How Ron DeSantis, Florida GOP guv-wannabe, has been exposed as Facebook racist
Big props to American Ledger for this.
Ron DeSantis, the Trump-endorsed congressman who won Tuesday’s GOP primary for Florida governor, is an administrator on an active Facebook group where conservatives share racist, conspiratorial and incendiary posts about a litany of targets, including black Americans and South Africans, the “deep state,” survivors of February’s massacre at a Florida high school, immigrants, Muslims and, in recent days, John McCain.
DeSantis was listed as one of the group’s 52 administrators and moderators as of Wednesday. His involvement in the group was first noted by a researcher for Media Matters for America on Tuesday.
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The Facebook group, simply named Tea Party, has nearly 95,000 members, and users must join the group to post or comment. The banner for the group is an image of the Confederate, Christian and Gadsden flags flying alongside the flags of the U.S. and Israel. (It isn’t affiliated with the conservative group Tea Party Patriots.)
Nice choice of visual dog whistles ya got there, Ron!
Oh, but there’s more — much more!
On the Facebook group, literal war isn’t far from members’ minds. In a post earlier this week, a member wrote, “In August 2017, a former Navy SEAL warned of dire bloody consequences if Trump is illegally removed from office.” The comments that followed included:
“Civil war if President TRUMP is removed!!!”
“A GOOD IDEA TO LEAVE OUR PRESIDENT ALONE.”
“Lots of us have been preparing for this for years. It’s coming.”
“Going to get a gun permit tomorrow.”
DeSantis tipped his bigot hand (as Trump woulfd say) “bigly” in an appearance yesterday on FOX “News” [sic] Channel during which he hurled a racist slur against his Democratic opponent Andrew Gillum when he begged voters not to “monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist.” His delivery was so smooth that it was immediately clear that this was no gaffe.
According to an update posted to American Ledger, “Rep. Ron DeSantis has quit the Facebook group that trafficked in racist and offensive slurs, following American Ledger’s reporting on Wednesday.”
Too late, Ron. You ight as well just start campaigning in a white hood and sheet, because the Internet remembers everything — including the blatant racism, xenophobia, and ethnic hatred unworthy of any public servant that you so eagerly promoted.
We wager that informed voters of good conscience will remember too.
