By Bakari Sellers of The Root.com
People often ask me if Ron DeSantis is a modern-day white supremacist. There’s a line from Andrew Gillum that speaks to that. “I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist”.
What I can say for sure is that the Republican governor of Florida is using racism as political currency, something very similar to Donald Trump and very dangerous. DeSantis learned that leaning into his close ties with Trump was a winning strategy during the 2018 race for governor against Andrew Gillum.
And now what we’re seeing, due to his actions, are these culture wars. Whether it’s pulling back on African American studies, recreating our history (and destroying it through the process), attacking who we are, where we come from, and what we’ve been through, all of it plays to the base.
But DeSantis’ problem is that he won’t be able to pivot back if he wins a general election. I firmly believe he is Icarus, flying too close to the sun. I don’t think he debates well, and I don’t think he can take a punch from Donald Trump. But what he is going to do is make it very, very difficult for people of color to support him or the Republican Party because of the fact that he’s using racism to build his base. Read more
