Challenges to American Liberty by
Ron DeSantis for Hillsdale CollegeIt’s a wonderful night to be with you all in the freest state in these United States. In 2021, Florida actually set a record for domestic tourism – even better than we did prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems like everyone in the country made it to Florida at one point, including lockdown politicians, governors, mayors. They would lock down their own states or cities [with] mandates, restrictions. T.V. personalities would advocate for lockdowns, mandates, or restrictions. All of them criticized Florida relentlessly — and we’re the first place they escaped to to try and escape their own policies.
Florida vs. Davos by
Ron DeSantis at the National Conservatism ConferenceWelcome to America and the Free State of Florida. Proud to be a refuge of sanity in a world gone mad, we’re holding down the fort… We’re proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish. It’s said that our federalist system creates laboratories of democracy where different states can approach things in different ways. But I don’t think we’ve ever seen such sharp contrast between different governing philosophies as we have in the last few years…
…if you look at the test scores that we’ve seen, we’ve actually had students with lower incomes gain over the last two years. You can’t say that about California and a lot of these other places. But all of that came just from being willing to look at the data independently, being willing to set out a vision of what was important to our state, and then executing. Going on that, we rejected the elites. And we were right…
…not only were they wrong about schools: the elites were wrong about lockdowns, they were wrong about epidemiological models and the hospitalization models. They were wrong about forced masking. They were wrong when they rejected the importance or even the existence of natural immunity. They were wrong about the efficacy of the mRNA vaccines. And they were wrong when I said that COVID was seasonal. Now they admit it. But they didn’t when it was obvious that that was the case. So in almost every major significant issue, these elites who would show up on cable news or wherever, they were wrong. They got it wrong time and time again.
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