Ron DeSantis: CRT, Wokeness ‘Very Unpopular Wherever It's Been Tried'

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Wednesday said Critical Race Theory (CRT) and “woke” culture are “denigrating” the country and proving to be unpopular, noting that those promoting such narratives are attempting to distract the American people from the issues at hand as the midterm elections approach.

Speaking at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida, where he announced an $89 million investment in workforce education and training initiatives, DeSantis briefly took aim at the left’s attempts to distract the American people from President Biden’s failed policies.

“If you look at what CRT and ‘woke’ is doing, it is pitting people against each other based on race, which is wrong. It’s also denigrating our country, and so it’s been very unpopular wherever it’s been tried,” DeSantis said.

“And so we want to make sure people can go to school without being scapegoated or without being targeted, and I think that’s where the vast, vast majority of people want to be,” he said, noting that it is “telling” that leftists often need to manufacture fake narratives, which he said shows they do not have policies they can “put up that are going to be very effective.” Many of them, he continued, support policies advanced by Biden, which have wreaked havoc on family budgets as they face inflation and major supply chain disruptions. And these people, he continued, are trying to distract the American people before the midterm elections.

“It’s almost like the Chewbacca defense — try to get people diverted from what the true issues are by manufacturing things. It doesn’t work. We all know that. They’ve been doing that to me for years, so we’re just going to keep putting wins on the board.”

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DeSantis’s remarks on the ramifications of “woke” culture come as several school districts across the country embrace the Black Lives Matter school starter kit, which demands the “disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics” while promoting “globalism” and “transgender affirming” commitments.

The controversial kit includes a schedule for educators, detailing how to incorporate BLM’s 13 “guiding principles” in their teaching the first week of February, which they call: “BLM at School Week of Action.” Those principles include “globalism,” which it describes as “our ability to see how we are impacted or privileged within the Black global family that exists across the world in different regions.” The guiding principles also detail commitment to both transgender and queer “affirming,” seeking to create a “network” where “heteronormative thinking no longer exists.”

Another of the guiding principles focuses on black families, which it describes as creating a space “free from patriarchal practices.” Building on that, BLM devotes a principle to the idea of “black villages,” describing the concept as the “disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics and a return to the ‘collective village’ that takes care of each other.”