By Diane Roberts
Ron DeSantis has no friends.
The guys he played baseball with at Yale didn’t like him. One told New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins, “Ron is the most selfish person I have ever interacted with.”
While DeSantis appeared highly intelligent, he enjoyed “embarrassing and humiliating people.”
DeSantis served in Congress before his run for Florida governor in 2018. Nobody liked him there, either. As one of his former colleagues said, “He had no friends.”
Well, did Mussolini have friends? Does Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have friends? Do we picture Viktor Orbán hanging out in the bar with his pals? If you’re convinced the Almighty has chosen you — remember that ad Casey DeSantis tweeted out during the 2022 campaign? “And on the eighth day, God made a fighter” — you don’t care what anyone thinks of you.
Punish his enemies
Look at the original $117 billion budget DeSantis signed at a private Fort Pierce yacht club on June 15. He boasted about big money for Everglades restoration, teacher pay raises, and sales tax exemptions for everything from sunglasses to diapers to generators. This is normal behavior for governors, especially ones looking to the next election.
But DeSantis is using taxpayer money to punish his enemies, a warning to those who cross him. Through the budget, he’s pushing his hate-fueled vision onto us, trying to transform Florida into a subtropical version of Massachusetts under the Puritans: intolerant, ignorant, repressive, and cruel.
There’s $25 million to destroy the welcoming and creative culture of New College, driving out qualified professors and hiring right-wing hacks to bring in sports, fraternities, and plenty of flag-waving.
There’s $30 million for a conservative think tank to be imposed on the University of Florida, $100 million to expand the State Guard, $12 million to fund the human trafficking of asylum seekers and other migrants to Democratically controlled states, and $6 million to pay the legal fees DeSantis will need as he defends his unconstitutional acts in court.
That’s bad enough, but it’s the vetoes, issued with no explanation, that really highlights DeSantis’ unrelenting pettiness and score-settling. This guy likes to punch down, attacking the poor and the powerless. He cut $14.5 million in health care initiatives, nursing, and gun violence prevention.
He brags about funding Everglades restoration (enough to buy the support of the compromised Everglades Foundation, anyway) and Indian River clean-up, but does nothing to address the causes of the pollution befouling most of Florida’s rivers, lakes, and wetlands.
Adding insult to injury, he cut a measure allowing cities to regulate fertilizer use, making it damned near impossible to slow down the toxic algal bloom choking Lake Okeechobee and other Florida waterways.
DeSantis was campaigning in April so he must have failed to notice that Fort Lauderdale was under water. Maybe that’s why he vetoed flood mitigation programs.
Naturally, he handed developers determined to drain, scrape, and monetize every single inch of Florida pretty much whatever they wanted.
Instrument of the divine
The Bible reminds us that vengeance belongs to the Lord, but DeSantis figures that, since he’s an instrument of the divine, he might as well use his veto to knee-cap those who cross him. Sen. Joe Gruters had the gall to endorse Donald Trump for president, so DeSantis slashed projects worth $27 million in his district.
Don’t feel bad for Gruters — he’s a culture wars dolt. But this kind of sucks for Sarasota.
Brevard County fell victim to DeSantis’ wrath, too. Melbourne’s zoo rented space to the emotionally fragile Rep. Randy “Imma be a yooniversity president!” Fine for a campaign event. Fine implied the zoo sponsored it. The zoo pushed back. Fine was offended. The result: The zoo’s $2 million budget request was denied.
Maybe DeSantis thinks giraffes, otters, and turtles are part of the woke conspiracy.
The free flow of information scares the governor: News is dangerous. So DeSantis cut funding for 21 public broadcasting stations. They’d asked for $6.5 million to replace clapped-out generators and moldy tiles, repair damaged wiring, and bring broadcast towers up to FAA standards.
Real history is also a threat. The governor tried to stamp out the past that so frightens him by vetoing money for a Black history event in Orlando and the Black Music Legacy project: They’d requested a grand total of $360,000 — a little more than half what it cost to fly those asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.
Getting scriptural
The governor has a chip the size of Gibraltar on his shoulder and suffers from a sense of grandiosity that would make Captain Ahab blush. DeSantis recently told a “700 Club” interviewer he’d have liked to hang out with the Apostles: “These are people who, you know, Peter is just fishing one day and all of a sudden this guy comes up to him, catches all the fish and says, ‘You know, you’re going to be a fisher. I want you to be a fisher of men.’”
Such an eloquent and erudite grasp of scripture. DeSantis probably thinks Jesus would approve of his quest to own the libs.
Yet this mix of Trumpy syntax, absurd pronouncements, and gratuitous nastiness isn’t translating into love from potential primary voters. No doubt DeSantis will tout his vetoes in speeches and campaign ads as victories in his war on woke, but that won’t solve his fundamental problem: People can’t stand him. DeSantis’ numbers were pretty good when he kicked off his campaign; now he’s polling 40 points behind Donald Trump.
Think about that: Trump with his 37 indictments, his sexual assault rap, and his increasingly-surreal lies, is way more popular than the straight-backed family man with the attractive kids and the immaculately dressed missus.
While sane people find Trump loathsome, Republicans think he’s charismatic. Manly. Funny, too. DeSantis has no detectable sense of humor. He exists in a perpetual state of tantrum-throwing. Aides reportedly write “Likeable” on his notepads, encouraging him to stop behaving like a belligerent jerk in public.
The problem is, if you are, in fact, a belligerent jerk, it’s hard to hide it.
Of course, the primaries are many months away. Anything could happen. Trump could spontaneously combust, leaving a strange, toxic orange goo all over the walls of Mar-a-Lago. DeSantis might learn to act like a human being.
Or not. He’s currently in second place, bolstered by a loyal mob of “Moms for Liberty,” swastika-sporting fan boys, homophobes, and “Christian” nationalists.
The question is, are there enough of them to put him over the top in the Republican primary?
It’s probably too late for charm school.
Editor’s note: a previous version of this column incorrectly referred to the governor buying the “endorsement” of the Everglades Foundation. The Foundation is a non-profit and does not–may not–endorse. But it has been very supportive of the governor.
Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.
Deborah Coffey says
Yes. Ron DeSantis is a miserable man with a huge inferiority complex. Thus, the bullying and cruelty.
Susanna Ricci says
Perfectly stated.
richard says
For Ronnie Dee, it is all about the CRUELTY. He is rather adept at dispensing same, one must concede. He may own Florida by dint of his office and a sycophantic, rubber-stamping legislature at the state house, and he may be on par with that other champion of immigrants’ rights, Gregg “Bud” Abbott, but there are 48 other states that he does NOT control, and winning them over to his ignoble cause will require more than a growl, snarl, or even a full-throated bellow. Cruelty is his forte; charisma? not so much. His campaign is on the road to perdition, to an epic crash and burn.
richard says
Cruelty is Ron DeSantis’s forte. Charisma? Not an iota. Voters and potential backers see right through his tough guy facade; they are not amused.
Alexandra Sinclaire says
In a room full of Nazis cheering and clapping desantis promised he would destroy all liberals…..65% of the population was going to be destroyed if this imbecile becomes president.
The last time that happened was in Nazi germany…so desantis has gone full Hitler to a group of cheering Nazis…and he was eating it all up.
When the cheering stopped, and someone asked what would become of our babies once we were all dead he said”I will impose my will upon them all”..an off handed way of saying he was going to steal our babies (who are now orphaned, confused and grieving for their dead parents and the lives they once had) and he’s going to force his Naziism upon them…brainwash our babies and turn them into hateful, racist Nazis. Nazi germany all over again.
Everyone should be horrified that this individual is campaigning to be Americas president, when what he really wants to be is an extremism right wing Hitler.
In 2018 I remember when trump said, “A good democrat is a dead democrat”.
Well, here we are all over again with these Nazis.
Jon says
Nazis? , get a grip pal
Em says
Agreed! I couldn’t have said it better.
As an aside…attempting to talk myself down from this sickness
So, this mini Mussolini wannabe married Snowehite… talk about scary!!
Meanwhile I live in Florida with my family and I’m glad to have allies who have insight..
Now what?
C’mon man says
Interesting.
Shark says
No truer words were spoken !!!
Pogo says
@dishonorable ron disaster
marlee says
OK…..I always comment that DeSantis was our neighbor in Lakeside at Matanzas Shores.
This description is exactly what he was like here….He had an attitude that he was better
than his neighbors and never spoke to them.
I still cannot believe he is Governor of Florida.
How could anyone support and vote for this guy?
John Moreno says
My neighbor at the time and friend a staunch Republican here in Lakeside was beside himself. He said hello to Ron who did not respond. Another swam a few early morning laps . Ron he thought was beside him swimming rather slowly HE SAID NOTHING. Then all of sudden the house was for sale again. Opportunist and a dolt.
Toto says
Great spot on article Ms Roberts! This little man makes my skin crawl. He’s so non-Christian , he goes against all of the teachings of Jesus, lacking compassion, empathy and care for his fellow man. Jesus would say “I never knew you”. It was pitiful to read of all his vetoes to satisfy his revenge. Even Moffit Cancer Center was slighted, the very place his wife sought cancer treatment at! (And was cured). I hope his campaign falls flat on its face, he’s no strong man, he’s a bully abusing his governorship enforcing laws that set us back in the dark ages. Freedom state? God help us…
Earl Kelly says
Sounds like you are mad, that 90% of Florida’s people doesn’t want the 10 % of whiny self absorbed, brainwashed liberals, telling them what to do, and trying to take over the parenting of our kids, that used to make them into people that had no respect for you, until people found out what you was trying to turn their children into! Now that yall have been cut down like a bad weed, it will be fun watching yall cry like little babies that didn’t get their cake before the meal! And watching yall wither in the sun! Have a good day, crybaby!
Tony says
It’s amazing how fox – fake – putin – entertainment can brainwash their followers !!!
John says
Truth is liberals are not brainwashed, are not telling anyone what to do, and are not trying to take over parenting. All of this is made up by DeSantis and you like him because you see yourself in him, that’s not good.
Em says
The word is projection. The gov and his DUHsantis cronies have managed to point fingers while their efforts to undermine the US and what it stands for are in peril.
Free state of Florida?? Not so much if he gets his way.
Elizabeth Carson-Bird says
DUHsantis is smarter than you think. He plays up to these MAGA/Trump followers purely for political reasons. He knows what he is doing. All in all, he has the making of an intelligent, authoritarian figure. I don’t think he will make it on the big national stage and that is the only good thing about Trump. Desantis and Trump may split the MAGA vote. I don’t think he could get to first base trying to push his Florida agenda onto the country at large — at least I hope.
Have a great day!
Denali says
Wow ! ! ! So many words used to say absolutely nothing meaningful.
Elizabeth Carson-Bird says
Well, as a non-Floridian, I have to respond. I am a Missouri resident, living through some of this whiny, self absorbed right-wing tantrum throwing deep redness that has infected my beautiful state, causing it to transform from the once purple bell weather into the present state of rapid regression. It all depends on the point of view. I used to love going to Florida. I am sure your beautiful state has plenty of monied folk that any green from me will not be missed. Until you at least vote in a moderate Republican or a moderate Democrat — if that ilk still exists — then maybe I will return.
Independent History Prof from MO
Jim says
Earl, 90% of Floridians are not complaining about the 10% whiny self-absorbed, brainwashed liberals…. That might be what you think if you only associate with like minded people…. Actually Florida has a lot of people who believe in equality, allowing books in schools, teaching history – both the good and bad – and not taking people’s rights away from them based on sexual identity, race, religion, ethnic background and color of their skin. You might do a little reading (bad word!) about Germany prior to WWII. You probably won’t see the current path in Florida in quite such a positive way if you do. It’s not that I think you would do that- it’s just a suggestion.
And, also, by the way, no one is crying here. Just biding my time until the next election cycle. Some of your buddies will come to the realization that a lot of what we’ve seen from DeSantis is bad for Florida, Floridians and this country. As that realization catches on, most of the embarrassing laws that have been passed will be overturned as common sense starts taking over….
And you have a good day as well….!!!!
Sherry says
@ earl. . . 90%, really? My, my, my . . . there is no end to the MAGA cult’s brainless delusions!
YankeeExPat says
I am sure you will be changing your tune when DeSantis cuts your Social Security benefits and Medicare.
Old Guy says
You got that right. It’s the old be careful what you wish for.
Max says
Earl, no one is trying to turn your children into anything. Please learn to question what the politicians tell you. They are hoping you’ll believe everything they say so you’ll vote for them. They’re not dealing with real issues in FL but making up problems that don’t even exist. One of the first things a fascist tyrant does is find a common enemy so you’ll rally around the tyrant fighting against an enemy that doesn’t exist. If it sounds crazy that’s because it is! Think!
Elizabeth Carson-Bird says
Could not have said it better. Like I tell my poly sci. students, a politician’s first priority is to get elected. His second priority is to get reelected. The Republican party is going down the fascist road pretty fast anymore.
John Moreno says
a magnificent Maga ! Turn children into what? I hear that teachers are having problems with aggressive mean spirited kids whose parents are angry about everything. Not room for kindness caring and love.
Mary F Koonce says
Show your true colors
Em says
Fools lack insight and awareness. They simply cannot see that a snake doesn’t care who it bites.
Grow up and try REALLY hard to act bright.
bill says
maybe Roberts should run for governor educated people don’t impress me 27 years as a police officer I met some educated stupid people lacking common sense. Some people have so much education they’re stupid. Do you want to impress me walk on water?
John says
FYI, Roberts is not the one with the commercial saying “on the eight day” implying she was sent by God (which is what evangelicals said of Trump). Also a fact, education assists with common sense, it allows people to look at issues from different sides, without tunnel vision. Roberts is stating what many others have observed, she’s correct, simply because it’s obvious and it makes sense.
Jim says
What would impress me is reading comments that contained correct grammar. It’s a shame you don’t like educated people. Educated people come up with the new ideas that we need to continue to improve and – hopefully – remain viable on this planet.
By the way, do you not know that Ron DeSantis is a Harvard educated man? How did that get by you?!
James says
DeSantis can have all the ivy league degree’s it doesn’t make him some great person because of that. Educated or not he is a racist and discriminates, and signs bills into law that are constantly getting challenged with justifications.
Em says
He got to Harvard on a FULL baseball scholarship and was married at Disney world I’ve read.How’s that for irony?!
Sherry says
@bill. . . your comment tells us all why you disdain “educated” people. It’s obvious you are not one of us. It’s never too late to pry open your mind and “learn”!
Ed says
What is in the Tallahassee water? Move to bottled water.
Unhinged rants glossing over the truth and obliterating common sense makes it difficult to stomach.
Thanks Deb
Dennis C Rathsam says
Ms Roberts is the last person to believe, every thing she writes is a hit piece on our governor. She cant get over Charlie, getting blown out by De Santis. All you folks here on Flagler live are so sad. You all cant get it through your head you are the minority here in Fl. Ms Roberts has a lot to say, why doesnt she run for some office herself? Why because she would get beat by a 2×4!
Stephen says
Well he wants to destroy Florida’s tourist business. What is there to like about him. Does he know tourism is our bread and butter?
Sam says
He is a racists, discriminates against people of color and gays. He isn’t into helping the people in Florida. He does nothing to improve the State of Florida. He is chasing people away and businesses away because of the hate he has brought in his campaign. He is not a political person for the people it is all about him controlling his beliefs into his run for the White House. Isn’t getting more votes but less votes.
He like Trump has no business being in the White House, they have nothing positive to offer our country or its people.
DontsayRon says
Republicans are total morons. Sad they so dumb they would vote for neo hitler and probably not even realize it.
Willy James says
Ms. Roberts is right on the mark with her assessment of DeSantis. Looking at his military service, one would almost believe he was a Navy Seal. Of course, this was never the case. He was a lawyer assigned to the Seals. He was probably looking for the Seals to do something wrong so he could nail them in a Court Marshall. The first time I met him, I thought he was an arrogant asshole—the “better than thou” attitude. Will Rogers once stated that he “never met a man he did not like.” Too bad he didn’t meet DeSantis!
A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. Years ago, I was unfortunate to receive a Congressional Certificate of Special Recognition signed by Congressman DeSantis. I have never displayed it.
Palf says
Dictators need uneducated followers. He’s planted the seeds of ignorance with book banning, and he’s trying to awaken the three worst human emotions; doubt, fear, and hate. These are all easy to extort and the hardest to erase, but he’s in good company; Putin, Lukashenko, Orban, Trump.
As a taxpayer, I demand that he stop wasting our money to spread his sick message.
Some have suggested Elmer Fudd in a cheap suit. He also has a lisp …
BILL says
listen you people are haters of people who stand for truth
repent biden is corrupt the fbi is covering up for the crime
family. listen go back to your communist run states with
lawlessness everwhere and your illegals invading america
you people are as low as you can go reprobates.all you
do is divide the country with your lies go vote another 4 yrs
for your devil in the whitehouse and watch inflation triple and gas prices
triple .the wicked through the pride of his countenace will not see GOD
GOD IS NOT IN ALL HIS THOUGHTS. PSALM 10-4
Yellowstone says
Bill –
Who would you rather vote for? Here’s something you seriously should think about:
Someone who aggressively promotes free for all of us, safety for all of us, and quality healthcare for all of us?
Or. someone who is l constantly losing battles on reproductive rights, ignoring the loss of children’s lives by not passing gun safety regulations, denying equality to all including those neighbors among us who are marginalized in the LGBTQ community, convoluting free voting rights, denying the educational opportunity for all, pretending the climate crisis does not exist, denying investments in infrastructure projects that promote a better economy, denying protection of our Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs?
What do you think of someone focusing on the ‘David versus Goliath’ bullying against a staunch ally of all things Disney, phony border crises, free flights worldwide in a prominent Florida land developer’s private plane, and promoting tax cuts for the billionaires?
Bill – Pick one!
Sherry says
@bill. . . I sincerely hope you get the extensive psychological counseling you so desperately need and very soon. Please, if you have a gun turn it in to the sheriff today.
Thank You!
DontsayRon says
You mean Rasict ron is vengeful, petty, and cruel. I mean who would of guessed? Probably anyone who doesnt buy into the FOX propaganda machine.
Mike Kelley says
i haven’t quite come to the understanding why Flagler Live broadly uses Ms. Roberts opinion pieces, without also printing a dissenting opinion. It would be nice to get both sides and let the readers decide whose opinion they agree with more.
Pierre Tristam says
Surrounding media and the comment section are saturated in what you’d call dissent from Ms. Roberts. Her columns remain a rare exception in red seas. That’s the most obvious reasons, along with the fact that no one in Florida writes like Roberts, and no one in conservative media in Florida comes close to her combination of reporting skills, wit, analysis and truth. But putting all that aside, there’s also this matter of alleged balance. If, as she has in the past, Ms. Roberts were writing about the murder of George Floyd, would you have liked us to publish a column by Derek Chauvin explaining his side of the story perhaps? If she were writing about Matthew Shephard, would you have liked us to write about his torturers? If she were writing, as she has in the past, about our own governor’s contempt for science and acts (see under: “Covid”), would you have liked us to get his Ladapo to write an opposing view on vaccines? Or maybe that younger Kennedy? If she is (as she will be next time we run her) writing about the vigilante extremists known as the moms for bigotry, should we invite the bigots for a rebuttal? Fairness, yes. Balance? Not when it puts the unconscionable on the same plane.
Lamo says
I like how you use the Covid analogy. You sir, put the foot in the mouth. What happened to Covid? Why is it gone? Why are we not on lockdown? Why are they not pushing the jab?
Pierre Tristam says
In case you missed it–I’m sure you can’t wait to unmask, anonymity excepted–the 1918 flu pandemic is also gone.
Ray W. says
According to Florida’s Department of Health, for the week ending June 22, 2023, 29 more Floridians died from SARS-Covid-2. 6,575 new diagnosed cases in Florida.
Covid isn’t gone. While vastly reduced in numbers of new infections, Covid seems to have reached a state of existence that qualifies as endemic, not pandemic. If that is so, it may never truly go away, despite all efforts to claim it is gone, as new variants will continue to emerge sufficient to evade eradication.
The goal at one time was to completely eradicate the virus, just as SARS-Covid-1 was completely eradicated. The goal today seems to be to claim it had been eradicated, when it hasn’t. Your post seems to support the statement by one of Portugal’s former Ministers to Europe, who wrote that among all nations, Americans seem to stand alone as seemingly seeing reality as an enemy to be defeated.
The better argument might be that between the use of the variety of vaccines by millions of Floridians and the exposure of millions of other Floridians to the virus, in all its forms, a less than fully complete form of herd immunity now exists in Florida. Still dangerous. Still deadly. Enough people susceptible to the disease to keep it going. One day, perhaps, and hopefully soon, it will magically go away. Until then, intellectual rigor demands that you acknowledge that fellow Floridians still die, fellow Floridians still contract the disease, fellow Floridians slowly recover for long Covid.
You lost the argument the moment you typed that Covid was “gone.” It is difficult to win an argument when you start from a losing position. Had you chosen to argue that Covid was no longer commonly in the news, you would have begun from a much stronger position.
Sherry says
@mike kelley. . . Hey, why don’t “you” pony up and write a “fact based”, articulate, interesting, relevant dissenting opinion about DeSantis and the hundreds of things he’s done to make “ALL” of our lives better. I’ll wait. . . . . . .
Geezer says
Ron DeSantis is a lot brighter than the blather he spouts would imply.
He has dumbed down his approach to communicating with the right-wingers
to not come off as “too smart.” Dumb-asses hate to see well-spoken, and
decorous-minded people speaking. They want a fellow numbskull whom they
can feel comfy sharing a beer with. Ron DeSantis and his people have capitalized
on this. So yeah, Ron DeSantis is an accomplished puppet master.
He knows his audience, just like Trump.
Don’t shake hands with Ron because puppets need a hand inserted inside of them.
Look at a fellow like former President Obama. He was critiqued for being “too
professorial.” Lest we forget that he was black! So America elected the anti-Obama
in Donald Trump—a dyed-in-the-wool moron to cater to American dolts.
American prestige? It’s coming back now ever soooo slowly.
Ask a foreigner (YouTube videos) what they think of Americans.
1st answer: “STUPID,” 2nd is “FAT.”
At least America is seen positively in Ukraine.
Imagine the rogue nations’ delight in seeing videos of Trump’s attempted coup
with his cartoonish ass-kissers storming the capitol.
To “Trump” is to pass gas in Great Britain. This makes sense because he’s so full
of himself and hot air, but Americans elected him. Ron DeSantis acts as if he swallowed
Donald Trump, because he sure as sh** vomits out the same detritus as Trump.
I see people in MAGA hats and know that I’m witnessing epic ignorance in action.
You just can’t shame the shameless in our society.
Too bad that we can’t spray them with Round-Up.
‘
Laurel says
Hey Geezer! When I see MAGA hats and Trump, DeSantis or Dixie flags, I think to myself “Here’s your sign!” about the pickle heads. Even though Jeff Foxworthy was a far right supporter, I gotta give him credit for that quote.
Sherry says
@ Dear Geezer. . . PRICELESS! SIMPLY PRICELESS! If you could inject just a tiny bit of that amazing moxie and intelligent wit into ANY Democratic politician we would be sooooooo much better off!
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
Now, if we could only be permanently “independent” of fascist DeSantis, megalomaniac trump, and their imbecile MAGA followers we would have something truly magnificent to celebrate!
oldtimer says
Thank God for Honest Joe Biden, a guy who never screws up
Kenneth says
DeSantis is doing something right. He is a very popular Florida governor despite the negative comments from the haters on the Left above. Our state is one of the safest, cleanest, & tax free states in the USA. Face the facts……….Folks are coming here in unprecidented numbers from the Northeast & elsewhere in America — Very few Floridians are going the other way but many Americans are coming our way. I’m a very recent Massachusetts transplant & I can’t believe how horrible I lived in MA. Not an elected Republican in Congress from MA, a radical elected Lesbian governor with ultra woke policies. Known as ‘Taxachusetts’, it is the gay marriage & abortion capital of America. My only issue with Ron DeSantis is that this is not the time for him to seek the highest office. His advisors are pushing him too soon. He’s young, popular, charismatic & has many years ahead. I think he should support Trump and not enter the race – – Trump helped get him elected over Charlie and he owes Trump. Their policies in most regards are identical. Imagine………a “Trump/DeSantis” ticket! WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!
Em says
A bible quote seems appropriate here.. “We see things not as they are, but as we are”