‘Florida Has Defeated Faucism!’ DeSantis Touts State’s Covid Policies in Rowdy CPAC Speech
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) gave an energetic speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida on Thursday afternoon, taking multiple swings at his favorite pandemic-era piñata: Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“Let me welcome you to the freest state in these United States!” DeSantis called out to the cheering crowd to kick off his speech.
He touted the state’s 2021 record for domestic tourism, segueing into his opposition to Covid-19 pandemic restrictions.
Florida’s tourists included “a number of lockdown politicians,” DeSantis bragged, referring to several Democratic elected officials and media personalities who had been photographed visiting the Sunshine State recently.
“They criticize Florida, and he first chance they get, what do they do?” he asked. “They escape to freedom, in the state of Florida.”
These “critics and lockdowners” come to Florida, he said, because “from the very beginning, we refused to let this state descend into some kind of Faucian dystopia, where people’s freedoms are curtailed and their livelihoods are destroyed.”
“We protected people’s rights, we protected people’s jobs, we protected small businesses, and we made sure that every kid in the state of Florida had the right to go to school, in person, five days a week,” DeSantis said as the crowd cheered. School closures during the pandemic have been a hot topic during recent elections, credited in large part for Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) recent victory in Virginia and the recall of multiple members of the San Francisco school board.
“In Florida,” DeSantis continued, “we reject the biomedical security state, which erodes liberty, harms livelihoods, and divides society.” This extended beyond just government, he said, mentioning how he had signed bans on vaccine passports and other private sector mandates. “It’s unacceptable to simply subcontract out Faucism to big companies,” he explained.
“So we’ve stood for freedom across the board, and the result has been Florida has defeated Faucism!” said DeSantis in another applause-drawing line. “Freedom has prevailed in the Sunshine State!”
He criticized other elected officials for following the “health bureaucrats” because it was “a safe thing to do politically.”
In contrast, DeSantis said, he stood up to protect the people and their jobs in this state, “and if that puts me in political jeopardy, then so be it.”
DeSantis is currently running for re-election as the state’s governor in the 2022 midterms, and is widely viewed to be eyeing a run for the White House in 2024. A recent poll showed him with a slight edge (albeit within the margin of error) over Trump among Florida Republican primary voters in a hypothetical GOP presidential primary.
