Conservatives Are Starting To Panic Over Ron DeSantis' Authoritarian Power Grab

Ron DeSantis has made a name for himself by increasing his power to impose his will on schools, corporations, and even on the election process itself. And with his allies in the Florida legislature poised to give him even MORE power over the state's athletic board, some conservatives are starting to sound the alarm bells about his authoritarian approach to government. But conservatives have always been about big government even while claiming the opposite, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Ron DeSantis is widely seen as somebody who is definitely running for president, especially because he's been out there the last, uh, couple of days traveling the country giving speeches, which isn't exactly something you're gonna do if you're just gonna sit and be governor for another two years or four years. So it's pretty obvious the man is running for president and a lot of big money Republican donors want him to because they see he has the same policies as Trump without all of the horrible possibly criminal baggage. But suddenly, a lot of those donors, a lot of those potential allies, are now starting to express their concern about Ron DeSantis little authoritarian power grab that's taking place down here in the state of Florida. It's not just about the banning of C R t, they're totally cool with that. It's the attempt to usurp all of this power within the state and con uh, uh, consolidate it into DeSantis office.

It started, of course, recently with Ron DeSantis now being in charge of the Special District where Walt Disney World sits. Now, DeSantis isn't gonna run it, of course, that would be ridiculous. It's gonna be run by several individuals who are going to be handpicked by Ron DeSantis. So he gets to pick the people that are gonna run it, and if they do not run it the way he wants them to, he will simply remove them and place them with somebody who will run it the way he wants it run. So yes, he did grab up the power of that district. He recently went to a war with New College, installed all these right wing idiots onto the board, effectively destroying what that college once was. He's gone to war with AP classes and threatened to do away with AP classes here in the state of Florida, even though just a couple years ago he said that those are great tools.

He was a top AP student when he went to school, and now he wants to take it away because he is arguing with them over c r t. The state legislature down here in Florida is considering a piece of legislation that would consolidate the state's athletic board power and give it all to Ron DeSantis instead of the actual athletics board. So he, Ron DeSantis would be in charge overseeing all athletics here in the state of Florida. He would get to say what they can do, what they cannot do, whether or not we have to test female athletes and find out when the last date of their min uh, uh, menstrual cycle was. All of this is power consolidation under Ron DeSantis in the name of Fighting wokeness, and the donors, the allies, they're starting to freak the hell out about it because as they say, Republicans, we're supposed to be the free market people. We can't be interfering with corporations. We're supposed to be

The, the small government people. We can't be consolidating all of this power into one person. Here's what they say. This is Chris Sununu, who is also a likely 2024 Republican contender. I'm a principled free market conservative for others out there that think that the government should be penalizing your business because they disagree with you politically. That isn't very conservative. The group, the foundation for individual rights and expression, uh, their legal director said, quote, you cannot censor your way to freedom of expression.