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.")

Which brings us back to Trump. We know that he takes DeSantis seriously because Trump has shown signs that he's scared of DeSantis as a competitor. If even Trump knows that much, Democrats are capable of knowing more. Trump may think the best way to defang DeSantis — whom he calls "DeSanctimonious" — is to mock and belittle him. Democrats should recognize it will take far more than that.

The central question about DeSantis is this: Is he a corporate tax-cutter or a conspiratorial frother? Is he closer to Mitch McConnell or Marjorie Taylor Greene? The great DeSantis innovation has been to realize how much cover calculated outrage provides for rewarding cronies—and that the more you preach "freedom," the more you can get away with authoritarianism.

It would be tempting to write off DeSantis, the bombastic Republican governor of Florida, as another unelectable right-wing lunatic unfit for national office. We’ve made that mistake before.

There are people now attempting to suppress history and whitewash the systemic racism so central to our nation. Leading the pack of these revisionists is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Finally, we shouldn’t let DeSantis co-opt positions on which Democrats have historical strength and a natural advantage: education, health care, jobs...As many liberals will quietly acknowledge, the Parental Rights in Education Act, which DeSantis signed last year and which opponents nicknamed the "Don’t Say Gay" law, has reasonable and legitimate attractions for a broad range of parents who worry about the focus, efficacy and age appropriateness of what their kids are learning in primary and secondary school. Democratic leadership should worry, too. Keeping quiet or pretending those concerns aren't real won't make them go away.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is rather like Donald Trump, only without the charm.

I’m so fearful. When Ron DeSantis says he doesn’t want white children to feel bad about history, what he’s saying is that he doesn’t care if Black children feel bad. We need to lift our voices. Writing as activism – I think that’s what we’re doing here.

If forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy that will almost certainly kill her is impermissible, how different... to compel... a pregnancy that will probably shorten her life? Or... that will leave her life in shambles?

LINSEY DAVIS: …Vice President Harris says that women shouldn't trust you on the issue of abortion because you've changed your position so many times. Therefore, why should they trust you?
Well, the reason I'm doing that vote [voting “no” on the Florida abortion ban] is because the plan is, as you know, the vote is, they have abortion in the ninth month. They even have, and you can look at the governor of West Virginia, the previous governor of West Virginia, not the current governor, who's doing an excellent job, but the governor before. He said the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby. In other words, we'll execute the baby.

<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 voting for DeSantis in 2024 because he is Donald Trump without the crazy’ — his words, not mine,” Tyson said. “That is the kind of voter that we see that is gravitating toward the governor.”

I’ll tell you, over the past two years, I’ve traveled across our country, and women have told me their stories. Husbands and fathers have shared theirs. Stories of women miscarrying in a parking lot, developing sepsis, losing the ability to ever again have children, all because doctors are afraid they may go to jail for caring for their patients. Couples just trying to grow their family, cut off in the middle of IVF treatments. Children who have survived sexual assault potentially being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. This is what’s happening in our country because of Donald Trump. And understand, he is not done. As a part of his agenda, he and his allies would limit access to birth control, ban medication abortion, and enact a nationwide abortion ban, with or without Congress. And get this. Get this. He plans to create a national anti-abortion coordinator and force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions. Simply put, they are out of their minds.

Well, look, I do agree predominantly with what Governor DeSantis just laid out. I think that if you asked every one of us up here that we would agree predominantly with what he just laid out. Here is the difference. The difference is that we're going to have to work and make sure that we sell these ideas. And we able -- be able to put ourselves in a position where we get a majority of the vote, not only by winning the Congress and the Senate in '24, but also by having someone who has had the experience of doing it. Now I was elected as a conservative Republican in a blue state with 61 percent of the vote, with a Democratic legislature against me the entire time. And we still, through hard, strong decision-making, brought them around to our point of view. We cut taxes in New Jersey. We cut debt in New Jersey. We made sure that each and every time we were confronted with bad Democratic ideas we stood and stopped them. And when there were good ideas, we brought people together to make progress going forward. Truth and accountability are the things we need to do to fight waste. And I'd say the last thing is this, Bret. We cannot sit by any longer and allow the kind of spending that is going on in Washington. Because every dollar they spend is a dollar that these people are not allowed to spend on their children and their grandchildren. It's robbing our country and it's wrong.

Restrictive laws had not prevented or reduced the incidence of abortions; instead they forced low-income women to resort to unsafe, clandestine, and fatal procedures. Thousands of women of color died through botched or self-induced "hanger" abortions.