DeSantis’ DEI a decoy, diversion.

Ron DeSantis will have you convinced he’s opposed to DEI at his core. Don’t let him fool you.

In 2019, Ron DeSantis traveled from Tallahassee to Tavares in Lake County, FL, a three-and-a-half hour drive, to a ceremony where he would pardon the Groveland Four, four young black men wrongfully accused of raping a 17-year-old white woman in 1949, and apologize on behalf of the state for their treatment.

DeSantis, somber at the ceremony, called their treatment and conviction “a miscarriage of justice.”

“I don’t know that there’s any way you can look at this case and think that those ideals of justice were satisfied,” Mr. DeSantis said. “Indeed, they were perverted, time and time again.”

DeSantis’s current public rhetoric on race is now dramatically dissimilar. What’s in it for Ron DeSantis to go to such forced and persistent lengths to appear racist?

Strategy:

Get the crowd emotional. Let them punch themselves out on a distraction. When they’re seeing “red,” they can’t see clearly.

It’s not about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion—DEI is a charged button to push, known to get people up in arms. And this is a stick-up, withe diverted and disappearing millions.