A Homeric Warrior Against LGBTQ Rights
Even before Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had begun ramping up his campaign for the Republican nomination in the 2024 Presidential Race, he had attracted national headlines with an aggressively reactionary political agenda that he calls his “war on woke.” He’s enacted an extensive anti-LGBTQ legislative agenda, reduced the influence of Black voters in Florida elections, opposed federal legislation protecting women from domestic violence, banned childrens’ books, defunded diversity and inclusion programs in state colleges, watered down the teaching of African American history, and defended (and allegedly participated in) torture at Guantanamo Bay, where he served as a Navy Judge Advocate General before running for congress. Most recently he has been willing to terrorize families of mixed-immigration status and risk a quarter of his state’s gross domestic product to bolster his anti-immigration credentials. With a candidate like this there’s no need to seek out times he’s said racist things or shared the stage with white nationalists: his record makes clear that he intends to run for President on the promise of homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and anti-Black politics. And now his campaign is promoting his agenda using Greco-Roman antiquity.
