Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (TFP File) The Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank rooted in the philosophy of the Founding Fathers, rece
The Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank rooted in the philosophy of the Founding Fathers, recently announced it was opening a branch in Tallahassee.
As The Free Press reported earlier this week, Claremont wants to use Florida, under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, “as the first template for any red state in America” for activist conservatism.
As the 2024 presidential campaign slowly heats up — with two GOP candidates announcing in the past week, following former President Donald Trump — DeSantis may have given Republicans another template.
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This one on how to handle the hostile liberal media.
The conservative website The Federalist on Thursday featured a piece about DeSantis’ recent dust-up with MSNBC and its reporter Andrea Mitchell.
The Federalist noted that Republicans have nothing to lose, but plenty to gain, if they follow DeSantis’ model of confronting the media head-on when it engineers phony or wrong narratives.
“Republicans who are regularly smeared and hoaxed by the leftist media agree to engage them under the premise that they are acting in good faith,” columnist Jordan Boyd wrote. “That’s a mistake Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his team have proved they know not to make.”
Boyd was referring to Mitchell’s interview last week with Vice President Kamala Harris. Mitchell blatantly lied about the governor’s stance on teaching slavery and black history in school.
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DeSantis’ communications team called out Mitchell’s lie and demanded she correct the record. For days, she resisted, until when she admitted, without really apologizing, that her language was “imprecise” in describing DeSantis’ position.
“DeSantis’ office didn’t just shame Mitchell for spreading lies about the governor and Florida law, which requires students to learn about slavery, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement, and more,” Boyd noted.
“The governor’s press secretary Bryan Griffin also called out NBC for being ‘maliciously intent on deceiving people’ and threatened to cut off the media giant’s access to information, comment, and interviews from the governor, who is one of the top polling Republicans for the 2024 presidential ticket.”
But Griffin did not just cut off Mitchell.
He declared that his boss would not give interviews to any NBC-related network, including local affiliates, until the network corrected Mitchell’s lie.
Griffin also fired back at Mitchell’s alleged “apology” — which, as The Free Press noted Wednesday, was disingenuous because Mitchell never did accurately explain why DeSantis rejected the AP African American studies course that triggered her original question to Harris.
“This ‘postscript’ from @mitchellreports is a typical non-apology response that doubles down on the original lie,” Griffin tweeted.
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“It would be easy for DeSantis and his team to give up battering publications for their deceitful practices because most corporate media, when confronted about their serial lying, refuse to correct their falsehoods,” Boyd noted.
But that is not DeSantis’ style.
“Time and time again, history proves that corporate media approach Democrats’ political enemies with hostility and bad faith,” she continued.
“The media’s incessant bullying of conservative politicians, voters, and beliefs ends only when their utter lack of credibility is exposed and their power to control narratives is neutralized. DeSantis and his team recognize this, which is why they confidently ignore liars and smear artists.”
“If other Republicans are serious about winning the culture war and getting the country back on track, they will do the same,” Boyd added. “The only way conservatives can shed their status as media victims is to cut off the propaganda press once and for all.”
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