Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis panned the attention being paid to the first anniversary of January 6th, 2021, saying that the people in his state were not terribly concerned about it.
Jay O’Brien, reporting for the CBS affiliate in West Palm Beach, Florida, reported: “NEW: @GovRonDeSantis says the anniversary of January 6th is ‘not something that most Floridians have been concerned about.’ Says events in DC today will be ‘nauseating’ and a ‘politicized Charlie Foxtrot’ (ask your military friends what that last phrase means).”
NEW: @GovRonDeSantis says the anniversary of January 6th is “not something that most Floridians have been concerned about.”
Says events in DC today will be “nauseating” and a “politicized Charlie Foxtrot” (ask your military friends what that last phrase means).
— Jay O’Brien (@jayobtv) January 6, 2022
“Charlie Foxtrot” is a military slang term for “cluster f***.”
Here’s a portion of what the Governor said pic.twitter.com/BPXjegLkcz
— Jay O’Brien (@jayobtv) January 6, 2022
“Remarks came in a telling split-screen,” O’Brien continued, adding, “DeSantis was speaking as President Biden and Vice President Harris prepared to address the nation, saying Democracy withstood a serious attack on January 6th.”
O’Brien also noted that Florida “leads the nation” in Capitol rioters with 70 who have been arrested since the event.
“This is enraging the far left … and shows why DeSantis is so beloved by normal, sane people,” Mollie Hemingway responded.
Kyle Lamb, researcher for DeSantis’ communications office, agreed. “‘Politicized Charlie Foxtrot.’ What a perfect description once again by America’s @GovRonDeSantis. He’s right, most Floridians simply have moved on from the political gaslighting,” he said.
Piers Morgan claimed DeSantis would have been singing a different tune if the Capitol rioters had been liberals, adding, “Of course, he would be saying the complete opposite had the Capitol riot been perpetrated by liberals urged on by President Biden…”
But Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro said DeSantis was correct, later adding, “This January 6 extravaganza will earn a standing ovation from the media echo chamber, and achieve nothing else.”
He is correct https://t.co/oGduGSAjD3
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) January 6, 2022
Shapiro also noted that several of the comments made in commemorative speeches by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were designed to use January 6th as cover to push specific agenda items — and change the rules to do so if necessary — in order to prevent such a horrible event from ever occurring again.
He explained in a thread on Twitter:
Today is the first anniversary of January 6, a riot predicated on a falsehood pushed by President Trump — a riot which did not prevent the certification of the 2020 election by Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
It was not a “coup” or an “insurrection,” nor was it charged criminally as such. It was not a turning point for the republic or a referendum on American political violence.
It is now being exploited by the political class to dramatically revise republican institutions including federalism and the filibuster. The outsized focus on January 6 by the media and Democrats is a pure act of political opportunism, and should be seen as such.
The game is to suggest that January 6 was a grave threat to democracy, and that the threat has now metastasized into a full-blown political program pressed by the mainstream Republican Party — and that this requires concerted Democratic destruction of institutions.
Biden is not hiding the ball. Schumer is not hiding the ball. Pelosi is not hiding the ball. If the question of January 6 had remained whether riots are bad, whether the criminals should go to jail, or whether we ought to follow legally-certified election results, we’d agree.
But the question has now morphed — and it morphed within hours of the January 6 events. The question morphed into whether the entire Republican Party and all of its voters could be saddled with the mantle of “insurrectionary violence.”