April 22, 2023

“Florida Is the Utah of the Southeast,” Says Ron DeSantis, Terrible Panderer

Down in the polls, the likely presidential candidate sought out a friendly audience out west.

Alex Brandon/ AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

After a recent poll put him 13 points behind Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination, Ron DeSantis decided to lick his wounds and head to Utah, a state where he might actually be more popular than the former president. On Saturday, the Florida governor spoke at the state’s GOP convention, where, amongst pleasantries, promises, and his trademark attacks on wokeness, he declared, “Florida is the Utah of the Southeast.” (We’re still awaiting word, however, on whether Utah is the Florida of the Mountain West.)

DeSantis, who has not officially announced his bid for the presidency, was met with cheers and applause by Utah’s GOP delegates during his speech, in which he once again slammed Disney and said Florida would “eliminate DEI at all our public universities,” “kneecap ESG” (as he called it, “woke banking”),— and “prohibit for minors, gender surgeries and puberty blockers.” 

DeSantis’ stop in Utah was a predictable one: Last November, 86 Utah elected officials, including Republican lawmakers, signed a letter begging for DeSantis to run for president in 2024. While they didn’t mention Donald Trump by name, KSL News reported that the letter appeared to rebuke Trump and the far-right wing of the Republican Party. 

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate