“He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future”— Adolph Hitler and Florida Nazi Group Moms For Liberty
Culture warrior Governor Meatball Ron of Florida placed bigotry, racism and homophobia in the heart of his campaign. He calls it a war against woke. What it really is is a war against America. And General Meatball is experiencing a lot of reverses of the battlefield. This morning Michael Wilner and Ana Ceballos reported that multiple court decisions have frozen key portions of the Meatball campaign against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in recent weeks, complicating his efforts to present himself as the GOP bigotry champion with a track record of winning cultural battles over LGBTQ causes.
“In the last week alone,” they wrote for the Miami Herald, “the DeSantis administration faced setbacks in three legal battles over LGBTQ rights. Judges rejected state efforts to block transgender adults’ access to gender-affirming care under Medicaid, bar transgender children from accessing puberty blockers, and ban minors from certain types of live entertainment at restaurants— legislation widely interpreted as a proposal to target drag shows. DeSantis’ agenda has hit other roadblocks, with judges blocking portions of his plans to control teaching and training on gender identity in schools and workplaces. The governor also faces ongoing litigation over his efforts to ban transgender athletes from competing on sports teams of their declared gender and to restrict access to school books, including those with LGBTQ themes. His pressure on private industry has faced challenges, as well, with Disney— one of the state’s largest employers— suing the governor claiming he overstepped his power in taking punitive action against the company over its opposition to policies the company viewed as hostile to the LGBTQ community. DeSantis is pushing for the federal trial to start after the 2024 presidential election. In the meantime, Disney will host a major LGBTQ conference in Florida this September that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.”
Disney may be hosting an LGBTQ conference but today DeSantis (and Trump) are addressing a viciously homophobic neo-Nazi group in Philadelphia, the deceptively named “Moms for Liberty” which was caught this month riling up their members by elevating Hitler in one of their anti-LGBTQ screeds. Meanwhile, Wilner and Ceballos continued by noting that “in emails and text messages to supporters in recent days, DeSantis has placed his campaign against LGBTQ Americans at the center of his 2024 presidential bid, claiming he already succeeded in rolling back gay and transgender rights in his home state. ‘In Florida, we got it done and beat the woke agenda,’ he said in a recent email. ‘It’s time we do it for all of America. Across the country, the Left has taken advantage of a weak executive and lit the fire of cultural Marxism. The fire has smoldered in our schools; it has smoldered in corporate boardrooms; it has smoldered in the halls of government,’ he said. ‘Why do Joe Biden and the Left think it’s common sense to salute the Pride Flag?’”
Politico reported this morning that “DeSantis flooded his supporters’ inboxes three times this week with the subject line: ‘Do not tell my children that men can get pregnant.’… DeSantis has leaned heavily into the culture war issues— which have become central to his campaign— such as the repeated emails mocking the idea of men getting pregnant. Some transgender men do become pregnant. DeSantis also sent more emails mentioning ‘woke’ than any other candidate.”
The Miami Herald reporters warned their readers that “Regardless of its setbacks in the courts, the DeSantis administration has been effective at stifling the LGBTQ community across the state. Several communities have canceled Pride events this month out of fear that the governor had fostered an “unsafe” environment. High school events featuring discussions with drag queens have been shut down. And across the state, conservative groups have been successful at restricting access to LGBTQ content in school libraries, including a children’s book based on a true story about a penguin family with two fathers… DeSantis continues to lean into his fight against ‘wokeness’ and ‘gender ideology’ as he attempts to court conservative voters, including members of politically influential groups, such as Moms for Liberty, a Florida group that has hundreds of chapters across the country.”
Today and over the weekend, DeSantis, Trump and some of the other Republican haters and bigots are addressing the Philly bund meeting, which Moms for Liberty is calling a “Joyful Warrior” conference. “Last summer, DeSantis was a keynote speaker at the group’s summit, where hundreds of members commiserated over concerns that students were being exposed to lessons of race and gender identity they found to be inappropriate. It was there that the group’s leaders presented DeSantis with a ‘Liberty Sword,’ which they said was modeled after the type given to gladiators— an idea DeSantis has very much embraced as he vows to continue fighting the culture wars if elected president.”
DeSantis’ caped wife, from a prominent Philadelphia Mafia family-- her uncle was “Tony Bananas,” hitman for the Lucchese Crime Family, before he was found in the trunk of his car, naked and beaten to death with baseball bats after killing his own don-- is also a featured speaker today. Casey DeSantis, known in Florida as “The Scorekeeper,” is a perfect spokesperson for her husband’s campaign at an anti-American, authoritarian organization like Moms For Liberty.
This morning, the Associated Press emphasized that the attendance of the DeSantii + Trump and Nikki Haley at the Neo-Nazi event “underscores the influence of a group that didn’t exist two years ago. Since then, it has made connections with powerful GOP organizations, politicians and donors to become a major player in 2024. The group has transformed from three Florida moms opposing COVID mandates in 2021 to claiming 285 chapters across 45 states. Along the way, it has found a close ally in DeSantis… Parent activists and LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations have said they plan to protest outside the conference, citing the Southern Poverty Law Center’s designation of the group as an ‘anti-government extremist’ organization. Others mentioned recent incidents, including an Indiana Moms for Liberty chapter publishing an Adolf Hitler quote in its newsletter before apologizing and removing it, and a Tennessee chapter complaining about lessons on Black civil rights figures Martin Luther King Jr and Ruby Bridges.
Though Moms for Liberty says it is nonpartisan, it has largely drawn conservative support. The group also has fought to elect conservative candidates to school boards around the country.
While the group’s status as a 501(c)4 nonprofit means it doesn’t have to disclose its funders, its public donors include conservative powerhouses such as the Heritage Foundation and the Leadership Institute, a national political training organization.
Patriot Mobile, a far-right Christian cellphone company paying to sponsor Trump’s remarks at the conference, has a PAC that has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in an effort to take charge of Texas school boards.
Mom for Liberty’s Florida-based PAC also has received a $50,000 donation from Julie Fancelli, a Republican donor whose family owns Publix grocery stores and who helped fund Trump’s Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally, according to House Jan. 6 committee findings. Fancelli didn’t respond to a request for comment.
RFK Jr was scheduled to speak today as well, but once the mainstream media picked up on it, he suddenly announced a scheduling change and ducked out, although now he and Moms for Liberty are fighting over LGBTQ issues, since he runs in those circles but is unwilling to be identified publicly with those positions… at least so far.
UPDATE: The Republican Supreme Court ruled in favor of an outrageously made-up claim today that permits businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ customers, despite a Colorado law that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation. Writing for the 3 normal justices, Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.”
