Vowing not to let progressives “impose an agenda” on American children and their mothers, Casey DeSantis outlined the hardline rightwing agenda her husband has imposed on Florida and now wants to impose on America.
The Florida first lady did so in a new video for Mamas for DeSantis, a group supporting Governor Ron DeSantis’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
On the left, the video met with derision. Ja’han Jones, a columnist for MSNBC, called Mamas for DeSantis “a life preserver thrown to a candidate in distress, a desperate effort to save a floundering campaign before it drowns in its namesake’s mediocrity”.
Set to dramatic music and cut in similar staccato fashion to a DeSantis ad attacking Donald Trump on LGBTQ+ rights which caused widespread controversy last week, Casey DeSantis’s video listed Republican bugbears including school initiatives on diversity, equity and inclusion, LGBTQ+ rights and race in US history, all of which she said her husband had “stopped”.
She added: “When you come after our kids, we fight back because there’s nothing we will not do to protect our children. They’re not yours. These are our kids.”
Of her husband, who has often used his own children in political ads, including this one, DeSantis said: “We will not allow you to exploit [our kids’] innocence to advance your agenda.”
The video also featured footage of the president, Joe Biden, and Anthony Fauci, the senior scientific adviser whose public health advice during the Covid pandemic stoked rightwing fury. Children were shown crying when being helped to wear masks.
“Winning the fight in Florida is just the beginning,” Casey DeSantis said. “We must protect parents’ rights and innocence of our children. We must restore sanity in our society. Every mama, every grandmama in every corner of the country will stand up and fight back by electing Ron DeSantis president of the United States of America.”
DeSantis said her husband would “do for America what he did for us in Florida”. But polling shows the governor needs the help of an awful lot of Republican mamas and grandmamas if he is to overhaul Trump and win the nomination to face Biden next year.
Most averages show Ron DeSantis around 30 points behind Trump, even as the former president faces an unprecedented deluge of criminal indictments.
Casey DeSantis is widely seen to have greater natural political skills than her husband, who despite winning re-election in Florida in a landslide last year has often seemed to struggle to connect with voters on the campaign trail. A former TV host, she is also widely seen to be the dominant player in shaping her husband’s career.
The Washington Post said recently: “Casey does not have to be physically present, though she very often is, to make her influence felt. Her role in Ron’s political and governing life has no exact limit or shape. It is the air in which he moves.”
Trump has seized on such perceptions, saying last year of his rival: “I know more about him than anybody other than perhaps his wife, who is really running his campaign.”
For MSNBC, Jones also said Casey DeSantis was not attempting to appeal to all American parents.
“Protecting the rights of parents,” he wrote, “… apparently excludes immigrant parents, parents fighting to prevent gun violence in schools, parents who want their children to have a truthful understanding of US history, parents of transgender kids seeking gender-affirming care, parents who want their kids to become more empathetic and understanding of their own emotions – and the list goes on.”
