Ron DeSantis uses Waukesha tragedy as re-election campaign crutch
Ron DeSantis fires another salvo at 'wokeness.'

DeSantis 2
Press conference comments were recycled in the evening email from the campaign.

Gov. Ron DeSantis closed Monday with a message from his campaign about the media’s “optional reality” regarding recent events in Wisconsin, again syncing campaign messaging with that from the official side.

At a press conference on Monday, DeSantis offered his opinion about an attack at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. DeSantis suggested then that the driver of the SUV that killed six people at that event was motivated to do so by “media lies” about Kyle Rittenhouse.

The campaign email conflates coverage of DeSantis’ gubernatorial duties with media coverage of the massacre and the aftermath. It also throws in references to parents protesting school board meetings.

“The corporate media eagerly labels frustrated parents speaking out at a school board meeting as ‘domestic terrorists’ but actively choose to look the other way when someone rams a vehicle into a parade of innocent people. That’s the current state of our media,” the email contends.

DeSantis does not provide examples of “corporate media” choosing to “look the other way,” instead he draws parallels between coverage of the Waukesha tragedy and that of DeSantis’ own management of the COVID-19 pandemic response.

“Believe me — I know this first-hand. It’s the same agenda-driven bias with which they willfully ignore the truth in Waukesha that they’ve lied about my policies to lead Florida through crisis. The media banded together to fabricate a narrative that I was flippantly placing lives at risk. Now, Florida has the lowest COVID rates in the country,” DeSantis contends.

The Governor, perhaps rightly so, repeatedly said during the summer peak of COVID-19 that the surge was “seasonal,” and it is unclear here if he or his ghostwriter connect his “policies to lead Florida through crisis” with Florida’s currently low rates of COVID-19.

The call to action here is to sign a petition to “fight back against the biased media,” and DeSantis presents himself as the champion of his mailing list.

“We can’t let the media continue to tear our country apart. This buck stops with me. Let’s fight back together,” the Governor urges.

The latest campaign email focused exclusively on Waukesha. It left out commentary on Rittenhouse entirely, despite the Governor’s claim during his official press conference that “media lies” could have led to the tragedy in Waukesha.

“We will see what the actual motivation was. Very well may have been in response to what happened with Kyle Rittenhouse. And you have to wonder if that’s the case, almost assuredly this guy’s view of Rittenhouse was colored by all these media lies,” DeSantis contended.

During the Monday press conference, DeSantis also offered a fumbling defense of Rittenhouse’s “self-defense” in Kenosha last year.

“When you’re self-defense, it doesn’t matter, you know, kind of what race. But they would say that he shot — most people didn’t know he shot three White people … So that’s what the media’s been doing. They tend to point a target on law enforcement’s back, but this is just wrong, and these lies have got to stop,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis had previously used his campaign account to advocate for Rittenhouse against “defamatory” media. He urged Rittenhouse “to sue every corporate media outlet and every moronic commentator who smeared him into oblivion” after the not guilty verdict was official.

“We need to fight back against attacks on law enforcement, against the smearing of innocent people by the media, against the censorship of the truth by Big Tech, and against those who seek to eliminate our right to defend ourselves and our communities,” DeSantis said then.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has written for FloridaPolitics.com since 2014. He is based in Northeast Florida. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


20 comments

  • Ron Ogden

    November 30, 2021 at 6:08 am

    The campaign quotes the candidate in his official capacity, and that is news? Come on, this kind of reporting is getting sillier by the day.

  • Impeach Biden

    November 30, 2021 at 6:32 am

    What Governor DeSantis said yesterday about Waukesha was absolutely correct. We are so lucky to have him as our Governor.

  • ScienceBLVR

    November 30, 2021 at 7:29 am

    Ok.. couldn’t resist! I am actually starting to think DeSantis is more of a threat to democracy and human morality than Trump. And that’s saying something. Waukesha happened because of the media? OMG! I’ve been to Waukesha- bought a car there back in the 1980s. There are some odd nuts who reside there, for sure. Too much snow and not enough sun. Curious to know How DeSantis has any information about this guy’s motivation The truly incredible thing is that some cognitively challenged folks actually believe this tripe. I have done some research on why people are so willing to believe crazy conspiracy theories which are so obviously untrue. Different reasons and all stemming from their own warped view of reality. Did the media kill Kennedy, too? How about COVID 19? Is it just a delusion cooked up by CNN? To distract us from the pedophile cabal? Gosh, I need that hat- My Governor’s an idiot!

    • Ron Ogden

      November 30, 2021 at 7:56 am

      How many times must you be shown the culpability of the mainstream media in the slow but steady erosion of civility, personal responsibility and liberty in America? The media may not have been responsible for the death of JFK, but ever since then it has held the whip hand. It’s long history of perfidious lying, driven by a “progressive” agenda that even intimates will, on occasion, admit to, has left the average America with nearly no level of trust in anything it says. The media can do sports scores and car accidents, but it comes to politics, public policy and social science, the history of the media is just one failure after another. This is the core of what you call the threat to “human morality”–as if there were a non-human morality.

    • Impeach Biden

      November 30, 2021 at 9:19 am

      Hey Science Man. If a white man was driving that car and plowed through a group of primarily black people how would the media portray that?

  • Robert Brighton

    November 30, 2021 at 8:12 am

    More media spin / damage control. What Santos said is true and has been true for a long time. It’s called AGENDA SETTING. The media selects specific incidents to report as “stories” and sweeps others under the rug. They are clever enough not to try and tell us what to think b/c they know that any fool can see that. What they do is tell us what to think ABOUT, which doesn’t show up on most people’s radar. It is the most insidious form of propaganda and it is destroying this country.

    • Robert Brighton

      November 30, 2021 at 8:13 am

      Desantos – typo

  • Robert Brighton

    November 30, 2021 at 8:14 am

    OMG – DESANTIS!

  • Robert Brighton

    November 30, 2021 at 8:23 am

    Hey @ScienceBLVR
    Yeah, when you make up things that he never said, it DOES sound crazy. The media caused Waukesha? Actually, yeah, that’s 100% true, even though Desantis didn’t even say that. All this BLM hatred that has been justified, even glorified, by the media and the left-wing lemmings like yourself who resign their common sense just to sit at the “cool kids table”. Pathetic.
    Slinging phrases like “cognitively challenged folks”… “warped view of reality” is what disgusts the rest of us about self-righteous idiots like yourself. You people think that just because you learned the right words and go around regurgitating them all over the internet that it will bring truth to the lies. It does not. It only deepens the divide in this country.

    • Ron Ogden

      November 30, 2021 at 9:05 am

      “Cool kids table”. Spot on, and humorous, too.

  • PeterH

    November 30, 2021 at 8:51 am

    “Conspiracy theories are us” …. Ron DeSantis could write the book preface for the GQP. DeSantis has the ability to ‘make it up’ while his lips are flapping.

  • zhombre

    November 30, 2021 at 11:14 am

    The premise of this mini-opinion piece is flawed, if not biases. DeSantis had no need of a re-election ‘crutch.’ He will stride to re-election, not limp.

  • Tom

    November 30, 2021 at 2:02 pm

    Spot on Yes to all my conservative brothers.
    As for non science day dream believer, he’s never satisfied. Peter H awoke crabby as always. No need to reply,

    America’s Governor once again demonstrates his keen intellect understanding the deeper issue in play.

    Agree with zHombre, Gov Ron set to run great campaign on issue accomplishments and Florida’s great future. Political avalanche in play.

  • ScienceBLVR

    November 30, 2021 at 6:37 pm

    It’s good to King, if just for a day.. Man, I hit the trifecta being able to trigger the right wing snowflakes Ron, Tom, and newbie, spellcheck checker, Robert. As a 30 plus year educator of adults, I got a pretty realistic handle on cognitive ability, politics, and the role the media plays to carnival barker the average dolt. It’s all advertising from the delusion of religion to Larry King. Step right up, folks, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are the saviors. God, I hope not…

    • Tom

      November 30, 2021 at 9:20 pm

      Non science day dream disbeliever, and no homecoming king. Consider it a honor to get me to reply.

      No one considers either a “savior” there is only one who died on the cross! We will celebrate his birth in 25 days.

      DeSantis is America’s Governor under any fair or reasonable metric. He’s had a helluva 3 yrs. success at every turn.

      Buckle up buster, you have no hope, no cause, no chance running vs Gov Ron.

      Media did cause purposefully mislead on Waukesha and Kenosha which fed into that awful event. Regardless, you are wrong as usual.

      Happy Christmas to you, but no homecoming king.

      DeSantis the best!

    • Impeach Biden

      December 1, 2021 at 7:39 am

      What University do you teach at Science Believer? Have you ever worked outside of the confines of a college campus?

      • Ocean Joe

        December 1, 2021 at 5:31 pm

        Well it wasn’t Trump University where everybody either gets a degree in fraud or gets defrauded. Oh wait, the whole thing got shut down and a huge settlement got paid, and wait, there’s more, Pam Bondi then attorney general of Florida got a $25,000 donation and dropped or closed her investigation.
        You didn’t mean THAT university did you?

        • Tom

          December 1, 2021 at 9:54 pm

          LMAO
          Science is not allowed at that school ocean. Too funny! Good one.

  • JERRY BAILEY

    December 1, 2021 at 12:56 pm

    said like a true democrat

  • Frankie M.

    December 2, 2021 at 1:08 pm

    Dude spends more time worrying about Waukesha than Wakulla? What state is he Governor of again?

Comments are closed.


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