Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visits Hillsdale College

HILLSDALE — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stopped by Hillsdale College late Thursday night where he touted Florida’s brand of conservatism and his book “The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival” during a half-hour speech before joining Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn for a Q&A session.

DeSantis’ stop in Hillsdale followed a charged, hour-long speech at the Midland County GOP’s annual spring fundraiser where he said, “Florida is where woke goes to die.”

In Hillsdale, DeSantis, a former federal prosecutor and naval officer elected to Congress in 2012 before winning a narrow gubernatorial race in 2018 for Florida’s top executive seat, said he has had an agenda since day one.

“I may have earned a mere 50% of the vote, but that entitled me to wield 100% of the executive power and I intended to do that and deliver for the people of Florida,” DeSantis said. “I had an agenda I needed to get through.”

And it was with his conservative victories that DeSantis was able to turn a marginal 2018 victory into a decisive win in November 2022 when he dominated Democrat Charlie Crist by 1.5 million votes to win his second term.

DeSantis explained in detail the changes to Florida’s political landscape since he was first elected to the top executive position in the state in 2018 and his growing support.

“We only did it because people responded to our leadership,” he said.

He touched base on “COVID authoritarianism” and “Fauci-ism” regarding his disregard for federal COVID-19 mandates and how Florida resisted peer pressure to comply with mask and vaccine mandates.

Subcribe Now: For all the latest local developments, breaking news and high school sports content.

“It wasn’t about your health, it was about them exercising control of your behavior,” he said.

DeSantis took a jab at the political left, explaining that Martha's Vineyard’s decision to "deport" 50 immigrants he sent to the resort community in Massachusetts showed “these are people, these leftist elites, they want to impose their vision on society but they don’t want to suffer the consequences of their vision.”

The migrants who DeSantis sent to Martha's Vineyard in September were not deported. They were first moved to temporary housing at a nearby military base that is designated as an emergency shelter, according to Massachuestts Gov. Charlie Baker, also a Republican. By mid-October, all of the migrants had relocated to longer-term housing in New York City or locations in Massachusetts, including four who returned to Martha's Vineyard, The Boston Globe reported.

After explaining his recent work to remove Disney’s ability to self-govern in the wake of Disney’s “woke-ism,” DeSantis discussed his new book, “The Courage to be Free,” and why he took the time to pen the conservative New York Times bestseller while still governing Florida.

— Contact Reporter Corey Murray at cmurray@hillsdale.net or follow him on Twitter: @cmurrayHDN.

This article originally appeared on Hillsdale Daily News: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visits Hillsdale College