Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who could become a presidential candidate in 2028, if not 2024, went on the offensive against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a possible rival for the highest office in the land.
Pritzker’s comments were made in reference to DeSantis’ appearance Monday before the Fraternal Order of Police in Elmhurst. The speaking engagement was part of a short, targeted DeSantis road show on Presidents Day, designed mostly to establish his bona fides as a law-and-order figure while tweaking Democratic governors dealing with crime.
Interestingly, DeSantis appeared before friendly law enforcement audiences in suburbs ringing three major cities. He also showed up Monday in Staten Island in New York City and Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia. He was hardly playing to stadium-sized crowds, although the panic his appearances caused was demonstrative of just how much he scares politically ambitious Democrats.
“Ron DeSantis’ dangerous and hateful agenda has no place in Illinois. Banning books, playing politics with people’s lives, and censoring history are antithetical to who we are,” Pritzker wrote on Twitter. “Every candidate hoping to hold public office in the Land of Lincoln should condemn this event.”
The first part of that statement is fair enough. Pritzker is entitled to define and attack his rivals politically, especially on his home turf. He can call DeSantis “dangerous” and “hateful” all he wants. It’s red meat to the Democratic primary crowd.
But the second part of that tweet goes much too far: Why should every candidate “hoping to hold public office” be obliged to “condemn” a speaking appearance by the democratically elected governor of Florida?
Does Illinois only permit speeches by those with whom the governor agrees? Don’t Illinois Republicans and Democrats have the right to go and hear one of their elected officials, especially one who commands large amounts of support in his home state, even if they don’t agree with everything about him?
Sure they do. And attending a speech by DeSantis does not mean you are a hateful person deserving of condemnation.
Let’s be clear: DeSantis has every right to appear in Elmhurst at a private event without undue governmental hindrance, to invite who he wants to invite, and say what he wants to say, just as surely as the people protesting the appearance across the street also had the right to hold their signs, chant their chants and make their opposition to DeSantis’ views loudly known.
Pritzker has declared himself a champion of free speech. If that is true, he should refrain from even the implication that those he opposes politically should not speak, or that their modest events should be “condemned” in advance, especially since we doubt that Pritzker was afforded an advance copy of DeSantis’ remarks.
All this does is worsen the harmful divides in this country and make the governor look smaller and more partisan. That notorious “deplorables” remark about political rivals did not work out so well for Hillary Clinton, a previous Democratic presidential candidate. Pritzker should be wary of not falling, and dragging America, into that same trap.
