Even with Florida Hope, DeSantis governs by lashing out

[Zorro]

Do voters really want a successor who’s always spoiling for fight?

If you’ve got an hour or two to kill, Google “DeSantis” and “lashes out.”

DeSantis lashes out at Fla. GOP as questions build over wife’s project (Washington Post, April 25, 2025)
DeSantis lashes out at two proposed constitutional amendments (WCJB/TV-20, April 5, 2024)
DeSantis lashes out at audience member over Jacksonville shooting (Politico, Sept. 7, 2023)
DeSantis campaign lashes out at Donald Trump’s pro-LGBT comments (The Times of London, July 4, 2023)
DeSantis lashes out at reporter during New Hampshire campaign stop: ‘Are you blind?’ (Forbes, June 1, 2023)
DeSantis lashes again at Disney (CBS News Miami, April 7, 2023)
DeSantis lashes out at “critical race theory’ in push to overhaul Florida’s civics curriculum (News4JAX, March 17, 2021)
DeSantis lashes out at media for Super Bowl virus coverage (CBS News Miami, Feb. 10, 2021)
DeSantis lashes out at DOH employee who claims she was asked to censor coronavirus data (WFTS Tampa Bay, May 20, 2020)

There’s more, but you get my point. Lashing out is typical for DeSantis. It’s how he governs.

That came to mind as Casey DeSantis joined her husband last week in lashing out over the Hope Florida scandal, the first lady’s pet project to get Floridians off public aid. A Times/Herald investigation revealed this year that the DeSantis administration directed a Medicaid contractor that overbilled the state to divert $10 million from a larger settlement away from state coffers and into Hope Florida’s fundraising arm. Weeks later, the charity gave $10 million to two nonprofits, who in turn sent nearly all of it to a political committee overseen by DeSantis’ chief of staff. That committee was created to oppose last year’s statewide referendum to legalize recreational marijuana, which DeSantis opposed.

Appearing with the governor in Brandon last week, Casey DeSantis dismissed the serious and mounting criticisms of Hope Florida as “slanderous, false allegations.” What was slanderous or false? She didn’t say. And while Casey DeSantis played coy about reports she’ll run to succeed her husband in 2026, the first lady made a point of noting that Florida’s next governor should be “in the mold of a DeSantis, who’s willing to get out there and fight.”

Hope Florida could be the greatest thing since sliced bread, and it’d still be bizarre to see a governor and his wife, who are on the public dime themselves, barnstorm the state with government assistance, telling people to get off government assistance.

https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2025/05/21/casey-legislature-doge-tampa-pinellas/

Little Ron obviously has a Napoleon complex.