Without listening to any of the other victory speeches—and without a shadow of a doubt—I'll say that the best electoral victory address was that of Ron DeSantis, who has handily won a second term as Florida's governor.
In Ron DeSantis we have a principled pragmatist who is acutely aware of the systemic rights violations to which Deplorables are subjected and is attempting to pragmatically govern in accordance with first principles.
Let us recount some of the ways:
When Texas' Greg Abbott "flat-out banned vaccine requirements; Florida Gov. DeSantis quickly followed suit. Rejecting the jabs-for-jobs deformed public policy, DeSantis vowed to sue the Biden administration. These two governors have been unique in upholding natural, inalienable, individual rights—the right of self-ownership and bodily dominion.
As inoptimal as DeSantis’ "Big Tech" bill was—the governor was the only Republican to have proceeded against Deep Tech in any meaningful way.
The governor was also unique among powerful men to spring into actions on behalf of the Canadian Truckers for Freedom. The Canadian Truckers converged on Ottawa, early in 2022, to reclaim their Charter rights and protest Trudeau’s anti-constitutional Covid-driven apartheid.
GoFundMe is an American crowd-funding site. It had happily collected and distributed funds to detritus like BLM (Black Lives Matter), which, by the most basic of measures, are scum of the earth. Having received $9 million dollars in donations for the Canadian truckers, GoFundMe right away announced it would steal the funds and funnel them to charities of its choosing.
Here was a crime in progress. DeSantis’s response to the GoFundMe cyber-robbery was righteous, principled and proactive. He tweeted:
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“It is a fraud for Go-Fund Me to commandeer $9M in donations sent to support truckers and give it to causes of their own choosing. I will work with AG Ashley Moody to investigate these deceptive practices — these donors should be given a refund.” The thieving outfit soon backtracked pursuant to DeSantis’ show of force.
And how is it that only Gov. Ron DeSantis grasps that it’s illegal for state attorneys, whose job description is to uphold the law, to nullify the very law they are paid to enforce?
As the only elected official smart and dedicated enough to grasp and govern in accordance with first principles, DeSantis fired State Attorney Andrew Warren for “effectively nullifying Florida’s criminal law.” Unheard of. The great governor of Florida has also been steadfast in accelerating his pipeline of criminal aliens to the affluent areas of the northeast.
Service To The Citizen; Not Emotion On Twitter
A DeSantis tweet invariably concerns not his emotions, but his duties and obligations to constituents operationalized.
Contrast a typical DeSantis tweet with one put out by, say, Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert. She by no means deserves to be singled out. Her Republican colleagues are no different.
To wit, voters don’t seem to expects our Republican representatives to work for their pay, as in improve our lives. Politics being an extension of the cellphone Selfie; a good TV appearance or a “feisty” tweet is considered as good as work. Consequently, our US elected representatives think their role is to tweet their outrage. Or, rant flamboyantly on Tucker Carlson Tonight.
In any event, both the TSA and the DHS (departments established by Bush Republicans, if memory serves) have decided to extend President Biden’s Proclamation banning unvaccinated non-citizens from entering the United States at least until January of 2023.
(Naturally, if you are among the millions crossing the Rio Grande illegally into the US, and can produce a current, up-to-date criminal record—low scores on IQ and literacy tests help, too—you may enter America no questions asked, all expenses covered.)
Boebert tweeted her outrage over the renewed ban. The end. If she and the rest of the Republicans were working for their pay, like DeSantis, she’d have tweeted along these lines:
"The ban is an outrage. It flouts all scientific evidence, hurts Americans by hampering business and social ties with friends and family across the world. I intend to call on x, y, z in TSA, DHS as well as biz representatives; also meet with the caucus ... Will keep you posted…"
That’s DeSantis style service to the citizen. That’s also the text of a working representative.
But no. Colorado Representative Boebert, and most of her colleagues, conducts herself as though she's just a popular girl tweeting out to her Deplorable followers on social media; just an outsider to power—one of us—when our representatives are the consummate insiders.
Notice too that no TV ego in an anchor’s chair ever quizzes these representatives thus:
"What are you doing about said urgent matter? Specify the steps you are taking for the people to repeal assorted Covid tyranny," as an example.
Laziness notwithstanding, I suspect that the intellectual quality of our representatives and the voters has so degraded—that neither voter or candidate knows the channels and ropes through which action is to be taken to rectify wrongs.
Not so Ron DeSantis. Both effective and highly intelligent, the man understands the federal scheme and knows how to pull the levers of power, having faithfully and forcefully done so for the people of Florida. Such an intellectual grasp, alas, evades Donald Trump.
Ilana Mercer has been writing a weekly, paleolibertarian think piece since 1999. She’s the author of Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011) & The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed” (June, 2016). She’s on Twitter (barely), Gab, Gettr YouTube & LinkedIn; banned by Facebook, and has a new video-podcast.
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