DEI Dying on the Vine in Florida

Governor Ron DeSantis continues to impress. 

He turned Florida deep, deep Red, defeated one of the world’s largest corporations in the culture war, and is so competent at managing his state that he was able to send the Florida National Guard to help North Carolina in hurricane recovery as his own state was still cleaning up from the same storm. 

His most notable achievements are his victories in the culture war, although none of those victories would have been possible without his remarkable displays of sheer competence in the face of natural disasters. 

Miami ‘DEI leader’ sounds alarm under DeSantis, GOP policies: ‘We’re in trouble’

FOLLOW: @FLVoiceNews https://t.co/csnISQWI4I

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 3, 2025

Most people don’t realize that DeSantis barely scraped by in his first election as governor in 2018. His margin of victory was only 0.4%, as Florida was still a swing state, and Donald Trump didn’t have the coattails he does today. 

Most politicians would have walked on eggshells under these circumstances, cautious about offending swing voters. DeSantis, though, did the opposite. He earned the voters’ trust by being exceptionally good at the job, and in return, they gave him a long leash to fight cultural battles about which they would have been skeptical if they were the only battles he cared about. His success in one realm helped him to succeed in another. 

DeSantis became a national figure during COVID-19 as one of the few politicians who bucked the national hysteria and instituted rational policies instead of fearmongering. (Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, deserves massive credit as well), but it is his war on woke that made him a hero to conservatives like me. 

And that war on woke is bearing fruit. DEI is dying in Florida, and because DeSantis helped break the spell in his state the rest of America is following. 

‘We’re in trouble’: Miami DEI leader says state policies left the industry in freefall https://t.co/zc67IVS2k1

— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) January 2, 2025

DEI “practitioners” are whining that their incomes are plummeting, to which I say, “Good.” That their income has been cut in half is what I would call a good start. 

MIAMI – A diversity, equity and inclusion leader based out of Miami is reportedly sounding the alarm as the ideology – known as “DEI” – has been clamped down due to the policies of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican leadership.

The Miami Herald reported that the founder of “South Florida People of Color,” Roni Bennett, worries her work is now “limited” by DeSantis’ “Stop Woke Act.”

Her revenue has reportedly been slashed in half, from $300,000 per year to around $150,000, since new policies enacted across Florida.

“We’re in trouble,” she said.

The organization reportedly lacks the funds to run “community events” after DeSantis’ policies took effect, with the Stop Woke Act being signed in 2022.

The law cracks down on organizations of various kinds from instituting policies that align with DEI, such as training people that their race makes them inherently bad or evil – a main tenet of DEI.

DeSantis has banned DEI at Florida universities, turned the New College of Florida into a bastion of sanity in a sea of woke mediocrity in academia, and, in the process, created the “Free State of Florida to which thousands of Americans are fleeing. It is an example to the nation and almost gives you hope that America can turn things around with good leadership. 

A lot of Trump supporters have yet to forgive DeSantis for running against Trump in the primary, to which I say: get over it. DeSantis is the best governor in America, has proven that conservative governance works, and has not incidentally proven that local control of most functions of government is exactly how the federal system works. 

Trump is the blunt instrument we need at the national level to clean out the Augean stables, and DeSantis shows how state governments can retake their proper role in a federal system. 

Conservatives need both models of governance to succeed.