Early into the evening of Nov. 8, when the results started coming in, there were moments of elation among Republicans. It was a red wave and more. It appeared even to be a flood and a tsunami. The verdict was absolutely overwhelming. Voters were embracing the Republican message and rejecting the command-and-control “wokeness” of the Democratic left.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ended up with a 20-point victory that swept in many races with him, allowing for a near-complete sweep in a state that only a few years ago was a toss-up. Now it’s solidly red—at least solidly DeSantis, backed by his brilliant surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, who has faced massive slings and arrows with zen-like bravery.
There was just one problem with that early impression: It all came from Florida. As the evening wore on, things looked ever less rosy for the Republican party. If we’re going to figure out what went wrong, we should start by looking at what went right.
So what was the DeSantis message? What he said in his victory speech was the same thing he has said for two years: freedom. Above all else, that means standing against lockdowns and cruel vaccine mandates that shattered so many millions of lives all over the country and drove massive immigration to Florida. It became the leading sanctuary for two years. And DeSantis talks about it at every opportunity.
A second message is related to the first: Florida is the state where woke goes to die. Woke is a non-Western ideology of control that imposes ideological fanaticism in place of clarity and rationality. It obsesses on division, rules out the possibility of a functioning and cooperative social order, and puts the state in charge of the management of our minds via censorship and Maoist-style frenzy.
DeSantis has been ferocious in keeping that nonsense out of Florida’s educational and commercial life. All the while, he faced the most remarkable barrage of hate that I’ve ever witnessed. When he permitted spring break parties in the spring of 2020, The New York Times devoted thousands of words, even tens of thousands, to the denunciation of the governor. The media was completely dedicated to demonizing him as “DeathSantis” and making Florida an example to the world of what not to do.
Those of us writing about this at the time lost massive time and sleep just countering the propaganda. I probably wrote 50 to 100 articles and published many more on the topic simply because the whole thing was based on lies. And it was extremely important that we get this one correct. If Florida is the poster child of bad pandemic response, we’re all toast: lockdowns forever. Fortunately, we did prevail in this case. People have stopped denouncing the state and its COVID-19 policies for now.
Crucially, however, we wouldn’t have prevailed if the governor hadn’t mastered the science himself. At every press conference and speech, he would march through the science and studies and explain his policies. He invited the best scientists in the world to join him in events that were designed to cut through the media malarkey and show people the truth. These events were blocked and taken down by YouTube, but he persisted.
His hiring of Joseph Ladapo was a stroke of genius. Ladapo has this way about him: He’s calm and relaxed, as a scientist must be, but he’s also fearless. He was on the frontlines the entire time arguing against vaccine mandates, telling parents of healthy kids to not get the vaccine, and later warning healthy adults, too. He stuck to his guns that letting life go on normally for healthy people while protecting the old and vulnerable was the only workable and civilized policy.
Crucially, these efforts paid off because they educated Floridians about the truth and cut through the media’s lies. DeSantis’s every speech was designed to get around the censorship of Big Tech, because he knew full well that he couldn’t trust the media to get his message out. He had to do it himself. And he never stopped. For two years, he has been relentless.
Moreover, he did all of this without much if any support on these topics from the Republican National Committee, which is deeply shy of talking about lockdowns and mandates. And why might this be? Because they all began under Republican rule! Politicians are deeply afraid of admitting error. Trump has constantly refused, and this has intimidated Republicans into silence on the most important issues of our time.
DeSantis would have none of it. He apologized for his early confusion on the topic, and when he fully opened the state, he stuck by his position. He completely ignored the polls, on the conviction that the whole point of a leader isn’t to follow but to lead. He trusted the truth, and the truth led him to victory.
Consider some other cases of the same. Kristi Noem of South Dakota is the only governor in the country who completely refused to lock down from the outset. She proved herself to be a servant of the Constitution, a champion of freedom, and a brave fighter not only against the mass media but against her own party as well! God bless her. She won with an incredible 27-point split! See how it works?
Or look at the remarkable case of Brian Kemp of Georgia. He was the first to open up his state, already in April. For sticking his neck out, he was blasted by Trump himself and relentlessly attacked by him ever since. But, like Noem and DeSantis, he stuck to the truth and made it an issue. He was massively rewarded in an election he was expected to lose. He won against an opponent with presidential aspirations with an 8-point split.
Or look at Greg Abbott of Texas. A few days after DeSantis opened Florida, he followed in a sweeping action; on his own and with the fury of someone who had been lied to by Deborah Birx of the Trump administration, he immediately repealed all COVID-19 restrictions in his state. It was a one-page PDF: All of the restrictions were gone! He was mercilessly attacked by the press and the whole state was demonized as the land of disease. But he stuck to his guns. He crushed another Democratic National Committee favorite by 9 points.
These people are champions. We might also mention Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, who also made lockdowns and mandates an issue and crushed his opponent by 14 points. This experience was repeated in Senate races as well. Rand Paul, who has been standing bravely against Anthony Fauci, swept to an easy victory. Ron Johnson was in a tough race in Wisconsin but ran on his record and focused against vaccine mandates and pulled off another victory.
He never should have been in the race, but the Republican Party trusted that Trump was right to endorse him. The state now pays a heavy price for that decision. If you can’t beat John Fetterman, you’re certainly in the wrong business.
The point is that truth and courage won on Nov. 8, while feckless politicking and poll-chasing proved a very bad strategy for Republicans. This country can’t move forward and return to constitutional principles and a freedom-first agenda without coming to terms with the egregious reality that American lockdowns followed the Chinese Communist Party model of social, political, and medical control.
That should’ve been the issue in every race in this country. And it isn’t enough to make it an issue, as DeSantis, Noem, and Kemp have demonstrated, the candidate must educate and rally the voters to stand up for the truth, too. It must be this way because the mainstream media sure isn’t going to tell people the truth.
What this shows me is that we’re nowhere near achieving victory on these crucial issues. Fortunately, we do have models for what it means to lead and win. Sadly for many existing politicians in this country, doing so requires having a backbone and standing up to both Big Media and Big Tech. Do that and you have a chance to win. Don’t do that and you risk everything, including the future of this great country.
