Ron Desantis is an awful monster

They spelled “stole” wrong.

Ron DeSantis is an awful monster. For the entirety of his time in office, he has continued on with a hate campaign pointed directly at the LGBTQ+ community, using his power as governor to endlessly target those who have been already demonized by conservatives for decades. Rainbow flags removed, funding sources for pride and advocacy groups cut, rainbow painted crosswalks done away with, art installations painted over or removed, and having LGBTQ+ books banned. His discrimination agenda has gone so far as to implement bans on gender affirming care for minors and bathroom usage for all transgender people, all the way to requiring teachers in the Florida public education system to publicly out themselves and misgender themselves in front of their classes. Thankfully, Florida law only permits two terms for a gubernatorial politician, so this awful excuse for a man is on his way out of power.

With that said, it has recently come to light that certain aspects of how he’s continued his influence over the state and effectuated policies he sought to foist onto Floridians have been promoted through less than scrupulous means. This really comes as no shock, as those who try to perpetuate hate are often shown to be devious in multiple instances. It has been revealed through grand jury investigation that his campaign stole money from a charity connected to his wife and used it to specifically fund more of the virtue signaling hate timeline he’s championed. Specifically, the charity the money was given to is named Hope Florida. The amount given to Hope Florida was $10 million, and it was from a state Medicaid settlement which had been intended to help poor children get health insurance. Instead, the $10 million was moved to PACs that used the funds to fight a 2024 statewide ballot initiative to legalize marijuana use for adults in Florida.

For reference, Hope Florida was started in 2021 by Casey DeSantis, wife of Governor Ron DeSantis. It was formed on the premise of helping impoverished families connect with aid groups and churches to move them off of publicly funded assistance programs.

At this point, I’m led to ask the obvious question: Why would someone like Casey DeSantis want to have a foundation that “helps to move impoverished families off publicly funded assistance and on to privately funded or church assistance? Wouldn’t a well meaning public servant be more interested in helping the poor to ascend from poverty instead of shuffling them around?

Conservatives will tell you this is done because they deem charity involvement from faith based groups as more effective in helping people. Although this sometimes can be the case, the truth is churches and private charity groups have less resources and fewer avenues to implement when helping struggling individuals or families. So what exactly goes on here? A little more digging into the DeSantis family reveals a much more sinister reason, and one that is summed up in a word that has become all too commonplace in Ron DeSantis controlled Florida.

Discrimination.

Government assistance, by nature, and at least until recently under equality laws, has been kept to a standard of offering equal help and assistance to all people. Private aid or churches aren’t required to adhere to this standard, and actually have been historically known to discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community. This transposing of people raised a red flag for me, because of Ron DeSantis’s notorious anti LGBTQ+ stance, and also because his wife Casey is a known and credited co-author of his policies. She’s gone on record in numerous speeches, public appearances, and television commercials defending the restrictions on LGBTQ+ curriculum in schools and limitations on gender affirming care for minors, framing these issues as “protecting children and defending parents rights.” She was also the founder of “Mamas For DeSantis,” a political advocacy group that was active during Ron’s campaigns and was specifically used to mobilize parents to support Florida’s high-profile anti-LGBTQ+ education policies. This included helping to polarize public support for the Parental Rights in Education Act (more widely known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law).

David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for governor of Florida, called for the grand jury probe to be reopened on Ron DeSantis. I’m going to suggest they dig a bit deeper this time and give Casey the “well deserved” attention too.

For the record, Ron DeSantis opposed legalizing marijuana, and the ballot initiative failed as it was unable to get the 60% approval by the voters. Yet another instance of the marginalized being taken advantage of to fulfil an upside down unpopular agenda. I hope the people of Florida hold these two accountable and I hope this kicks off a trend across the country: accountability needs to be a top priority factor when considering who we elect into office, and hate of any kind needs to be eradicated from our nation. Period.