<nowiki>[DeSantis pollster Ryan]</nowiki> Tyson pointed to a voter he had heard speak at a recent focus group in Alabama. “The voter said, ‘I’m votin… - Ron DeSantis

We reject woke ideology. We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die!

It would be easy to write off DeSantis as a cartoon culture warrior or as racist, homophobic, transphobic and xenophobic. He may well be all those things, and so may some of his constituents. But he may not be, and either way, it would be foolish to characterize all his followers as such. Assuming a stance of moral superiority will do us no good. (See: Hillary Clinton, "deplorables.")

He's a chilly man, with a heart of ice and — like so many politicians on both the right and left these days — full of resentments, grudges and the urge to destroy anyone who doesn't aree with him. The courage he claims for himself he would deny to many others.