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Ron DeSantis Wants to Make America Florida (w/ Gillian Branstetter)
🕑 Added 2023-04-18 16:13:36 +0000 UTCGillian Branstetter (of the ACLU's Women’s Rights Project and LGBTQ & HIV Project) returns to Know Your Enemy for an episode on the strange case of Ron DeSantis: what is his ideology and vision for America? And why do his political aspirations involve inflicting wanton cruelty upon LGBTQ children and adults in his home state? For our sins, we read DeSantis's new book — a campaign book, though he has not yet formally announce his presidential run — The Courage to Be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival. (You heard it here: it sucks.)
Along the way, Gillian provides an update on the conservative war on so-called "gender ideology" and "wokeness," how organizations like hers are fighting back, and why superficial expressions of sympathy for trans people by major corporations and banks — which so outrage the right — are themselves a trap and a means of evading real justice. We also discuss Sam's New York Times piece on DeSantis as an anti-woke technocrat, an embodiment of the twin cults of expertise and meritocracy, even as he disavows and demonizes the "ruling class" and it's irksome cultural mores.
Finally, we identify the violent underpinnings of DeSantis's political impulses, discussing his alleged involvement in detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay. As Gillian summarizes DeSantis's worldview, “It’s just cold efficiency and shared enemies. That’s what he’s selling. It’s like getting a moral lecture from a gun."
Sources:
Gillian Branstetter, "The Gender War Is A Forever War," The Autonomy, Mar 5, 2023.
— "When Biology Needs Some Help," The Autonomy, Feb 9, 2023.
Ron DeSantis, The Courage to Be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival, Feb 2023
Sam Adler-Bell, "The One Thing Trump Has That DeSantis Never Will," NY Times, Apr 10, 2023.
Adrian Daub, What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley, Oct 2020.
Zack Beauchamp, "Ron DeSantis is following a trail blazed by a Hungarian authoritarian," Vox, Apr 28, 2022.
Angelo Codevilla, "America's Ruling Class," The American Spectator, Jul 16, 2010.
Jasper Craven, "The Sunshine Imperium: The militarism of Ron DeSantis," The Baffler, Mar 2023.
Daniel Luban, "The Belligerent: Angelo Codevilla and the ideological origins of the New Right," The Baffler, Oct 2022.
Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West, Jul 2019.
Joseph Darda, The Strange Career of Racial Liberalism, Mar 2022.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, "Identity Politics and Elite Capture," Boston Review, May 7, 2020.
Michael Kranish, "DeSantis’s pivotal service at Guantánamo during a violent year," Washington Post, March 19, 2023.
Comments
Camille Tinnin
Every time Ron comes up I have nice little factoids from his book to bring up (my favorite being he got married at Disney) thanks to y’all. I’m so glad I didn’t have to read it myself but I think understanding the way he sees himself (or wants us to see him, or how his ghost writer sees/wants us to see him but he signed off on, or a combination of those) is incredibly helpful in making sure he is called to task.
Jenny Gunn
This conversation about the new definition of the ruling class makes me want to pull my hair out but reminds me of this 2021 article by David Brooks on the Creative Class. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/blame-the-bobos-creative-class/619492/
Steve Wilson
Gillian is fantastic . Oh and you guys are pretty good too !
Garett Smith
You guys did an outstanding job. Really great episode. By that I mean a depressing and soul crushing one. I can't stop myself from thinking more and more that the conservative movement in the US is just pure evil.
Dan Anderson
I hope she becomes a KYE regular. She's amazing
Tom Toro
Gillian for president! What a brilliant person 💗
Rick Perlstein
Gillian is simply wonderful.
Peter Hovde
Thank you for reading this so we don't have to. I have to give Ronnie D this-he has made me solicitous of the continued existence and, up to a point, welfare of Donald Trump-at least for the next year and a bit.
Tristan K. Husby
Sam: “Guess what this week’s topic is? NOT Whitaker Chambers.” Me: “BOO”
Joanne Scutero
Hopefully, that will only happen in some drug-addled 'Florida man's' dreams.
