Ron DeSantis: Florida Served as ‘America’s West Berlin’ During the Pandemic

Florida essentially served as “America’s West Berlin” during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said during a recent interview with The Florida Standard.

“During COVID, when people would come in from California or New York, they would say that it was like being in a different country,” DeSantis said, as Florida refused to embrace extended lockdowns and never put a statewide mask mandate in place.

“We really served as America’s West Berlin in many respects that if they could just get out of where they were, they could just get to Florida,” he said. “Not only would they be free, but they would be happy.”

“And that’s the number one thing I think people would say when they came here, like people in Florida are happy and they’re not, weren’t used to that because they really ground society down,” he continued:

And I think one of the reasons we did what we did in terms of keeping people employed businesses and all that was like, yes, if businesses on some downtown are all shuttered that has an economic impact for sure, but I recognize that is a psychological impact, even if you have no connection to that, to just see that it drags everybody down and it creates a malaise. And so we did the opposite, you know, to really kind of lift people up, give them an opportunity to pursue– pursue happiness here and pursue their dreams. So yes, you can look at the economic numbers, we’ve outperformed those other big states. We have a record budget surplus. We’ve done all these things and that’s all great. But what is that intangible thing about, hey, I really am proud to be a Floridian and I was born and raised here.

“People in the state have never been more proud to be from Florida than they are now,” he added.

Indeed, Florida has seen a tremendous rise in Republican voter registration over the past few years. Republicans now outnumber Democrats by over 200,000 registered voters in the state.

This is not the first time that the popular Florida governor has touted his administration’s governing approach, deeming the Sunshine State “America’s liberty outpost.”