In an article published on September 1, 2022, in the Washington Post, Allyson F. Shortle, Eric L. McDaniel and Irfan Nooruddin, who have been studying Christian nationalism, warn that the open embrace of this label by Republican officials may lead to wider acceptance of it in the nation.  They point in particular to an interview of Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene with the conservative Next News Network in June, in which she said, “I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.”

They then explain why this is a dangerous idea:

“While the sentiment may seem uncontroversial, academics and extremists use the term Christian nationalism to refer to an ethnocultural nationalist ideology — in this case, defining American identity as exclusively White and Christian, and aiming for a government that favors that group’s beliefs. Such a government would be at odds with liberal democracy.”

The authors also mention Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who, without openly claiming the label, has been taking actions that clearly reveal that he is a Christian nationalist:

“To court Christian nationalist voters, some Republicans have used rhetoric that suggests there’s an ongoing religious war against White Christian national dominance. Popularized most recently by former president Donald Trump, overt religious war rhetoric has trickled down to other Republican officials. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested Republicans don the “full armor of God,” a phrase that the Christian Bible uses to exhort followers to battle the devil, to go to the polls in November — implying that Democrats are the devil.”

The reference to the “full armor of God” is taken from a speech DeSantis gave at a CPAC conference in February 2022.  I am providing the actual quotation here for context:

“So we have an opportunity to make 2022 the year that America fought back. We’re going to lead the charge here in Florida, but we need people all over the country to be willing to put on that full armor of God, to stand firm against the left’s schemes. You will be met with flaming arrows, but the shield of faith will stop them. You will emerge victorious.”

I am also reproducing here the biblical verses the governor is referring to:

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:10-12)

The governor obviously declares that the left is the devil, which implies that his struggle is against flesh and blood instead of spiritual forces of evil.  In fact, as we will see below, he names some of the enemies: Joe Biden, Anthony Fauci.  These are not people he has mere political differences with.  They are not fellow Americans.  They are enemies who must be defeated by any means necessary because they represent the devil.

DeSantis’ speech is a self-congratulatory summary of his accomplishments in the fight against evil forces.  My objective in this post is to examine his claims.

Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic     

The governor claimed that Florida set a record for domestic tourism: Many people came to Florida because of his stand against covid lockdowns, vaccine and mask mandates, etc.  He congratulated himself for his leadership in the fight against teachers’ unions and the “scientific elite.” He took credit for fighting against Fauci-ism and defeating it, thereby maintaining freedom, protecting jobs and small businesses, and keeping schools open for children.

I happen to be a Florida resident who decided to move to the state primarily because of the warmer weather, long before DeSantis became governor.  In his speech, he did not provide data to support his assertions, and I will not attempt to confirm or deny his claims to success in his covid response.  Since the beginning of the pandemic, many of us relied on guidance from scientific sources with the understanding that scientists did not have all the answers, but had the best ones available.  Decisions were made nationally and locally.  Some put the emphasis on saving lives while others emphasized keeping the economy running.  In the early stages of the pandemic, this was a trade-off that could lead to undesirable consequences on either side.

However, once vaccines became widely available, the path should have been clearer.  Vaccinating as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, should have been a priority in order to save both human lives and the economy.  Unfortunately, vaccination became a highly politicized issue and the subject of unfounded conspiracy theories.  Republican officials either embraced such conspiracy theories or refused to denounce them even though they protected themselves by being vaccinated.  Donald Trump, whose administration had pushed for accelerated development of vaccines, found himself unable to defend them after being booed by his base at a rally.  DeSantis, on the other hand, adopted a radical stand against any covid-related restrictions.  His use of the word “Fauci-ism” in his speech is an indication of his aggressive targeting of scientists, and Anthony Fauci in particular.  He even nominated a surgeon general whose credentials have been questioned by the medical community.

Obviously, the governor’s supporters will celebrate what they see as his successes, while his detractors will emphasize what they see as his failures.  Here, I will focus on recent assessments of the covid response in Florida that should be of interest to those who describe themselves as pro-life.

A report published by Yale University researchers on September 2022 provides some clarity on the effect of political affiliation on death rates due to covid-19 using an appropriate measure called “excess death rate.”  The plots below are taken from the report.  Of particular interest is the excess death rate after vaccines became widely available.    During that period, the excess death rate is substantially higher for Republicans than it is for Democrats.  These results are a solid confirmation of hints provided elsewhere that the Republican attitude toward vaccines leads to more covid deaths.  Since the plots represent data from Ohio and Florida, they provide an assessment of Governor DeSantis’ performance when it comes to saving lives.  Those who followed his approach to the pandemic died in higher numbers.  As I said earlier, this result should be of interest to those who describe themselves as pro-life.

Regarding the performance of the state of Florida during the pandemic, it is also useful to mention the results of a state audit published in June 2022.  The audit revealed that covid cases and deaths were undercounted, as reported by Tampa Bay Times which summarizes the audit results as follows:

“Florida’s COVID-19 data was so inaccurate, incomplete and delayed during the first months of the pandemic that government officials and the public may not have had necessary information to determine the effectiveness of the state’s COVID-19 precautions and the best plan to fight the virus, according to a state report released Monday.”

Such a statement tends to give credence to the warnings given early on by whistleblower Rebekah Jones who alerted the public to the mishandling of covid data by the DeSantis administration.  She was fired and the administration even issued an arrest order against her.

As for the surgeon general appointed by DeSantis, the following was reported by Politico on October 12, 2022:

“Florida’s surgeon general faced major blowback from the medical community after warning men against taking the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines and highlighting an analysis claiming the shots increase the risk of cardiac-related deaths.”

Considering that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been used for some time now, the blowback is understandable.  According to Politico,

“Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University, said Ladapo’s recommendations go against guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Pediatrics. Other agencies or medical associations, including the Food and Drug Administration and Mayo Clinic, have also emphasized that the vaccines are safe and effective.

‘It looks to me like this is politics driving science,’ Salmon said on Tuesday. ‘And the result is you get terrible science.’

U.S. Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Sarah Lovenheim called Ladapo’s analysis flawed and a far cry from science.

‘COVID-19 vaccines have been proven safe and effective, and severe adverse reactions are rare,’ Lovenheim wrote in a statement. ‘The benefits of COVID-19 vaccination — preventing death and hospitalization — are well-established and continue to outweigh any potential risks.’”

Biden and Disaster Relief

In his speech, DeSantis fully revealed his hate of President Biden:

“We sometimes take freedom for granted. You should not do that after the last two years. It is contested. The left does not want to honor our freedoms, and we have a responsibility to fight back on all fronts. People are coming to Florida because they want freedom. Even our critics are doing it, but I can tell you there’s one fella that just hates Florida and his name is Joe Biden.

He’s always criticizing us, always trying to take potshots at Florida, and he does things like take our medication. He stiffed storm victims of relief just because he doesn’t like the governor. He doesn’t like Florida, and he doesn’t like me because we stand up to him. That’s why he doesn’t like us.”

Does Biden hate Florida? Or is it more accurate to say that DeSantis hates Biden?  How does DeSantis reconcile these accusations with the words of appreciation he was forced to utter after the Biden administration’s response to the devastation brought by Hurricane Ian to Florida?  In addition, as it was pointed out by various news sources, DeSantis had opposed aid for hurricane Sandy while he was a US representative.  As the governor of Florida, he did not hesitate to request federal assistance from Biden.  Hypocrisy?

In the above statement, DeSantis also says Biden “does things like take our medication.”  I suppose this is a reference to the decision made by the Biden administration to stop providing medication that was eventually found to be ineffective against covid-19, and replace it with new, more effective medication such as Paxlovid.  This was a nationwide effort, but DeSantis apparently took it personally because he had settled on his own preferences using his own immense medical wisdom.  But the new medication was and still is available in Florida.

I remember trying very hard to get vaccinated in January and February 2021.  I was only successful in getting appointments in March, after the Biden administration had intervened.  When the Biden administration proposed to provide additional vaccination stations to the states, the DeSantis administration, at first, said they were not needed.  It only accepted them out of necessity.

Initially, the DeSantis administration was accused of making vaccines available to some communities while neglecting communities that needed them most.  As stated by Fabiola Santiago from Miami Herald,

“What the coronavirus did during its first year, however, was disproportionately wreak havoc on minority communities from where many of the workers deemed ‘essential’ in the service, labor and retail industries come from.”

Later, when Republicans began to ratchet up their anti-vaccine rhetoric, DeSantis stopped encouraging vaccination and started promoting medication that was still under evaluation.  It was reported, for example, that he was promoting a monoclonal antibody treatment sold by Regeneron, which was used on then-President Trump when he tested positive for covid-19.  Therefore, DeSantis was quite angry when the change in approved medication was made.  Biden was following the science.  DeSantis was following something else.  Indeed, it was reported that one of his top donors had heavily invested in the Regeneron product.

Immigration     

DeSantis told CPAC:

“Since I became governor, we banned sanctuary cities in the state of Florida.  And we are in the process of getting money from the legislature so that if Biden is dumping illegal aliens into Florida from the southern border, I’m rerouting them to Delaware.  We’ll do some in DC and Hollywood as well.”

In a move called a political stunt by his critics, DeSantis made this threat a reality when he recently had a group of immigrants from Venezuela transported and dumped at Martha’s Vineyard.  He had previously obtained $12 million dollars in state budget from the Florida legislature for the transport of unauthorized immigrants who planned to come to Florida.  When the expected immigrants failed to show up, he got them from Texas, which raises questions about the legality of his move.

DeSantis’ action was applauded by his fellow Republicans.  On the other hand, the New York Times reported President Biden’s reaction:

“’Instead of working with us on solutions, Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props,’ President Biden said on Thursday at the Hispanic Caucus Institute Gala in Washington. ‘What they’re doing is simply wrong. It’s un-American, it’s reckless and we have a process in place to manage migrants at the border.’”

A statement made by Charlie Christ, DeSantis’ opponent in the Florida governor’s race, was also reported:

“’My faith teaches me that we’re all children of God,’ Mr. Crist said in the ad. ‘That is lost on Ron DeSantis. For him, it’s always putting politics over peoples’ lives.’”

It should be easy to see which of the two candidates thinks like a Christian and which of them thinks like a Christian nationalist.

Anti-Rioting Legislation

DeSantis made the following statement at CPAC:

“We are a law and order state in the state of Florida. We reject weak on crime policies. We reject Soros-funded prosecutors. And we have said, after the 2020 summer riots, we called up the National Guard here immediately, we had law enforcement. We said we are not letting Florida cities burn down and we didn’t. But we’ve also since then signed the strongest anti-rioting legislation in the country. Which says we will not let local governments defund the men and women of law enforcement and put their citizens at risk. And, if you riot in the state of Florida, if you loot, if you are engaged in mob violence, this is not going to be like Portland where they arrest you, take your mug shot, slap you on the wrist, and put you right back on the street to do, to get… Not in Florida, you’re not getting a slap on the wrist; you are getting the inside of a jail cell.”

In April 2021, DeSantis responded to the nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd by signing an anti-rioting law which he describes as the strongest in the country.  He did so even though Florida did not experience much of the violence associated with the rioting.  The law was seen by many as an attempt to suppress protests by Blacks and other minorities.

DeSantis’ speech at CPAC greatly emphasized the freedoms he was trying to protect in Florida.  It seems typical of Christian nationalists to define freedom as the right to pursue their own agenda even if that agenda tramples on the rights of others.  That is how they define freedom of religion: the right to make America a “Christian” nation.  Here, the anti-rioting law was seen by civil rights groups as an infringement on the First Amendment right to peacefully protest.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, the governor hinted at the possibility that Derek Chauvin, the police officer who killed Floyd, might be acquitted, which called for being “prepared.”  But the language of his law was vague enough that peaceful protesters could have faced criminal charges and stiff penalties just for participating in a protest that turned violent.  Furthermore, there were odd provisions: Immunity was given to people who drive through protesters blocking a road.  Of course, this means such a law would have protected the white supremacist who ran over and killed Heather Heyer in Charlottesville in 2017.

On September 9, 2022, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker ruled that the law was unconstitutional and could not be enacted.  According to NPR, “The 90-page decision by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee found the recently-enacted law ‘vague and overbroad’ and amounted to an assault on First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly as well as the Constitution’s due process protections.”

Of course, the administration is expected to appeal the decision.  However, the judge’s legal reasoning, expressed in a 90-page document, provides support for the complaints against a governor’s blind pursuit of a Christian nationalist agenda.

Critical Race Theory and Civics Education

DeSantis said to his CPAC audience:

“Because we will not spend taxpayer money to teach our kids to hate our country or to hate each other, we have banned CRT in K through 12 education.

And instead, we have the most robust civics education anywhere in the country. We’re gonna have citizenship exams for graduating seniors, and we’re giving teachers the opportunity to go through a civics boot camp and get a $3,000 bonus. Yes, we’re against CRT, but what are we for? I’m for the Constitution, I’m for the Bill of Rights, and we need to have our young people understand what that means.”

Governor DeSantis not only banned the teaching of critical race theory in June 2021, but also followed up in December with the so-called Stop Woke Act which was intended to go further.  As reported by the Washington Post,

“As Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was introducing proposed legislation that would allow parents to sue schools teaching critical race theory in the classroom, he invoked the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to try to make his point about the Stop Woke Act and the escalating conflict over the teaching of race.

‘You think about what MLK stood for. He said he didn’t want people judged on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character,’ DeSantis said Wednesday to a rally-style crowd in Wildwood, Fla. ‘You listen to some of these people nowadays, they don’t talk about that.’”

In a previous post, I showed how conservatives misuse the Bible to support their claims against critical race theory.  Since critical race theory is not taught in K through 12 education, banning it does not solve any problem but is merely a political ruse to rally the base.  Critical race theory uses analytical tools to study the lingering effects of racism embedded in the system and help remove them so that victimized minorities can be better integrated in society.

Opponents of critical race theory choose to define it as hate directed at white people, which fits nicely within the framework of a war between good and evil adopted by Christian nationalists.  It is in fact amusing that Martin Luther King’s name is often used by CRT detractors to justify their position.  MLK was a civil rights leader who fought against the legacy left by slavery and racism in America.  In so doing, he was following the example of the prophets in the Bible who spoke truth to power in order to promote justice.  Anybody can see that those who pass legislation to forbid any discussion of the remaining effects of that legacy of slavery and racism represent what MLK stood against.  In fact, those who engage in such suppression prove the point made by CRT: They are structuring the system so that the truth cannot come out.  This is reminiscent of the Jim Crow laws that were passed during the Reconstruction period to suppress the advancement of Black people.

The DeSantis administration introduced new statewide civics standards in an effort to, supposedly, improve civics education in Florida.  As reported by Tampa Bay Times,

“Several South Florida high school educators are alarmed that a new state civics initiative designed to prepare students to be ‘virtuous citizens’ is infused with a Christian and conservative ideology after a three-day training session in Broward County last week.”

The article provided examples of reactions from teachers who attended the civics training offered by the administration to promote the new standards:

“’It was very skewed,’ said Barbara Segal, a 12th-grade government teacher at Fort Lauderdale High School. There was a very strong Christian fundamentalist way toward analyzing different quotes and different documents. That was concerning.’”

“’It is disturbing, really, that through these workshops and through legislation, there is this attempt to both censor and to drive or propagandize particular points of view,’ said Richard Judd, 50, a Nova High School social studies teacher with 22 years of experience who attended the state-led training session last week.”

“’It feels like politics invaded more than it should have into our civics training,’” Stover said.

The article also revealed one of the major concerns:

“A review of more than 200 pages of the state’s presentations shows that the founding fathers’ intent and the ‘misconceptions’ about their thinking were a main theme of the training. One slide underscored that the ‘Founders expected religion to be promoted because they believed it to be essential to civic virtue.’ Without virtue, another slide noted, citizens become ‘licentious’ and become subject to tyranny.”

The notion that the Founders expected religion to be promoted obviously goes against the accepted understanding of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment:

“The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law ‘respecting an establishment of religion.’ This clause not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another. It also prohibits the government from unduly preferring religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion.”

In a democracy, the government is expected to be neutral on religious matters.  It is therefore not surprising that Thomas Jefferson said the First Amendment created a “wall of separation” between church and state.  The First Amendment protects the right of individuals to be religious.  But it does not allow individuals to use the power of government to impose their religion on others, which is what the DeSantis administration is attempting to do.

In fact, Christian nationalists have lately been bolder in pushing for this skewed approach to the constitution.  Representative Lauren Boebert declared that the church is supposed to direct the government, a statement that stirred up outrage even among religious people.

The Tampa Bay Times article gives more details about the reactions from the teachers who attended the training and felt that the trainers treated them as if they knew nothing about the history of the United States.  While DeSantis claims to be fighting for truth, it is clear that he is, in many ways, trying to suppress it to promote a Christian nationalist agenda.  That agenda is also seen in the enactment of the well-publicized “Don’t Say Gay” law which targets LGBTQ people.

Election Rules and Redistricting

In his address to CPAC, the governor also congratulated himself for the integrity of the 2020 election process in Florida:

“We followed the law. We counted 99% of the ballots by midnight on election night. It was transparent. It was fair. We did a good job.”

However, he felt the need to impose voting restrictions because he saw some “shenanigans” elsewhere:

“But we also understood there were a lot of shenanigans in other parts of the country, so last year I signed legislation banning ballot harvesting in the state of Florida. Banning mass mail balloting, unsolicited mail ballots in the state of Florida.”

This is, of course another example of fixing a problem that does not exist.  Considering that Florida has, in fact, been praised for its mail voting process, his only motivation is the belief that mail voting tends to favor the Democrats.

But the governor’s efforts to control ballot access go beyond mail voting.  An article published on October 11, 2022 in ProPublica reveals his own “shenanigans” associated with gerrymandering.  The article provides the following reminder about Florida law:

“Florida’s constitution was amended in 2010 to prohibit partisan-driven redistricting, a landmark effort in the growing movement to end gerrymandering as an inescapable feature of American politics.”

Considering this change to the constitution and previous gerrymandering attempts rejected by the Florida Supreme court, the Republican-led legislature was careful in working out a 2022 redistricting map that met the new requirements while still giving an advantage to the Republican party.  Governor DeSantis rejected the new map and strong-armed the legislature into accepting a new one.  As explained in the article,

“One of the districts, held by Democrat Al Lawson, had been created by the Florida Supreme Court just seven years before. Stretching along a swath of north Florida once dominated by tobacco and cotton plantations, it had drawn together Black communities largely populated by the descendants of sharecroppers and slaves. DeSantis shattered it, breaking the district into four pieces. He then tucked each fragment away in a majority-white, heavily Republican district.”

The figure below compares the new map, which disenfranchises Black voters but will be used in the November mid-term election, to the old one.  The lack of fairness is highlighted by the following statement in the article:

“If the forecasts hold, Republicans will win 20 of Florida’s 28 seats in the upcoming midterms — meaning that Republicans would control more than 70% of the House delegation in a state where Trump won just over half of the vote.”

Litigation is currently on-going against the new map.  It is based on the fact that partisanship was involved in the redrawing of the map, which violates the Florida constitution.  The ProPublica article reveals the activities that led to the new map, including collaboration between the DeSantis administration and Republican operatives from outside of Florida.