Democrat Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL), who is vying to challenge Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in this year’s midterm election, has accused the governor, who has focused on championing personal freedom and parental rights, of “MAGA trolling.”
“We need to make an example out of Ron DeSantis,” Crist said. “If you put MAGA trolling over the interests of your constituents, you will lose.”
We need to make an example out of Ron DeSantis. If you put MAGA trolling over the interests of your constituents, you will lose.
— Charlie Crist (@CharlieCrist) March 21, 2022
While Crist did not go into what, specifically, he considers to be “MAGA trolling,” DeSantis has spent the better part of the last two years fighting intrusive coronavirus mandates — including forced masking on children and forced vaccines on employees — as well as championing parental rights.
Marking the end of the legislative session, DeSantis deemed it the “year of the parent” in the Sunshine State — something Crist apparently considers to be “MAGA trolling.”
As Breitbart News reported:
“We took — through the legislature’s actions, Florida has maintained its commitment to accountability and high standards but did it in a way that recognizes this one test, the FSA [Florida Statewide Assessment], is not the best way to do it — huge win,” he said, noting they replaced it with progress monitoring, which he said is more friendly for teachers and students. DeSantis also highlighted “curriculum transparency” so that parents know about “what’s going on inside the classroom.”
“And I’m really, really proud to do that. And I can just say, as the parent of three kids that are age five and under, thank you for letting me and my wife be able to send our kids to kindergarten without them being sexualized,” he said to applause, later adding Florida showed a commitment to “education, not to indoctrination.”
More recently, DeSantis has continued to debunk the left’s lies on the legislature’s Parental Rights in Education Bill, which forbids classroom discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity for children in kindergarten through third grade — a move that has infuriated leftists and woke corporations.
“The chance that I am going to back down from my commitment to students and back down from my commitment to parent rights simply because of fraudulent media narratives or pressure from woke corporations — the chances of that are zero,” DeSantis said this month.
“And when you have companies that have made a fortune of being family-friendly and catering to families and young kids, you know, they should understand that parents of young kids do not want this injected into their kid’s kindergarten classroom,” he said, adding that parents do not want their young children to be told that they “can choose an opposite gender.”
That said, it remains unclear which of DeSantis’s policies — championing freedom over vaccine mandates, supporting law and order, and prioritizing parental rights — Crist specifically believes constitutes “MAGA trolling,” but it is possible he could elaborate further if he wins the Democrat primary, which would place him in a head-t0-head matchup with the popular conservative governor.
Notably, a February poll from the University of North Florida (UNF) found DeSantis crushing both of his principal potential challengers by at least 21 percentage points.
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