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Ahead of Wednesday night’s debate with Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis wasn’t shy about his needs from his supporters, asking them to help “reach our goal of raising $100,000 in donations before this final GOP debate night before the Iowa Caucus comes to an end.”
To that end, the DeSantis campaign included an essay, in which the candidate held forth about an issue deemed to be key to his supporters: American fighting forces compelled to defend the transgender movement against their will.
“I am fighting tonight at the debate—and every day—to restore the freedom and glory that our country used to stand for. Back then, we could ask young men and women to stand up and fight in our proud Armed Forces, and they would volunteer to do it,” DeSantis asserts.
“What are we asking these young Americans to fight for now? A country full of so much woke indoctrination that children are being told genders aren’t real and their dad may be their mom? Being taught to question whether they want to stay in the bodies they were born in? It’s disappointing and outrageous.”
Transgenderism has been a durable trope for DeSantis during this campaign and even before it began.
In 2023, he waded into the controversy about Bud Light beer, accusing the company of “trying to push the transgenderism” when using Dylan Mulvaney in an advert.
He signed a bill in 2021 banning transgender athletes from interscholastic girls’ and women’s sports competitions. And the next year, he defended the state’s Parental Rights in Education law as a way of fighting “injecting those matters like transgenderism into the classroom.”
While he hadn’t connected the military and transgenderism previously, he had weighed in repeatedly on drag queens’ influence on the armed forces, saying this summer that they contributed to an enlistment crisis.
“Now we’re in a situation where a lot of these veterans are coming up to me saying, ‘I don’t know that I want my kids or grandkids joining today’s military.’ Why? Because they’re taking their eye off the mission. They’re focusing on things like social experimentation, ideology, woke agenda, pronouns, drag queens, all these in our own military. Are you kidding me?”
Will DeSantis get his $100K tonight? That remains to be seen. But in his pre-debate pitch, he’s traveling familiar ground.
14 comments
ScienceBLVR
January 10, 2024 at 8:32 pm
A country full of so much woke indoctrination that children are being told genders aren’t real and their dad may be their mom?
What??? Their Dad may actually be their Mom? Ok, that is the last straw! Dee is right! Funny, I don’t ever remember telling my students that. I must be a lousy groomer.
Hamas Villages, Florida
January 10, 2024 at 8:55 pm
Christian comment if the day; degenerate, scared, perfidy.
Michael K
January 10, 2024 at 8:39 pm
Pathetic. He has an unhealthy fixation on LGBTQ people. Guess someone told him it riled up a handful of hateful rubes and the neo nazis. There’s just no bottom to how low he will stoop.
Hamas Villages, Florida
January 10, 2024 at 8:55 pm
So Christian
My Take
January 11, 2024 at 12:03 am
Yeah, I’ve wondered, a real fixation or just a political opportunist?
Michael K
January 10, 2024 at 8:46 pm
PS: The military protects ALL Americans.
Ron DiSaster
January 10, 2024 at 9:48 pm
This clown really thinks people care enough about transgenderism to give him more money? Completely, and hopelessly, out of touch.
There’s a reason this idiot is polling in the single digits.
My Take
January 10, 2024 at 10:50 pm
He’s not only unhinged, he’s unmoored. And the anchor’s dragging.
bob the dog
January 11, 2024 at 7:40 am
Desantis begging for $? Why doesn’t he spend his book money? Apparently, he is a millionaire now from that “biography” of himself he had ghostwritten by his big money PAC friends.
Suze Q
January 11, 2024 at 8:57 am
He really shouldn’t throw stones from his glass house.
He has no idea how his 3 children will turn out.
It has nothing to do with him beating into them what gender he says they are and who they will love. Karma is something Ronnie. Let’s see one day for you.
PeterH
January 11, 2024 at 9:10 am
I’ve often wondered about that! DeSantis’s children will very likely have gay and lesbian friends someday ….. and look back at their father’s hateful rhetoric in disdain!
Dr. Franklin Waters
January 11, 2024 at 4:50 pm
They definitely will. And DeSantis will wonder why his kids put him in nursing home when he’s old.
Michael K
January 11, 2024 at 7:23 pm
Like Ted Cruz’s daughter who is totally repulsed by her dad’s homophobia, xenophobia and hateful self. Someday his kids may turn their back on Rhonda for the damage he had done to hurt people for cheap political gain.
Dont Say FLA
January 11, 2024 at 1:42 pm
Rhonda sure does wear a whole lot of eye shadow and lip gloss for a guy talking about the evils of drag queens
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