When Republican lawmakers and talking heads speak these days, this is what I hear:
“I HATE liberal cancel culture and believe in absolute free speech! I would also like to ban, do away with or silence
Disney, NPR,
Bud Light, the FBI and CIA, this big pile of books over here, M&Ms, Mr. Potatohead, college professors, any Democratic lawmaker I don’t want to hear speak, “
wokeness,” any mention of diversity,
drag shows, people who defend drag shows, people who defend people who defend drag shows, any mention whatsoever of the existence of LGBTQ people,
this other big pile of books over here, the entire Department of Education, PBS and Oreos.”
Consider
a recent comment from DeSantis when he was asked about the possibility of Elon Musk relocating Twitter’s headquarters to Florida: “You know, I know Elon Musk, and what I would tell him is like, ‘Ok, if you’re going to move Twitter to Florida, are you bringing woke employees to Florida or are you bringing just your people?’ If it’s just his people then it may be good.”
So the “woke” are unwelcome. People who disagree with DeSantis’ anti-woke stance — whatever that happens to be, since it changes from day to day — are unwelcome.
DeSantis continued to praise Musk’s attempts to de-woke-ify the social media platform: “So I really applaud him for taking on Twitter, trying to moor it back towards facts and truth and stop (parroting) the ideology and trying to censor beliefs that conflict with it.”
Allow me to translate that into English: DeSantis is glad Musk is silencing people he disagrees with because, in his mind, that will stop them from trying to censor things they believe are wrong.
It’s worth keeping in mind the things “the woke” at Twitter want to ban include: Nazis, bigots, misogynists, racists and others spouting violent rhetoric. That, by DeSantis’ logic, is bad. That stifles free speech. And the best way to stop that free-speech stifling is to silence “the woke” and not welcome them to your state.