During the August 2023 GOP presidential debate, Nikki Haley said that Americans “need to stop demonizing” the issue of abortion. Watch: Most conservative evangelicals I know side with Pence in this debate. Haley repeated this argument over the weekend at […]
Ron DeSantis
Did New York Times columnist David Brooks just endorse Nikki Haley for the GOP presidential nomination?
It sure looks like it. Here is a taste of his column today: I have a bunch of friends and acquaintances who are Never Trump, maybe-Trump or kind-of-Trump Republicans. They’ve been looking around for the candidate they can support and […]
Tonight’s GOP debate: Winners, losers, and Vivek
My favorite tweet about Vivek Ramaswamy’s performance at tonight’s GOP debate came from conservatvie William Kristol: Vivek Ramaswamy has no political experience. Tonight it showed: Ramaswamy’s schtick works well on cable news, but tonight he made every candidate on the […]
New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu: Narrow the GOP field and beat Trump
A new presidential poll is out today. NBC News and the Des Moines Register show Trump with a 23 point lead in January 2024 Iowa caucuses: Yesterday CBS News dropped a national poll. It looks like this: New Hampshire governor […]
John McWhorter on the Florida African American history curriculum
I took a little heat for my take on the Florida African American history controversy. Last month I wrote: The standards were much better than I expected. If I was a high school teacher in Florida I could easily work […]
Siena-New York Times poll shows Trump with a massive lead
The poll was conducted from July 23-27 among “the likely electorate in the Republican primary”: Other observations: The poll asked GOP primary voters about where they get their news. Here are the results:
GOP candidates were together in Iowa yesterday. Will Hurd won the night.
Last night all of the GOP candidates for president spoke at the Iowa Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Dinner. Most of the candidates delivered shortened versions (10-minutes) of their stump speeches. Watch here. The night belonged to former Texas congressman Will […]
Did the enslaved “benefit” from slavery?
Here is CBS News: Florida’s 2023 Social Studies curriculum will include lessons on how “slaves developed skills” that could be used for “personal benefit,” according to a copy of the state’s academic standards reviewed by CBS News. The lessons in question fall […]
Yesterday’s Quinnipiac poll
The GOP primary race: Of course national polls in a GOP primary are not as important as polls in individual states (see below), but they are still interesting. Some are saying that DeSantis is running to the right of Trump […]
She helped Trump try to overthrow the 2020 election. Now she is supporting Ron DeSantis because Trump is too liberal
Some of you may know the name Jenna Ellis. If you read this blog regularly, you know that she was the lawyer who assisted Rudy Giuliani in trying to prove that there was widespread election fraud that allowed Joe Biden […]
What I learned watching the BLAZE coverage of the Family Leadership Summit
On Friday July 14, Iowa evangelicals gathered to hear GOP presidential candidates speak at The Family Leadership Summitt. The event was sponsored by Bob VanderPlaats‘s Family Leader organization and hosted by Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host interviewed Tim […]
DeSantis’s anti-LGBTQ ad is hateful and strange. It is also politically smart and savvy
Fasten your seat belt. Here it the ad: Here is conservative New York Times columnist Brett Stephens on the DeSantis ad: “I guess my main takeaway is that DeSantis isn’t going to be the next president. He makes Trump seem […]
NBC News poll puts Trump nearly 30 points ahead of DeSantis in GOP nomination race
The poll was taken between June 16 and June 20, 2023: The NBC News poll also gives Biden a four point lead over Trump in the 2024 general election. It has DeSantis in a dead heat with Biden in 2024. […]
Ron DeSantis to evangelicals: “Put on the full armor of God”
Florida governor Ron DeSantis spoke yesterday at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference. DeSantis’s speech might be titled, “Woke, Woke, Woke.” It seems like DeSantis was given more time than the other presidential candidates who spoke yesterday. […]
A Florida professor responds to the history wars in his state
On April 22, 2022, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill (HB) 7. The “Individual Freedom” bill: Provides that subjecting individuals to specified concepts under certain circumstances constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin; revising requirements for […]
The American Association of University Professors on academic freedom in Florida
Today the American Association of University Professors released the “Preliminary Report of the Special Committee on Academic Freedom and Florida.” You can read it here. Here is the opening paragraph: In January 2023, the AAUP announced the establishment of a […]
Ron DeSantis: Tampa suburbanite and Ivy Leaguer
Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a Yale and Harvard graduate, likes to tout his place-based working class roots. Writer Paul Waldman is having none of it. Here is a taste of Waldman’s piece at The Washington Post: Presidential candidates do lots of […]
What would early 20th century Tampa cigar workers think about Ron DeSantis’s “working class roots”?
As Shawn Gude writes at Jacobin: “May Day is not a holiday for Florida governor Ron DeSantis, much as he might pose as a working-class champion. For a more robust vision of freedom, we can look to the Florida Socialists […]
The never-Trumpers, the semi-fascists, and the rationalizers
Over at The Bulwark, Nicholas Grossman breaks down the GOP into three categories: TO UNDERSTAND WHY THIS SEGMENT of Republicans is so DeSantis-needy, let’s briefly revisit the typology of the GOP following its crackup. Donald Trump’s election and presidency split […]
How to teach the history wars
I think it’s fair to say we are in the midst of another round of history wars. Today’s so-called “activist historians” invoke a usable past to preach political and social agendas, while more traditional historians (of all political persuasions–from Trotskyite […]