Dems’ incompetence unleashes DeSantis to continue to drive a wedge between us | Editorial

The day after Democrats’ humiliating loss in the Virginia gubernatorial election, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis referred to Joe Biden as “Brandon” at an official event — a nod to a vulgar insult of the president popular among conservatives.

Perhaps there’s nothing more emblematic of the defeat of Biden’s agenda on Tuesday than one of his enemies embracing the “Let’s go, Brandon” chant — code for “(expletive) Biden” — that has spread on right-wing media.

How much do Tuesday’s elections say about what’s going to happen in Florida’s gubernatorial race in November 2022? Political pundits can sometimes draw too many conclusions, and 12 months in politics is an eternity. But if 2021 offers any insight, it’s that DeSantis’ strategy might be working. Democrats and the Biden administration, which has gone to war with DeSantis over Florida’s ban on school mask mandates, could be getting the strategy to undermine Florida’s young governor all wrong.

Republicans such as DeSantis are smelling blood after Democrats got trounced in Virginia and barely pulled off a gubernatorial win in solid-blue New Jersey. Florida should be prepared for more posturing from our governor, cultural battles and attacks on local government and private business control over COVID-19 restrictions, such as vaccine mandates.

Democrats only help DeSantis when they look incapable of governing, when Biden’s approval ratings continue to sink and the party for months has haggled over a spending bill that contains reforms popular with Americans, such as childcare. Of course, that can change if Congress get its act together — on Friday, the U.S. House passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill but didn’t muster enough votes to also approve the $1.75 trillion social spending package. But things aren’t so simple.

DeSantis has been on the forefront of the cultural issues that played out in this year’s elections elsewhere.

He signed a law banning transgender female athletes from sports on the first day of LGBTQ Pride Month. That Florida hasn’t had any problems with trans athletes wasn’t the point of the ban. It was to tell parents that their daughters wouldn’t be forced by the politically correct left to play against taller, stronger boys — the unfortunate picture many Republicans paint of trans women and girls.

DeSantis also banned the teaching of critical race theory in public schools. The move didn’t make changes to school curriculum because the theory is taught mainly in law school, not in K-12. But it galvanized white parents who feel they lack control over what their children learn about race in school.

We have rolled our eyes at DeSantis. But, guess what? Waging cultural wars is working for Republicans.

Virginia Republican Glenn Youngkin won the governor’s race in part by making race and schools a focal point of his campaign. An infamous campaign ad featured a white mom and conservative activist who says her son, a high-school senior, had nightmares after reading Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.” She wants the Nobel Prize winner’s book about slavery banned from her school system for its “explicit material.”

What Democrats see as race-baiting — and it is — translates to many voters as parental choice. Youngkin’s Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe helped Republicans drive that point home with suburban parents when he professed, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” His words were played back in ads across the state.

That Democrats have lost ground among Asian, Black and Latino communities is evidence that the GOP isn’t winning elections in diverse states by simply appealing to white resentment. The old “Donald Trump is a racist” mantra is getting old, no matter how accurate it might be. In fact, while Youngkin distanced himself from Trump, Florida Republicans are fully on the Trump train after he improved his winning margin in the state thanks to a stronger performance with Miami-Dade County Hispanic voters.

What message besides being anti-Trump and DeSantis do Democrats have? We have been asking that question since their devastating losses in Florida and Miami-Dade County in 2020.

Biden won largely because he sold himself as a deal maker who understands how to work with Congress. If his party can pull off that spending package, which also includes a deal to lower the price of prescription drugs for seniors, the tides might change in his favor.

Still, in Florida he will face the formidable political machine DeSantis has built and which got an injection of enthusiasm and credibility in the recent gubernatorial elections.

This story was originally published November 5, 2021 at 6:00 AM.