Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has proven himself to be a hypocrite and a flop once again. Surprise, surprise.
DeSantis has spent the last few years passing a slew of anti-LGBTQ+ bills that he hoped would win over constituents, but his dreams of ruling from the Oval Office were dashed when his presidential bid ended in an epic failure to score votes.
Now, the leader of the Sunshine State is walking back one of his most well-known laws because it turns out that hate-fueled school book bans are too hard to implement for "Never Back Down" DeSantis.
Back in 2022, the Republican politician signed a law that allowed any person — regardless of whether they live in the district or have school-age kids — to challenge as many books as want. Then, once a book was challenged it was immediately pulled off of library shelves until the school district reviewed it.
Democrats even warned DeSantis that the book ban law was worded so broadly that it would cause chaos in the state — he, of course, chose not to listen, and the bill wreaked havoc in Florida. According to the advocacy group PEN America, from July to December 2023, there were 4,349 book bans in the U.S., with 3,135 coming from 11 Florida school districts, CNN reports.
But DeSantis backtracked on Tuesday, when he signed a new bill that will narrow the law so that people who don’t have a student in the school district are limited to one book challenge per month.
Instead of blaming racist and anti-LGBTQ+ conservatives for the overwhelming number of book challenges, DeSantis said it was due to liberal activists taking advantage of the law.
“The idea that someone can use the parents rights and the curriculum transparency to start objecting to every single book to try to make a mockery of this is just wrong,” DeSantis said on Monday, according to the Associated Press. “That’s performative. That’s political.”
Right. Liberal activists are being “performative” and “political,” not the governor trying to capitalize on people’s hatred.
“The majority of books that we see being removed are books that talk about LBTQ+ identities, that include characters of color, that talk about race and racism, that include depictions of sexual experiences in the most broadest interpretation of that understanding,” said Kasey Meehan, Pen America’s Freedom to Read program director, in an interview with the AP.
Despite this, DeSantis claimed the real issue was that people like Chaz Stevens — an activist and performance artist who goes by the name Vermin Supreme — filed challenges in dozens of school districts over the Bible, dictionaries, and thesauruses.
“When they need to make stupid stupider, they send me up. I’m part comedian, I’m part activist, I’m part artist. I just want a better society,” Stevens told the AP. “I’m an idiot, but a smart guy at the same time.”
The newly revised law proves that DeSantis doesn’t really care about what books kids are reading, he just leaned into hate because he thought it would land him enough votes to win the White House and then he backtracked when he found out he was wrong.
This just proves he’s not only a raging homophobe and transphobic; he’s also a spineless hypocrite.
