Over the weekend, Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis prompted leftist outrage as she joined her husband Ron in Iowa while wearing a leather jacket emblazoned with the words “Where Woke Goes to Die.”
The executive editor of The Daily Beast opined in a piece titled “Casey DeSantis is the Walmart Melania” that DeSantis wore a “ghastly black leather jacket … that brought to mind nothing so much as the racks of a Red State big-bin store where it would be retailing for $24.99.”
“They rail against the elites but Ron went to Harvard,” the Daily Beast writes, limning the Florida governor as an elite while ignoring that fact that Ron DeSantis ‘ mother worked as a nurse while his father installed Nielsen TV-rating boxes.
Casey DeSantis sports ‘Where Woke Goes to Die’ jacket at Iowa GOP event https://t.co/bnxDlI4mHT pic.twitter.com/5rcJqNesHC
— New York Post (@nypost) June 3, 2023
Echoing the charge by Roger Stone that was parroted by Politico, The Daily Beast writes, “We’ve got a Sunshine State Lady Macbeth …” The piece gushes, “Of course, neither Melania Trump nor Casey DeSantis could ever embody the class and effortless elegance of Michelle Obama or Dr. Jill Biden.”
“Fashion is a joyous extension of who you are and a symbol of what you want the world to know about you and about what you stand for,” The Daily Beast pronounces. “Think Bernie Sanders in his woolen Inauguration mittens.”
Last August, as he spoke about education in his state, Ron DeSantis vowed to oppose the trends toward Critical Race Theory and radical gender ideology, declaring at a press conference, “Obviously in the classroom we’ve battled a lot of ideologies. What I’ve said is the state of Florida is the place where woke goes to die. We are not going to let this state descend into some type of woke dumpster fire. We’re going to be following common sense; we’re going to be following facts.”
As Ron DeSantis has gained prominence, the knives of the Left have come out for his wife. Politico ran a piece in mid-May quoting various sources attacking her. The piece also acknowledged that Casey DeSantis and her husband are extraordinarily close, admitting, “They were partners from the start,” while quoting a source who has known the couple for years saying, “They are this singular entity.”
“I can’t think of a spouse who’s more involved in their husband’s political career,” John Thomas, the founder of the Ron to the Rescue super PAC, stated.
Casey DeSantis launched her Hope Florida program in September 2021 to engender a partnership between government agencies and faith-based organizations. The program would allow people receiving public benefits like youth in foster care or pregnant mothers struggling with substance abuse to share their needs on an online “care portal.” The portal would connect them directly to more than 1,000 faith-based organizations and other non-profits.
DeSantis told the Daily Wire:
I would go out and do press conferences early on in 2019 and people would talk about the child welfare sphere, for example. They would look at other states and they would say, ‘Well, here’s what other states are spending per capita on this issue. And your spending is less.’ So by that they were implying that you need to spend more and that will result in the best outcomes. And that just isn’t the case. A lot of times, it’s just throwing money at these programs where you see a lot of bureaucracy and bloat and middle managers.
Related: As California Cancels Walgreens, Casey DeSantis Partners With The Company To Help Needy Floridians