Ron DeSantis is Not a Conservative or Constitutional Republican

Ron DeSantis is not a conservative Republican. He is a person who promotes executive power as way to achieve popular values. Like any politician, he paints his policies with superficial words like “freedom” and “constitution”. And like the replicant in “Blade Runner”, DeSantis does not even realize what he is because he is blind to it. Ron DeSantis is just a big-government promoter like Bill Clinton, with the subtle difference that he promises to promote lying cops instead of lying college professors, or some such distinction which quickly vanishes when power is achieved. What other type of person would you expect to win in a place like Florida?

Nobody can point to a traditional conservative Republican policy of Ron DeSantis. There was never an individual vaccine mandate in the United States, but it would not be contrary to our founding ideals. Congress or local governments have the constitutional power to pass vaccine mandates. The Feds have the power to regulate workplaces under their jurisdiction. Every school in Florida has vaccine mandates. DeSantis is the only person who implemented an un-American policy, that private businesses could not decide whom they would let into their businesses.

During COVID, you could not go near a building in Miami, or into any large business in Florida, without a mask. DeSantis did not shut down schools as much as some other states. But there is nothing uniquely American about having kids in school. Kids in the USSR spent more time in school than kids in the US. And there is nothing un-American about government pandemic restrictions. The only disagreement was the right set of restrictions. Moving the decision about pandemic restrictions away from the feds or away from private businesses and to the state and specifically to DeSantis, to achieve a popular value that no business could require the vaccine, did not increase “freedom” in the traditional American sense.

DeSantis promoting vaccine skepticism led to people in Florida dying more quickly in the COVID waves after the vaccine became available. That was not more conservative, it was just using government to promote one value over another. Saying the vaccine has a demon in it, or “yay, businesses can’t require we have a vaccine to enter”, or schools can require one vaccine but not another, or businesses should be closed for this pandemic but not that pandemic, is not siding with American traditions and certainly not local decision freedom. It is just using central state power to promote one value over another.

What are the real actual American traditions that Ron DeSantis is a danger to? They are spontaneous ways for diverse strangers to interact with each other. If everyone had the same values, a king would have the same values as all his subjects, and there would be no need for democracy. If everyone lived in a tribe, everyone would know what work needed to be done and what work each person was doing, and there would be no need to trade property rights in auctions. If every person was rational and had perfect information, we would not need courts we could just vote who was guilty of what transgression and what to do about it. These are very abstract concepts, which you will not hear recited by any DeSantis voter. They have no idea what American processes are, or the historical norms these processes evolved against.

The American way is basically chaotic independent processes to decide as many things as possible, from how much bread the baker should bake to who goes to prison. DeSantis is essentially a liberal who says big government should take over these processes, to serve some collective value. Recent examples are DeSantis saying the jury verdict in the Parkland shooter trial should instead be overridden by popular vote, or if the government does not like what rich people or businesses do with their money, the government has a veto power to pursue some popular value.

Liberals say insurers should not be allowed to turn away people with preexisting conditions. DeSantis says courts should not be able to throw out police lies used to condemn the unpopular, to round up and frame people with previous drug arrests. These are both ways of overriding local independent decisions with tyranny of the majority. The result is the majority has no interest in law or a constitution or independent processes when they can just vote to get what they want. And the minority then has no interest in democracy or even peace. This centralization of power to pursue collective values leads to war, not trade and prosperity.

DeSantis said “This is an important issue because it raises the question of, you know, who governs society? Do we govern ourselves through our Constitution and through our elections or do we have these masters of the universe occupying these commanding heights of society?” To DeSantis, a juror, or a businessman who decides what causes or values to spend his money on or whom to let into his business, or a judge who enforces the law instead of some popular outcome, is a “master of the universe” going against the popular vote. The Constitution is designed to limit what can be voted on, not to create this power of the mob which already exists naturally without any need for a constitution.

The Constitution and elections are opposites. The power DeSantis offers to turn over to elections is antithetical to the spontaneous independent local processes prescribed by the Constitution. And nor does such power ever serve the popular will once created, but only protecting the power of those in power. It is always used to manufacture votes and tanks, not bread and medicine. When immigrants from Latin America immediately seize on Ron DeSantis as their leader – people with not one ancestor who has ever lived in the American tradition – or previous supporters of socialist Bernie Sanders support DeSantis, or previous registered Democrats have not changed at all or learned anything and they support DeSantis, you should be very wary of it. DeSantis is just a mean awkward Bill Clinton.