In 2022, before he began a campaign for the presidency, Ron DeSantis was reelected governor of Florida in a landslide. This was impressive and surprising because the 2022 elections were disappointing for Republicans almost everywhere else in the US. But DeSantis’s overwhelming victory was doubly impressive and surprising because when he had first been elected, just four years earlier, it was by just a tiny margin.
For a long time, in fact, tiny election margins were the norm in Florida elections. Florida was a “swing state” — it sometimes voted for Democrats, sometimes for Republicans, and was a major prize up for grabs in presidential elections. But by 2022, something had changed: Florida Republicans up and down the ballot won their races by margins similar to DeSantis’s, and no one was calling Florida a swing state anymore.
Florida seems to have undergone a political transformation. So what happened? In this video, we look at three possible explanations.
The rates of maternal and neonatal death have been dropping around the world since 2000. That’s great news – but since 2016, rates of maternal deaths have remained stagnant. We have to do better. I’ve been invited by the @GatesFoundation to partner with them and attend the 2023 Goalkeepers conference, which focuses on neonatal and maternal health. Goalkeepers is an organization that keeps tabs on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2015 (links below), and this year’s report & conference is all about maternal and neonatal health. We’re not currently on track to meet the goals for maternal and neonatal mortality rates set out in 2015, but we can get there if we get the right tools to the right people.
DeathSantis is a Christian nationalist who believes the myth spread by Christian liars that the US is founded as a Christian nation by and for Christians. His version of religious freedom is total control by the Christians so that they can force their views on everyone else. His idea is to have the public pay for Christian schools and force Christian doctrines / moral standards on public school students. He doesn’t seem to understand that there are non-Christians religious people along with people of no religious views. He also buys deeply in to the myth that Christians are discriminated against and unfairly treated in the US. This man and his kind must never be allowed to have authority and control over the government. Hugs
Republican candidate vows to restore ‘full religious freedom’ in the US if elected president
Republican presidential candidate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on September 15, 2023, in Washington, D.C. The summit featured remarks from multiple 2024 Republican Presidential candidates making their case to the conservative audience members. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Republican presidential candidate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on September 15, 2023, in Washington, D.C. The summit featured remarks from multiple 2024 Republican Presidential candidates making their case to the conservative audience members. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
WASHINGTON — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis highlighted the vital role faith in God plays in leadership as he explained how he will advance the cause of religious liberty if he becomes the 47th president of the United States.
DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, addressed the crowd at the Family Research Council’s Pray, Vote, Stand Summit Friday, where he discussed his faith in God and outlined how he would protect religious liberty if elected president.
“I don’t know how you could be a leader without having faith in God,” he said. “When you stand up for what’s right in this day and age, that is not going to be cost-free. You are going to face blowback, you’re going to face attacks, you’re going to face smears. And it’s the faith in God that gives you the strength to stand firm against the lies, against the deceit, against the opposition.”
DeSantis credited his faith in God with giving him “the foundation to know that all the insults, all the nonsense they throw at you ultimately doesn’t matter because you are aiming higher.”
After expressing concerns about the current state of affairs in the U.S., DeSantis lamented that “we do have a spiritual decline in this country.”
The candidate cited the practice of “forcibly closing churches and denying people their right to worship as they see fit” during the coronavirus lockdowns as one example of the spiritual decline engulfing the U.S. “The liquor stores were open, the strip clubs were open, but yet they shut the door on the people of faith,” he recalled.
“I believe that reviving the spirit of America is essential to helping reverse America’s decline. And this revival is going to begin in our religious institutions, our places of work, each of our households, all the institutions that make up the bedrock of society,” he declared.
DeSantis warned of “threats to religious liberty the likes we have not seen throughout most of American history” and highlighted the need for “people to be able to live their faith in all aspects of their life” as “faith has been treated as secondary to secular concerns in culture.”
“Attempts have been made to wipe our Judeo-Christian religious symbols from our national heritage and national culture. The Left, you know, they talk about saying you can’t be involved in religious practice if you’re in government because it would represent [an] ‘establishment of religion,’” he added.
The presidential candidate refuted this argument, saying, “First of all, that’s not true. But second of all, they’re the ones that want to establish a religion. They just don’t want to establish traditional religions. They want political leftism to be the established religion of this country.”
DeSantis insisted that the effort to establish political leftism as the established religion of the country has led those who want to practice their faith in public to find themselves “only being able to do that up until the point it conflicts with [the leftist] agenda.” He pointed to the treatment of coach Joe Kennedy, a Washington state high school football coach who lost his job because of opposition to his effort to pray on the field after the game, as an example of how violations of religious liberty have become commonplace.
The governor noted that Kennedy’s victory at the U.S. Supreme Court was “hailed as a victory for religious liberty” while suggesting that “the fact that it even had to go to the U.S. Supreme Court shows us that religious liberty is not flourishing the way it should in our country.”
He then outlined how he would work to advance the cause of religious liberty if elected president.
“As your president, I’m going to get to work on restoring full religious freedom in this country,” he vowed. He pointed to nominating and placing “constitutionalist judges on the courts of appeal and on the U.S. Supreme Court” as an important step in achieving that goal, assuring the audience that “my nominees will reflect the jurisprudence of justices like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr.,” whom he referred to as “the two greatest justices on the court.”
DeSantis also announced his intention to “end once and for all religious discrimination” by abolishing “all government regulations that force groups to choose between government funding and their faith.” He maintained that “instead, we’re going to actively incorporate the faith community in our administration.”
“We will make sure that the faith community has a seat at the table as we work to do the business of the country,” he added. “We will also do what we’ve done in Florida. We have universal school choice in the state of Florida, and we need it nationwide. On day one, we’ll issue an executive order that ensures funding available to private non-religious schools must also be available to private, faith-based schools.”
He continued: “We will stop the federal government from targeting men and women on the basis of their faith. Religious schools should not be pressured to violate the tenets of their faith. There will never be a question about whether a faith-based charity that serves the poor deserves First Amendment protections. We will seek the repeal of the Johnson Amendment, which suppresses the speech of our religious leaders.”
DeSantis detailed how his administration would “ensure that the Judeo-Christian tradition and values that our nation was founded on are respected and are preserved.” Specifically, he expressed a desire to “create divisions of conscience and religious freedom in the Departments of Education, Labor, and [Health and Human Services] to protect religious liberty against all agencies of government.”
“Even when God-fearing citizens have won in court, they have been forced to go through the time-consuming and invasive processes,” he lamented. “My Department of Justice will investigate and prosecute attacks on faith-based [crisis pregnancy] centers and pro-life activists, which the Biden administration is ignoring and they’re letting this go on.”
DeSantis repeatedly discussed his record as Florida governor in his remarks and concluded his speech by describing his state as “the place where woke goes to die.” He told the audience, “As president, we are going to leave the woke mind virus in the dustbin of history, where it belongs, once and for all.”
If you can’t separate church and state you can’t govern and ultimately you wont survive as a country, Christianity is not the only existing religion in America Bootsie.
Actually, I’d much prefer a leader who understands that no invisible man in the sky is coming to save us, and we need to fix the laundry list of problems we have ourselves.
I’d love to see presidents and prime ministers who are openly atheist, and quite a few being openly LGBTQ+, and quite a few being ethically nonmonogamous. And, of course, all of them being progressive and genuinely committed to making their nations and the world better for ALL the people.
I don’t really care if they believe in god. I don’t but I do care about how they govern others that don’t believe as they do. That keep their beliefs private and separate from their policies.
I am sick to death of the Bible thumpers who keep acting as though non-believers have no right to leadership in America and who treat secularism and humanism as dirty words. They are full of bullshit. We are Americans. We are decent people. We do not need to be led by superstitious fools.
We have a memorial in Salem here to show that this religious terrorism has always been part of the fabric of America. In that case, it cost a number of women their lives.
The first smallpox insufflation clinic in Boston in the 18th century was firebombed by a mob shouting that it was the devil’s work.
And American culture in general is violently prudish compared to Europe, with the Puritan roots never escaped from as the reason why.
So I cannot agree that America is better. It never escaped its horrific roots to this day.
“At the time Ron DeSantis became Governor of Florida, the Florida Retirement System (FRS1) was already in serious financial trouble, with “unfunded pension liabilities” exceeding $30 billion. Under his administration, that shortfall has risen to $36 billion, and losses continue to mount. DeSantis’ politically motivated decision to promote an Anti-ESG2 investment strategy for FRS investments is increasing that funding shortfall. This is placing the retirement savings and pensions of career state employees at risk, unless Florida taxpayers are forced to pay for the shortfall, to keep the FRS from failing.
“The massive FRS shortfall is only the tip of the HB3 iceberg. Governor DeSantis’ anti-ESG political campaign has negatively affected a number of Florida financial systems. Counties and municipalities are paying higher interest on bonds; Florida is walking away from billions in potential investments and tens of thousands of good-paying jobs in renewable energy; Florida is finding itself at a competitive disadvantage in attracting new investments and businesses. And, just like the captain of the Titanic, Governor DeSantis didn’t see it coming.
He’s pretty stupid, our taxes are paid to the county here for schools and fire, police and emergency and sanitation services. There is no mechanism in place since there is no state income tax to take it from Florida residents
I started my atheist journey with this person. From him to many others, but sometimes I still go back to listen to him because he makes so much sense. I recommend you all look at his past videos or even by his book, which I did. He was a child in a religious home who grew up asking questions. Hugs
Very informative how conservative and fundamentalist religious leaders have been attacking the public school system with disastrous results. She does talk rapidly but the CC is pretty good for YouTube. Hugs
Public education is under attack from all sides in this country, typically at the hands of a few wealthy and powerful conservatives who stand to benefit from the failure of public education at the expense of children and teachers.
In this episode, @TraeCrowderLiberalRedneck examines how “Southern culture” can be looked down upon and emulated at the same time.
The American South is a complicated place, and we know a lot less about it than we think we do. And many things about the South that seem to make no sense are less confounding in context. The reality is the history of many Southern things has been manipulated, hidden, or just plain ignored. Trae Crowder guides us through the pride points, failures, and contradictions in “Southin’ Off.”
Notice this is the test backed by fundamentalist Christians, home school parents who don’t want any questions that might be based on books and ideas they don’t allow their kids to read that public schools did … until now, and it is the favorite among the hard right wing that wants to deny real history and science. It is the test of choice by home school parents, fundamentalist Christians, and ideologues who want a skewed version of history. As one board member said, the test scores have not been verified to be an accurate measure of how well-educated a student is compared to the well researched SAT and ACT. I will post some comments from Joe My God after this article. Hugs
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at an event in August. Photo: Megan Varner/Getty Images
Florida’s public universities will now permit the Classic Learning Test in admissions, offering a conservative-backed alternative to the SAT and ACT.
Why it matters: Florida is now the first state university system in the country to allow for the Classic Learning Test (CLT), which has gained recent popularity among the state’s Christian and charter schools.
The classical education model — not to be confused with “classics” or “classical humanities” — focuses on a return to “core values” and the “centrality of the Western tradition.”
Driving the news: The Florida state university system’s board of governors on Friday approved the test for use in undergraduate admissions.
“The system is pleased to add the CLT to reach a wider variety of students from different educational backgrounds.Not intimidated by controversy or critics, our focus is on the success of our students, and the State of Florida,” the State University System of Florida said in a statement Friday.
“Because we reject the status quo, today’s decision means we are better serving students by giving them an opportunity to showcase their academic potential and paving the path to higher education,” they added.
Of note: University of Florida professor Amanda Phalin was the only board member who opposed the approval of the Classic Learning Test during Friday’s meeting.
She said she wasn’t opposed to the use of the CLT overall but “the use of it at this time” because of a lack of empirical evidence demonstrating it is “of the same quality as the ACT and the SAT.”
Phalin clarified that her opposition did not stem from the test’s “focus,” “its content,” or “its creators.”
“I’m simply concerned because the test’s reliability and validity have not been independently demonstrated or verified,” Phalin said.
The big picture: Over 200 colleges across the U.S. accept the Classic Learning Test, which launched in 2015, according to Florida’s university system. It’s gained recent momentum in Florida charter schools and private Christian schools.
Homeschooling families and co-op groups have also used the test.
Flashback: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law in May that makes students “eligible to earn Bright Futures Scholarships with CLT scores,” per the test’s official website.
DeSantis‘ office and the Florida Department of Education did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment.
He’s is destroying FL universities. That must be his plan. What does he think is going to happen? Well, this might allow unqualified persons (bible thumpers) to access jobs they have no right to have. I’m thinking FL civil services being taken over. If you have not had to pleasure of working under an unqualified evangelical, let me tell you: it is soul crushing and very nearly killed me
“We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”
(Bolding is motherfucking mine.)
Even if, as PolitiFact writes, “critical thinking” here refers to a specific relabeling of “outcome-based education” (which, as they note, takes many different forms), the platform plank still glorifies “fixed beliefs” and “parental authority” above true education.
Problem is that the real working world will not settle for “Jesus did it” as an acceptable answer. Is it any wonder that current interest to attend Florida colleges have dropped 30%?
It’s been a few years decades since I took the ACT but I don’t remember any of it being woke or socialist or anti-Western or any other kind of nonsense. I’d bet the folks who approved this are heavily invested in it monetarily.
No, but you aren’t a right wing nutjob. The SAT allegedly (they never reveal how they structure the test) draws its vocabulary words from literature and current news. (So, words you would need to know to understand what you are reading.) If you stick to right wing news and avoid certain books commonly on HS and college reading lists, you are unlikely to know those words and won’t do as well on the test. That’s the bias they are worried about.
Home schooling advocates tout their higher test scores but there are two problems with that claim: 1) they often spend far more time on SAT test prep than public school students would get and 2) the students unlikely to do well on such tests just don’t take them. So the numbers are distorted. This is also true of the state mandated tests.
Thanks to Ali for the link. This continuing assault on education by the right is an attack on democracy itself. The right doesn’t want a thinking public, they want obedient followers and soldiers who will do as told by the rulers. Notice the funding for these right wing sites comes from the ultrarich right that wants either a theocracy or a fascist dictatorship. With them in charge, of course. If you go to the link you will see several more stories of the right ring billionaires pushing the hard right idology. Hugs
PragerU is not accredited but has become a key tool in pushing false claims to youngsters – and raked in $200m from 2018 to 2022
Dennis Prager, the conservative talkshow host and founder of the Prager University Foundation, which is not an accredited education organization. Characters in PragerU’s videos downplay the horrors of slavery and make false claims about the climate crisis. Composite: Guardian Photo Composite/Getty Images/PragerU
A rightwing media outlet promoting climate-crisis denialism and other “anti-woke” staples to young students and adults via social media has become a fundraising Goliath, raking in close to $200m from 2018 to 2022 with big checks from top conservative donors, tax records reveal.
Founded in 2009 by the conservative talkshow host Dennis Prager, the eponymous Prager University Foundation is not an accredited education organization. But via online media its PragerU Kids division has become a key tool in spreading false claims to young people with short videos aimed at undercutting widely accepted science that climate crisis disasters are accelerating due, largely, to fossil-fuel usage.
PragerU’s influence in pushing false narratives about climate change and other far-right shibboleths such as airbrushing the brutal reality of American slavery gained ground when the Florida board of education in July gave the green light to using its videos and other materials in classrooms, a move that PragerU is trying to capitalize on in Texas and other states. On Tuesday, Oklahoma’s school system also approved the use of PragerU’s materials.
But some of PragerU’s expansion plans ran into trouble in August, when it was condemned by Texas education officials for announcing prematurely that Texas schools had approved the usage of its advocacy materials, generating new scrutiny and criticism of PragerU’s operations.
Prager’s website trumpets its mission and its niche in the conservative ecosystem.
“PragerU is the world’s leading conservative non-profit, focused on changing minds through the creative use of digital media.”
That sweeping mission has been fueled by big conservative money and slick marketing, and has led to PragerU’s rising influence on the right.
Among PragerU’s leading financiers are the oil and gas fracking billionaire brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, who have ponied up at least $8m over the past decade, according to Texas financial records.
Other top conservative donors to PragerU, which styles itself as alternative to the “dominant leftwing ideology in culture, media and education”, include the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the National Christian Charitable Foundation and the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation.
Tax records also reveal that PragerU has flourished financially in recent years as the Prager University Foundation raised $196m from 2018 through 2022. That growth is underscored by revenues rising from $17.9m in 2018 to $65.1m in 2022.
Prager’s chief executive, Marissa Streit, whose biography on LinkedIn says she once served in Israeli military intelligence, boasts on its website: “PragerU is redefining how people think about media and education. We produce edutainment – an intersection of education and entertainment. Our content is essential to shaping culture and preserving American ideals.”
Streit’s vision of “edutainment” seems to be reflected in PragerU cartoons and videos, including one about Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America, in which Columbus tries to downplay the horrors of slavery.
“Slavery is as old as time, and has taken place in every corner of the world, even amongst the people I just left. Being taken as a slave is better than being killed,” the cartoon Columbus said. “I don’t see the problem.”
Other PragerU videos about the climate crisis make various false claims: they depict solar and wind power as environmentally dangerous, liken environmental activists to Nazis and claim recent record-breaking heat is just part of the natural weather cycle.
But the edutainment being peddled by PragerU has drawn widespread criticism from academic experts and watchdog groups, who fault its videos and teaching materials for children on the climate crisis, slavery and other issues as erroneous, and unworthy of state approval for classroom usage.
Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick DeVos Jr, in Washington in 2017. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images ——————————————————- “Prager University is not a university,” said Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor of the history of science and the co-author of Merchants of Doubt. “By their own self-description, they are an advocacy group promoting conservative viewpoints on various political, economic and sociological topics.
“It is completely inappropriate for any state to grant them any influence, much less authority. over educational matters.
“For an American state government to authorize misleading, false and overtly biased materials for use in classrooms really crosses the Rubicon. It’s a new and alarming low.”
Other academics express related concerns.
“PragerU may be able to take advantage of overworked teachers in the classroom who are under time crunches to prepare climate-change lessons for their students, and therefore might turn to these inaccurate videos,” said Max Boykoff, an environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado.
Boykoff added that boosting public funding of education could help “keep such unsafe and menacing weapons out of the classroom”.
PragerU did not respond to a Guardian request to talk to Streit or Prager.
Critics notwithstanding, Prager, speaking at a Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia this summer, was blunt about PragerU’s goals, boasting that “we bring doctrines to children”, adding: “What is the bad of our indoctrination?”
Similarly, in a PragerU promotional video, Prager said: “We are in the mind-changing business, and few groups can say that.”
PragerU annual reports tout its success in spreading conservative doctrines to young people and adults. According to its most recent annual report, PragerU “edutainment” videos scored more than 1.2bn views in 2022 and over 7bn since its launch in 2009.
Until recently, PragerU content and its fight against what it labels the “woke agenda” depended mainly on Facebook and YouTube, but that is poised to expand with PragerU’s access to Florida classrooms, and other states potentially opening their classrooms too.
To keep growing its audience and operations, PragerU’s website showcases several ambitious fundraising programs. In September, PragerU is hosting a “founders’ retreat” in Nashville that seems geared to wooing more checks from major donors who give at least $100,000 a year.
The event is slated to be “an exclusive three-day experience with our innermost circle of supporters”, and will feature Dennis Prager, the conservative Daily Wire’s editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro, and other Daily Wire “personalities”. The event is “open to Donor Club members at the founders level (total annual giving of $100k or more)”.
Like PragerU, the Daily Wire has benefited mightily from billionaire and evangelical preacher Farris Wilks, who gave it $4.7m in 2015 to launch its operations. Wilks remains a co-owner.
PragerU’s fundraising and marketing success in spreading its climate crisis denialism and other misinformation is alarming watchdog groups.
“Prager U plays a significant role spreading well-packaged propaganda about numerous issues, including attacks on efforts to mitigate climate change, through promoting the disinformation peddled by notorious climate-change deniers, and more,” said Lisa Graves, executive director of the progressive watchdog group True North Research. “ It has always targeted younger adults, but in recent years it has added a massive program targeting children with its slick and deceptive videos.”
Other environmental advocates raised broader concerns.
“The danger of the Prager climate misinformation is how quickly it can spread in this era where a lot of people, including children, are being trained not to trust media sources or scientists,” said Kert Davies, who leads investigations at the Center for Climate Integrity. “That it would be in schools as curriculum is even scarier.
“The Prager YouTube library on climate change features a who’s who of career climate deniers and discredited contrarians. These folks will never admit they are wrong, and never change their minds no matter the weight of scientific evidence.”
Davies added: “Prager climate disinformation is dangerously out of step with reality. It is being disseminated just as the global consensus on the climate crisis grows stronger, as extreme weather events seemingly try to outdo each other.”
More broadly, Oreskes sees the spread of PragerU advocacy materials into Florida classrooms and possibly other states as harmful to educational values.
She said: “Every student has a basic right to an education that, as much as possible, is truthful, and, as much as humanly possible, objective. This is the opposite.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I was hoping you would consider taking the step of supporting the Guardian’s journalism.
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