Ron DeSantis Rails Against ‘Woke’ at Moms for Liberty Summit

Speaking at a summit for a newly minted hate group, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis laid out his presidential platform.

“As president, I will fight the woke in the corporations, I will fight the woke in the schools, I will fight the woke in the halls of Congress. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. We are gonna leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history where it belongs,” DeSantis said in a Friday morning speech at the Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia.

It was a poor riff on Winston Churchill’s famous wartime speech against the Nazis, delivered in DeSantis’ characteristic monotone. But it was his biggest applause line at the summit where Moms for Liberty, which recently received a “hate group” designation from the Southern Poverty Law Center, has gathered for a three-day convention.

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The summit’s speaker list, which includes DeSantis and Donald Trump, is a flex of political muscle for Moms for Liberty (MfL). In the two years since its founding, MfL has made inroads with politicians like DeSantis and pursued an aggressive political program, championing anti-LBGTQ bills and efforts to restrict education about race and gender.

DeSantis, who is campaigning against Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary, continued his tactic on Friday of attempting to set himself apart from the former president, without actually invoking Trump’s name.

DeSantis’ only references to his primary opponents were indirect, with multiple allusions to past politicians failing to meet their promises.

“Twenty-twentyfour is the time to put up or shut up” on educational issues, he said. “No more excuses about why we can’t win against the left. No more excuses about why you didn’t do what you said you would do. The time to act is now.”

The Moms for Liberty crowd was something of an ideal audience for DeSantis. The Florida governor’s hallmark legislative wins include passing MfL-approved laws restricting LGBTQ care, stifling discussion of race in gender in schools, redirecting money from public to private and charter schools, and gutting protections for educators at Florida universities.

DeSantis is also closely networked with MfL’s founders, who launched the group in Florida in 2021. In February, DeSantis appointed MfL founder Bridget Ziegler to a board intended to oversee Disney’s Orlando theme parks, after Disney criticized his anti-LGBTQ measures. That same month, Ziegler’s husband, Christian, was named chair of the Florida GOP. The previous August, MfL awarded a $21,000 contract to a company Christian Ziegler owned.

While DeSantis spoke on stage, however, some audience members appeared to prefer another candidate. “MOMS <3 DJT” read a flyer that an attendee distributed ahead of the Friday morning breakfast, where DeSantis was the keynote speaker.

Trump also appeared to be a favorite among the summit’s merchandise vendors, which sold t-shirts with slogans like “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president.” The shirt hung next to another with the slogan “Joe and the hoe gotta go,” a short walk from where DeSantis was inveighing against the supposed threat of transgender athletes in women’s locker rooms.

Regardless of the summit attendees’ primary election vote, DeSantis will have scored a major MfL-backed victory on Saturday when his “Stop WOKE” act goes into effect.

The law, which DeSantis promoted with the help of MfL members, would significantly curtail discussion of race and gender in Florida schools. The act is facing multiple legal challenges on the grounds that it restricts First Amendment rights.