DeSantis sinks lower and lower. What a drag | Randy Schultz – South Florida Sun Sentinel

Here’s what President Biden did last week. He worked with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on the nation’s most comprehensive response to climate change — a Biden priority.

The Biden administration secured passage of legislation to increase domestic production of computer chips. Supply-chain issues continue to drag on U.S. manufacturing, especially in the auto industry. “On-shoring” is another Biden priority.

Oh, and Biden approved the drone strike Monday that killed the leader of Al-Qaeda and a key 9/11 planner.

This is what Gov. DeSantis did last week.

He hobnobbed with wealthy campaign donors — in Utah.

He criticized “woke” companies.

He got tough on drag shows.

Just before his latest examples of juvenile pandering, the governor had slammed Biden before a litter of lapdogs at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, where DeSantis again referred to Biden as “Brandon,” a rhetorical trick worthy of grade-school playgrounds.

Despite DeSantis’ criticism, Biden and Democrats — with occasional help from some Republicans — are the adults in the room. They’re the ones trying to solve real problems.

Meanwhile, as the costs of housing and insurance soar in Florida, the governor continues to focus on imagined problems. Such as drag shows with children present.

DeSantis’ response to the entertainment at R House Restaurant in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood was a typical mix of low-grade farce and hypocrisy from the state’s petty tyrant.

DeSantis said of the performances, “That is not the way you look out for our children. You protect children. You do not expose them to things that are inappropriate.”

Parents took their children to the shows. DeSantis is all about parents’ rights when parents exercise those rights as he sees fit. He also opposes government regulation of businesses — unless those businesses annoy him.

The governor did more than try to score cheap points. He sicced the Department of Business and Professional Regulation on R House, seeking to yank its liquor license. Losing it could put R House out of business.

Trying to sound serious, DeSantis said the state had to “gather intelligence” about R House. Um, wouldn’t that just mean going to the show? We’re not talking deep reconnaissance.

From all reports, the shows at R House’s popular Sunday brunch are raunchy but not explicit. They’re also legal.

The governor who touts the “free state of Florida” sees it differently. His complaint against R House states, “The performance … particularly when conducted in the presence of young children, corrupts the public morals and outrages the sense of public decency.”

For 60 days each year, the nature of the Republican-dominated Legislature’s performance outrages the sense of public decency. Drag shows would be an upgrade.

DeSantis wasn’t done chumming the right-wing base. He vowed that the state Board of Administration, on which he serves, would order Florida’s pension fund managers to avoid “using political factors” when investing the state’s money.

Specifically, he opposes Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) policies. Republicans nationwide have criticized that strategy, mostly because it generally shuns fossil fuel companies.

DeSantis would have Floridians believe that ESG is a fringe industry. Actually, it’s a $35 trillion worldwide industry in which many leading money managers participate. Analysts are divided on whether investing in ESG funds decreases returns.

As usual, DeSantis demonstrates selective hostility.

A year ago, he used “political factors” to demand that the Board of Administration avoid Unilever, the corporate parent company of Ben & Jerry’s. The ice cream retailer had announced that it would stop selling in the West Bank to protest Israel’s occupation.

Christian Zionists, who unequivocally support Israel, are a key GOP primary voting bloc. In protesting Ben & Jerry’s boycott, DeSantis engaged in his own boycott.

Because DeSantis is performing rather than governing, he has to create confrontation — constantly. Given his fundraising haul, the approach works, even if it makes him and the state look more and more frivolous.

As he campaigns against Biden more than Charlie Crist and Nikki Fried, the governor shows what a DeSantis presidency would look like — trashy style over substance. It would be much like that of his political patron, Donald Trump.

At the Hard Rock, DeSantis snarked that Biden is “stumbling.” In the polls for now, yes.

But Biden wants to protect the country from climate change and Vladimir Putin. DeSantis wants to protect Florida from drag brunches. Talk about outrage.

Contact Randy Schultz at randy@bocamag.com.

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