Ron DeSantis’ new book proclaims himself the conservative culture warrior who can turn back the tide of the “woke mob” and maybe even win back the White House for Republicans in 2024.
The Florida governor uses his memoir, “The Courage To Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” which hit stores Tuesday, to boast of taking on political correctness at every turn during his four-year term running the Sunshine State.
“The battles we have fought in Florida — from defeating the biomedical security state to stifling woke corporations to fighting indoctrination in schools — strike at the heart of what it means to be a Floridian and an American,” DeSantis writes.
He also gently pushes back at his rival, former President Donald Trump in a tome that seems a barely disguised springboard for an upcoming GOP primary run.
The book comes out ahead of what pundits almost unanimously believe will be a GOP presidential run against Trump.
The two men are far and away leading the pack of Republican presidential hopefuls, although polls disagree over which of them is in the lead.
DeSantis, 42, portrays himself as the brave conservative who took on Disney and other corporations that he accuses of bending over backward to please progressives.
The book was published just hours after DeSantis signed into law a bill that strips the state’s biggest employer of control over a semi-municipality that includes its theme parks.
“Private companies wielding de facto public power is not in the best interests of most Americans,” DeSantis writes.
He boasts of constantly poring over Florida laws in hopes of finding ways to win new victories for conservatives, like his controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law that limits schools from discussing gender and sexual identity to younger children.
“I wanted to be sure that I was using every lever available to advance our priorities,” he writes.
He also speaks of his success in reopening Florida quicker than most states after the initial wave of the COVID pandemic. In recent months, he even had a grand jury investigate supposed crimes related to the vaccines that have saved millions of lives.
Ironically, Trump has slammed DeSantis in recent weeks for being too liberal on COVID and vaccines, which has become a huge issue among the right-wing base of the GOP.
Trump has also called DeSantis a Republican in name only and mocked him as “Ron DeSanctimonious” for his dour personality.
DeSantis does little to counter that persona in the book, which critics say includes little wit or humor and relatively few autobiographical touches.
DeSantis’ biggest calling card is his political winning ways. He brags of transforming Florida from a battleground into a red state in just a few short years.
While other Republicans struggled in the midterm elections, DeSantis romped to an unprecedented 20% landslide reelection win and carried virtually the entire GOP ticket on his back.
He doesn’t criticize Trump directly in the book. But he pointedly compares his right-wing achievements with Trump’s limited success, especially in his first two years in the White House.
“Here we had a unified Republican government for the first time in more than a decade, and yet so much of the time was frittered away,” he writes. “Why Congress didn’t do more significant things ... was beyond me.”
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