Florida Governor, Ron Desantis, was in Iowa this week.
He announced to the cheering crowd, “We will never surrender to the woke mob." In attendance were thousands of republican and conservative supporters, many of whom he'd won over in his recent pushback against COVID legislation and perceived liberal indoctrination practices by Florida universities.
He shouted to the Eastern Davenport crowd, "Our state is where woke goes to die.”
After giving his speech, he did a meet and greet with supporters, when a woman approached and gave him a peculiar gift:
in the picture, is a cutout of a snowflake, and a sticker saying "fascist"— a sarcastic jab at DeSantis's opponents in the culture war.
This is the first of likely many trips to Iowa and other swing states if Desantis decides to run in a hotly anticipated Republican primary, in which his primary competitor would likely be a resurging Donald Trump, who is eying a redeeming victory.
DeSantis has taken an aggressively forward-leaning posture in recent years, looking to consolidate Trump's active and enthusiastic base to come to his side. His efforts have been successful as many former Trump voters are now looking to DeSantis to be their aggressive spokesman for their values and frustrations with America's direction.
Sunday Morning Future's Host, Maria Bartiromo, recently asked him if his Iowa trip was the first indication he was running for office and DeSantis laughed it off. He insisted it was only an indication that he had a lot of interest in buying his book, "The Courage to Be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival" which is a #1 best seller.
DeSantis took office in 2018 and has become an enormous figure in the Republican party, and a potential candidate to run against Biden, should Biden decide to run again. And while Trump has actively been attacking Desantis, Desantis has avoided talking about Trump as of yet.
This will surely change should they face each other in debates where, given the last primary, DeSantis may well himself be called a snowflake by a member of his own party.
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