Governor turns Florida into a stronghold of the American Conservative right | Blog by Sandra Cohen

Desantis acts as a cultural warrior and chooses schools as battlefields. Signed into law, named “Don’t say homosexuals,” prohibits discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary school. It banned dozens of math books from the curriculum because they were considered “forbidden topics” that are considered inappropriate for classrooms, i.e. critical ethnography.

Ten days ago, he enacted a law aimed at regulating how schools, universities and institutions deal with race and gender. In short, any training on diversity that could cause inconvenience to Florida residents is prohibited.

The governor saw the new corona virus infection as an opportunity to turn the state to the right. Despite 73,000 deaths in the state, it was the first to open beaches and reopen schools to face-to-face classes in the second half of 2020.

He demanded freedom to remove locks, ban vaccine passports and restrict mandatory masks. It raised the celebrity rating to 59%, with a re-election in November certain.

Desantis, 43, a lawyer and veteran of the Iraq war, did not submit to criticism. Disney rejected the “Don’t Say Gay” law and stood up against him. He repaid: The governor signed into law a special status revocation that gave the company the right to self-govern the territory of the Orlando theme park from 1967, with powers to regulate tax collection and public services.

• Florida v. Disney: Amid controversy over LGBTQ, lawmakers rescind park tax breaks
• The Florida governor has signed into law a law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy

The governor, elected by a small margin of votes, achieved the unimaginable feat of being the third largest state in the country, acting as a thermometer for neighboring countries. As the Washington Post columnist Mark Theson put it, it showed a path to follow Trumpism, but without Donald Trump.

There are frequent comparisons with the former president. Desantis has established himself as Trump 2.0, who was recently called by New York Times columnist Charles Blow: they both have the same dictatorial tendencies, but the governor is attracting the modern GOP platform as a competent legislative negotiator. Into laws. That’s not what the historic Trump has accomplished in his four years in office.