Ron DeSantis’s culture war is not helping his chances of being president

There is no good explanation for what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is doing, unless you think he can win GOP votes by proving he hates gay people.

As hardball politics go, this is dubious strategy.

Is there is a single voter now with former President Trump who will jump to DeSantis because the governor has tape of Trump saying nice things about gay and transgender people? Has DeSantis seen political gain in attacking drag shows?

“He is alienating college-educated, suburban voters who want to move past Trump,” Sarah Longwell, a Republican political analyst who studies focus groups of GOP voters, told the New York Times last week.

The political payoff among hard-right, non-college educated voters is also no sure bet. Yes, culture war fans on the right are angry with Bud Light beer for working with a transgender personality to appeal to new customers.

And, yes, in 2004 Republican President George W. Bush and his allies were able to drive up Republican voter turnout in key electoral college states like Ohio by putting initiatives banning gay marriage on the ballot.

But times change and so do political calculations. Increased acceptance of openly gay people has been the most significant cultural shift in America in the last quarter century. And the change of attitudes includes people with center-right politics.

The percentage of Americans who say homosexual relationships are “morally acceptable” has increased, according to Gallup, from 40 percent in 2001 to 64 percent today. Gallup also found that 55 percent of Americans are “satisfied” with the acceptance of gays and lesbians.

Congress recently passed a law with bipartisan support to protect gay marriage, which the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of, and for more than the last decade, gay people have served openly in the military with fear of dismissal.

Now there is an openly gay Cabinet secretary, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, willing to go on CNN to respond to gay-baiting politics. “I’m going to leave aside the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled-up, shirtless bodybuilders,” Buttigieg said of DeSantis’s campaign video attacking Trump as a supporter of gay rights. “Who are you trying to help? Who are you trying to make better off?”

DeSantis’s campaign has not been helped by his accusation that Disney is a “multinational corporation trying to sexualize children.” 

To the contrary, there are Republicans who see him breaking with traditional opposition from conservatives to anyone in politics dictating policy to corporations.

“I don’t think Ron DeSantis is conservative, based on actions towards Disney,” Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, said at a recent event for the website Semafor. “Where are we headed here now that, if you express disagreement in this country, the government is now going to punish you? To me, that’s what I always thought liberals did…”

The most generous understanding of DeSantis’s anger at gays is that he sees himself standing up for parents who fear open acknowledgement homosexual behavior will lead more young people to become open to homosexual behavior.

But stigmatizing all gay people as a danger to children is wrong. Gay Americans have friends, family and co-workers who don’t want to see them picked on or labeled with accusations of “grooming” children.

Like the struggles for civil rights and abortion rights, gay rights have been hard-won. In my lifetime it is amazing to see gay pride parades, acceptance of gay people in church and gay people free to love whom they love — openly.

Let’s give DeSantis the benefit of acknowledging that he is desperate to catch up with Trump. Despite early hype and a flood of big-money GOP donors, the 44-year-old has not closed the polling gap. His criticism of Trump’s handling of COVID and immigration have so far proven ineffective.

One big giveaway is that those workers slated to go door-to-door in Iowa are not volunteers who have been inspired by DeSantis. Most are paid workers.

The governor is trailing in every poll for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

A poll released by Echelon Insights last week found Trump leading with 49 percent, and DeSantis in a distant second at 16 percent.

In South Carolina, a poll from National Public Affairs released last week showed Trump with 41 percent support to DeSantis’s 18 percent.

In his desperation DeSantis decided to play dirty and traffic in one of the oldest, most hateful, most bigoted tropes — homophobia. That is alienating lots of voters, including many conservative voters looking for an alternative to Trump.

“This was the final nail in the coffin,” former New Hampshire state Rep. Yvonne Dean-Bailey, told The Hill. She said she had previously considered backing DeSantis in 2024 but will now likely vote third-party. 

“At this point, I can’t see myself voting for DeSantis,” she said, adding, “I don’t even want to call myself a conservative anymore. I don’t identify with these people.” 

Voting has yet to begin, but DeSantis is on track to become one of the biggest presidential-run misfires of recent years.

Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.