HBO’s John Oliver put all the pieces together and exposed Ron DeSantis as an autocrat and a bully who only cares about his own voice.
Video:
Oliver said:
When you take all of this together, the books being removed, the inane proclamations to shame trans athletes. The sloppy attempts to criminalize protests and you combine it with everything else from the support for restrictive abortion bans to the efforts to stop gender-affirming care, it really begins to feel like the ‘freest state in America’ is only free to the extent that anyone wants to behave exactly the way that Ron DeSantis thinks they should.
In the months to come, you are going to hear a lot of DeSantis versus Trump comparisons, and the truth is, he’ll probably come out well in a lot of them more or less by default, but that can not be the bar here. It is important to consider DeSantis in his own right. If Donald Trump never existed, and lets all pause and enjoy that hypothetical just for a second. If Donald Trump never existed and you were forced to learn about Ron DeSantis from scratch with no basis for comparison what you would see would justifiably horrify you. Because you would be discovering a petty autocrat and a bully. A man with no interest in hearing dissent, questions, or indeed the correct pronunciation of Thai food, and all in all, and I do not use this term lightly, a man who is just a f*cking meatball.
DeSantis is Trump if Trump had any clue or interest in turning his fascist fantasies into a governing agenda. DeSantis might be a bigger threat to democracy than the guy who tried to overthrow the government. Ron DeSantis is a threat to democracy, and Oliver was right. DeSantis should be considered on his own terms because those terms should disqualify him from the presidency.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association