Ron DeSantis is second only to Trump as the most toxic politician in the U.S. He is cruel. He is mean. He is anti-science. He is anti-intellectual. He is a prude. He signed one of the worst abortion bans in the nation. He banned accurate sex education. He demonized anything related to LGBT issues. He tried to suppress drag queens, but they are performers and are irrepressible.
DeSantis has exercised near-total control over the state because both houses of the legislature are Republican-dominated. Whatever DeSantis wanted, the legislature gave him, including a militia under his command. DeSantis personally drew the map to redistrict the state for Congressional seats; he managed to get rid of one of the state’s majority Black dustricts
Taking personal control of education in Florida has been one of his biggest goals. He has focused on redirecting the curriculum of public schools and colleges. He pushed through legislation that banned honest teaching about race and gender in the schools, including a law known as “Don’t say gay,” which restricted teaching about race, gender, and homosexuality. He demanded a revision of the AP course on African American history to delete ideas and authors he didn’t like. His state education department rejected textbooks that were too honest about climate change.
He encouraged book banning, although he publicly denied it; PEN America, however, identified Florida as the state that banned the most books. He has worked closely with the prudes at Moms for Liberty, aka Moms for Censorship. He packed the State Board of Education with his cronies. He eliminated tenure in higher education.
Friends of DeSantis were selected by the state board of education to be president of public colleges; the top job at the University of Florida was given to a retired politician, who lasted one year, gave hefty salaries to his former staff in DC to work remotely, and stepped down with a salary of $1 million yearly until 2028.
DeSantis destroyed the only progressive public college in the state, New Colmege. He packed the board with right wingers, who hired a politician to be its president, eliminated programs that offended them and recruited athletes to replace the free-thinkers who used to be drawn to the school. His aim: to turn progressive New College into the Hillsdale of the South.
In his zeal to redesign K-12 schooling, DeSantis expanded the state’s voucher programs so that every student in the state, regardless of need, was eligible for a public subsidy. This coming year the state will spend about $4 billion on vouchers for private schools, most of which are religious. Most of the students who use vouchers never attended public schools; sought voucher program is subsidizing the tuition of students who were already attending elite private schools or religious schools.
The voucher schools, by the way, are not required to take state tests. They have no accountability to the state taxpayers who fund them.
He appointed a doctor as the state’s “surgeon general” who was critical of vaccines and masking.
DeSantis was looking unstoppable. He seemed to be in line to inherit Trump’s mantle, as leader of the forces of bigotry, anti-science, and anti-intellectualism. But then Trump jumped into the 2024 race and crushed DeSantis in the primaries.
DeSantis is term-limited. He cannot run again in 2026. Competitors are already measuring the drapes in the Governors’ landing.
And DeSantis is starting to see rebuffs that would have been unimaginable before this year.
Two years ago, DeSantis endorsed school board candidates who shared his extreme rightwing views about race and gender. Of the 30 candidates he endorsed, more than 80% won their seat. DeSantis boasted that Florida was the state where “woke goes to die.” But in recent school board elections, only about half the candidates supported by DeSantis and his allies “Moms for Liberty” were elected.
DeSantis was also embarrassed by a sex scandal involving one of his favorite power couples, Bridget Ziegler–a co-founder of Moms for Liberty and a school board member in Sarasota–and Christian Ziegler–chair of the state Republican Party. The Zieglers got caught in a messy threesome, which led to Christian’s resignation from his position and Bridget’s refusal to resign from the school board. Read Bridget’s Wikipedia entry for the sordid details. Moms for Liberty, which crusades against gay sex, dropped Bridget’s name as a co-founder and pretended she didn’t exist.
Then came the latest fiasco: the DeSantis administration planned to put a major development into one of the state’s most important parks, the Jonathan Dickinson State Park. The proposed development included a 350-room hotel and a golf course. The park is near Hobe Sound. It consists of 11,500 acres. Development was planned for other state parks too.
The uproar from people of all political persuasions was instantaneous and loud. “Hands off our park!”
DeSantis dropped the plan.
On August 28, the Washington Post reported:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday pulled the plug on a proposal that would have paved over native habitats and protected beaches in state parks to build golf courses, pickleball courts and large hotels.
The Republican governor backed away from the controversial plan announced by his administration last week after even members of his own party protested. Hundreds demonstrated at the nine parks targeted for development.
“So this is something that was leaked,” DeSantis said at a news conference Wednesday in Winter Haven when he was asked about the plan. “It was not approved by me. I never saw that. They’re going back to the drawing board.”
It was the first time DeSantis has spoken publicly about the issue. The “Great Outdoors Initiative” was announced last week by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and called for building three golf courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park, a stretch of undeveloped land north of Palm Beach popular for its trails and birding.
The plan also proposed building new lodges with space for hundreds of guests at Anastasia State Park near St. Augustine and Topsail Hill Preserve in the Panhandle. The latter has sand dunes that the state park service describes as “especially remarkable because they are untouched by development.”
Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel wondered who paid whom and who was profiting:
Plans by the Ron DeSantis administration to put golf courses and a hotel into one of Florida’s state parks appear to have suffered a fast and fatal blow.
It wasn’t just that Democrats objected. Virtually everyone did. In fact, Florida Republicans tripped over each other to trash the idea.
“Absolutely ridiculous” was how Rick Scott and Marco Rubio described the way DeSantis’ Department of Environmental Protection wanted to fast-track the controversial development. GOP Congressman Brian Mast called it “bullsh*t.”
It didn’t stop there. Everyone from the Florida Senate president to the state’s Republican CFO said it was nuts to allow a development company to plow 45 holes of golf and a hotel into South Florida’s Jonathan Dickinson State Park, a preserve known for its expansive scrub-jay habitat.
The outcry was so overwhelming that the out-of-state group planning the golf course announced Sunday it was pulling out.
But that only raised more questions. Chief among them: How on earth could one particular development group claim it was abandoning plans for a development opportunity that had never before been publicly advertised?
A key question I had all along: Who’s going to profit? In fact, last week I asked state environmental officials only one question: How will these development companies be chosen?
The answer should’ve been swift and simple: Of course we will open this up to a competitive bidding process. That’s how ethical government works.
Instead, a spokeswoman acknowledged my question, but then never answered it. That was supremely suspicious.
To put an even stinkier cherry on top of this stench sundae, the Palm Beach Post reported that the company had a former Florida secretary of the environment on its payroll as a lobbyist. Because what could be more Florida than one of the state’s top former environmental officials trying to literally pave the way to environmental destruction?
The whole plan reeks of secretive, inside dealing.
Still, inside dealing — specifically no-bid contracts where political pals and cronies cash in on public assets — isn’t new. In fact, it’s been a sordid hallmark of the DeSantis administration, whether it’s a $100,000 campaign donor that scored $46 million worth of no-bid COVID contracts or no-bid deals at the state’s new Disney governmental services district.
Most Florida Republicans didn’t seem to mind these no-bid deals … until now.
So what changed? Well, two things:
1) This deal was exceptionally bad. Floridians tolerate a lot of rotten behavior. But plans to desecrate land that taxpayers spent millions to protect was just too much.
2) Also, DeSantis’ political clout is seriously diminished. For most of the past six years, Florida’s governor had total control over this state. His fellow Republicans would do anything he asked. But DeSantis’ star has dimmed. His presidential campaign collapsed. His local endorsements fell flat in last week’s primary elections. Once touted as the heir apparent to the MAGA throne, DeSantis has been shoved aside by the JD Vances and Matt Gaetzes of the world. He’s now a lame-duck governor with much glummer prospects.
It’s not clear whether development plans for the other state parks are dead, but it’s hard to believe they will go forward.
As we watch Ron DeSantis’ star fade away, we can all breathe a sigh of relief and hope there’s not a return appearance.
