The booing that greeted Ron DeSantis as he showed up to a vigil in Jacksonville on Sunday for three Black people murdered by a white supremacist told quite a story. Nobody contradicted the Republican governor and presidential hopeful’s assertion that the killer was “a scumbag”, or that the racist killings were “totally unacceptable”.
Yet his comments raised eyebrows because of DeSantis’s previous attitude – indifference in the minds of many – to Nazis in the state rallying in his name; and his promotion of a succession of legislation designed to disenfranchise Black voters, and recast Florida’s racial history to teach forced labor as beneficial to the enslaved.
“Your policies caused this!” one protester shouted at DeSantis as he prepared to take the microphone at the memorial. The Dollar General shooter, a 21-year-old white man who left behind several “manifestos of hate”, had earlier been turned away from Jacksonville’s historically Black college, Edward Waters University.
The city, Florida’s largest, had become a hotbed of antisemitism, with the city’s commission forced to act in January to outlaw projections on buildings after a rash of swastikas and other hateful messages appeared.
Long-term observers of DeSantis were not surprised to see the governor at the event, despite his reluctance to speak out following a number of rallies staged by Nazi groups across Florida this year and last, some featuring flags with swastikas and “DeSantis country” messaging.
“The reality is that this type of hatred isn’t random. It’s been festering in Florida, which has provided a friendly breeding ground for Nazis to feel at home,” said Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democratic former state representative and candidate for a state senate seat in next year’s elections.
“Nazis were rallying in Jacksonville, in Orlando, at Disney, [and] many of them flew DeSantis flags alongside swastikas. What politician from any party wouldn’t immediately condemn Nazis rallying in their name? Ron DeSantis was that politician.”
DeSantis has attempted to portray those participating in the rallies as part of a Democratic smear campaign against him, and that they were not really his backers.
“When they’re doing that, understand those are not true supporters of mine, that is an operation to try to link me to something,” he told New Hampshire TV station WMUR earlier this month. The governor’s office, preparing for the imminent arrival of Hurricane Idalia in Florida, did not respond to a request from the Guardian for comment.
But Smith said DeSantis’s “scumbag” comment on Sunday, and assertion that racist violence would not be tolerated in Florida, was “too little, too late”.
“[He] has failed to call it what it is: racist, anti-Black, white supremacy. That type of vile hatred has been allowed to fester. These extremists feel welcome here. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why,” he said.
“I’m not surprised he was booed. He needs to come face to face with constituents who have been negatively impacted by his agenda. He pushed for congressional maps intended to weaken Black voting power in Jacksonville. He censored AP African-American studies in the state of Florida. He declared a war on woke and made it harder for teachers to teach honest history in our public schools. So yeah, he got booed in Jacksonville.”
In 2021, DeSantis signed a law that could designate a gathering of three or more people a riot, and awarded civil immunity to anybody who drove a car into protesters. Critics said it could have offered a defense to a Nazi sympathizer who ran over and killed a protester at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
The Democratic Florida state representative Angie Nixon, who was present at Sunday’s memorial, said the Jacksonville murders were “a stark reminder of the dangerous consequences of unchecked racism”.
“While DeSantis may feign concern now, his track record speaks louder than words,” she said in a tweet.
Referring to his pledge of $1m in state funds to improve security at Edward Waters University, and his comments at the vigil, she added: “I urge the governor to do more than make empty gestures and call folks names.
“No amount of money can erase the pain caused by marginalization and oppression. It’s time for him to truly reckon with the damage he has caused, the harm he has inflicted, and to actively work towards undoing the racist system he’s helped uphold and grow.”
DeSantis’s critics, such as the Anti-Defamation League, which has chronicled a growth of white supremacist groups in Florida, point to other questionable episodes in his past with racial connotations.
They include telling Florida voters not to “monkey this up” in his 2018 election for governor against Democrat Andrew Gillum, who is Black; and the firing of a presidential campaign aide last month after he was exposed for including Nazi symbolism in a DeSantis campaign video.
Smith, also a senior policy adviser for Equality Florida, accused DeSantis of hypocrisy for promising funding for the Edward Waters University three months after signing a bill ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in public state colleges, and his veto of mental health funding for survivors of the 2016 Pulse gay nightclub shooting after promising the LGBTQ+ community on the third anniversary of the 49 murders that he would always support them.
“Unfortunately, the governor has an ugly history of showing up to communities that have been gripped with gun violence in order to be politically expedient, and he’s made promises in those spaces that he violated almost immediately,” Smith said.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
