
Has desantis even stopped "woke from above" stuff in Florida? From the Floridians I know, he has not. He looks to be making something of a dent, I suppose. The media reacts with hysteria when anything is done whether it's remotely effective or not so that's not a good way to gauge how effective he's been. When I've looked into most of his stuff, his actions are lots of acts made for media and then the follow through is lacking or just outright capitulation.
oh, is that it?
The easy example would probably be vaccine mandates and re-opening in general.
It's definitely a big question, I'll give you that.
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Desantis has roots on the PA-Ohio border. Maybe he can’t win the primary but he will know how to talk to people in that area. His grandparents were all part of the Italian immigrant wave (of which I’m a part of) to the region. His parents grew up there. Culturally he should be able to connect to all the ethnic whites that still exists there, and moving away from the region was extremely common when the steel mills closed.
There is zero chance he wins the primary against Trump in the midwest. Not "maybe" he can't, but zero % chance he wins a primary. I have seen nothing at all to think desantis knows how to talk to midwesterners at all and his record in Congress and comments since then are big turnoffs to midwesterners. The guy is not charismatic and he's not funny. He's the sort of dude who would pay $100,000 for someone else to write jokes for him to badly try to pull-off.
edit: Here's a good example of how Ron Desantis intends to connect with midwesterners. From "his" book:
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Uhm.
How?
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/04/03/desantis-disney-reedy-creek-board-district-investigation/
He's actively attacked a core structure of the cathedral, and hasn't stopped advancing.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/02/ron-desantis-block-dei-program-state-colleges-florida
The colleges almost instantly showed their bellies, in response:
https://www.fldoe.org/newsroom/latest-news/florida-college-system-presidents-reject-woke-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-dei-critical-race-theory-ideologies-and-embrace-academic-freedom-.stml
How did desantis cave quickly against Disney or on the illegals flights? He quickly stopped the illegals flights. His "takeover" of the Disney leaves intact everything Disney cares about, e.g., exempt sales & property tax, tax-free bonds, expedited permitting, among others. Both are examples of heavy PR and lacking substance.
I will have to look into the newest PR blitz on college DEI program "blocks."
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Maybe DeSantis can stop it, maybe not.
IMO DeSantis has a much better grasp of tactics than most other Republicans I see in that he recognizes this is both a legal and institutional fight and he supports people (Rufo) who do as well.
It's a low bar but...
A lot of Republicans are so bad at this they might as well be throwing the fight. A lot of their "strategy" might as well not exist besides whining about wokeness and Silicon Valley bias (basically trying to work the refs) and trying to meet people halfway (in their mind) with the plaintive talking point of "this isn't what MLK wanted".
DeSantis (and Rufo) understand that a lot "wokeness" takes place on a legal level and needs to be attacked by removing the support structures for DEI or taking over the institutions. Judging by the ironic complaints of his enemies, he also understands that somewhat vague or subjective laws are useful by having a chilling effect on anything that could conceivably approach the line of punishable behavior (which forces companies to innovate on woke - or anti-woke- measures just to be safe).
Certainly, I'd be willing to bet he's given it more thought than Trump. If you want to fight wokeness it seems like there's two options and one is more thoughtful than the other (which we already tried and it arguably made things worse)
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