A clip of Ron DeSantis applying the word “woke” six moments within a 19-second span has absent viral on Twitter, sparking mockery from some social media consumers.
The Florida governor was talking at a meeting in Philadelphia on Friday hosted by Mothers for Liberty, a conservative marketing campaign group, throughout which he vowed to “never ever surrender to the woke mob.”
Polling suggests DeSantis is Trump’s closest rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, however he stays some way powering the previous president. DeSantis introduced his presidential bid in May vowing to oppose what he termed the “woke intellect virus.”
For the duration of Friday’s tackle, DeSantis commented: “In Florida, we fought the woke throughout the board, and as president, I will combat the woke in the organizations, I will combat the woke in the faculties, I will battle the woke in the halls of Congress. We will by no means ever surrender to the woke mob. We are heading to go away woke ideology in the dustbin of history.”
A clip of the governor’s comments was shared on Twitter by Ron Filipkowski, a Florida-dependent legal professional who tracks proper-wing information on the net.
He commented: “Six ‘wokes’ in 19 seconds today at the Mothers for Liberty meeting. He’s seriously battling the woke.”
The video clip was seen additional than 520,000 periods on Twitter on your own and acquired above 900 retweets and quote tweets.
The remarks sparked criticism from other Twitter people, with just one person jokingly commenting: “Law enforcement warn in opposition to actively playing the ‘woke’ drinking recreation. May well trigger long lasting liver damage.”
A different stated: “It’s all Ron has to function with,” adopted by the ‘man facepalming’ emoji.
DeSantis’ remarks appeared to paraphrase an iconic speech from British Primary Minister Sir Winston Churchill, throughout the 2nd world war. As the German military swept across France in 1940, Churchill reported: “We shall fight on the shorelines, we shall combat on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall combat in the hills we shall by no means surrender.”
Throughout an Iowa marketing campaign event on June 3, DeSantis used equivalent rhetoric, sparking a backlash from critics on-line.
Richard Stengel, who served in the Obama administration among 2014 and 2016, tweeted: “DeSantis deliberately evoking Churchill (“We will combat them on the beaches”), but Churchill was fighting Nazism, an enemy bent on entire world domination, whilst DeSantis is fighting, properly, empathy and compassion. Not the same.”
DeSantis shared two photographs of himself at Friday’s convention on Fb, commenting: “This election is a referendum on the failures of the ideology that is driving the woke agenda in faculty districts across the place.
“Mothers are motivated like hardly ever right before. 2024 will be the yr that mothers and fathers fought back again.”
Newsweek has contacted Governor DeSantis for comment by using the press inquiry kind on his official campaign website.