President Biden responded directly and indirectly to the announcement by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis that he would be entering the GOP primary.
Biden’s direct response came via email with a snarky pitch for donations. “This link works,” the President’s email said, knocking DeSantis’s glitchy announcement on Twitter.
Governor DeSantis got into the race today (with a lot of glitches). You may have had a hard time listening to it. But he’s made clear that his views are pretty different than mine. And so is his record.
Joe Biden
Biden’s indirect response came on Twitter, where the day after DeSantis’s announcement, Biden tweeted three times (so far) about the late George Floyd, commemorating the man whose death at the hands of police three years ago triggered a surge of outrage and activism across America — and altered the American dialogue.
George Floyd’s murder exposed for many what Black and Brown communities have long known and experienced – that we must make a commitment to ensure that America lives up to its founding promise of fair and impartial justice for all.
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 25, 2023
Today, three years after his murder, let us…
To see systemic racism underlying the treatment of Floyd is to be “woke” — in the sense the word maintained before it was subsequently corrupted by misuse. By tweeting about Floyd on the anniversary of his death, Biden unequivocally puts himself in this “woke” camp.
A brother, a son, a father was taken from the Floyd family – with George's murder, they lost a piece of their soul.
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 25, 2023
We will never forget what happened that day.
We will never forget George Floyd's name.
We will never stop taking action in his honor.
With the tweets Biden is drawing a line in the sand with DeSantis, whose presidential announcement essentially promised he will be taking his ‘War on Woke’ national.
DeSantis’s platform is straightforward: He is offering America a chance to be more like Florida, a place where, as DeSantis likes to phrase it, “woke goes to die.”
DeSantis later cemented his intention to stick to his anti-woke “own the Libs” strategy with his performance on Fox News. Asked by Trey Gowdy what he’d do, as President, about the Ukraine-Russia war, DeSantis slammed the U.S. military and said he would rid the armed forces of “gender ideology” and “climate change” concerns.
If that sounds like a non-sequitur, it is. If it sounds anti-woke, it’s that too. DeSantis is prepared to issue anti-woke non-sequiturs from now until the GOP primary is over. Biden’s tweets today are a statement of his belief that woke will beat anti-woke, all other things (like the economy) being equal.
Today, America mourns the murder of George Floyd three years later.
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 25, 2023
I'll never forget Gianna Floyd's words: “Daddy changed the world.”
He has – unifying people of every race and generation in peace and with purpose to say: Enough.
Hate can never have safe harbor in America. pic.twitter.com/8lrRIkiIMI
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