Ron DeSantis' 'deeply cringeworthy' autobiography probably signals a presidential run: columnist

01 December 2022

Unlike former President Donald Trump, far-right Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has not officially announced that he will be running for president in 2024. Trump made his announcement on November 15; DeSantis has yet to make an announcement.

But many political pundits are confident that DeSantis will, like Trump, decide to seek the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. One of them is liberal Vanity Fair columnist Bess Levin.

In her November 30 column, Levin cites DeSantis’ forthcoming autobiography “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival” as evidence that the Florida governor will probably run. The book has a February 28, 2023 release date on Amazon.

Other evidence, according to Levin, is DeSantis’ refusal to commit to serving out his second term as Florida governor in its entirety.

“DeSantis’ autobiography is set to be released next February by Broadside Books, the conservative imprint of HarperCollins — which happens to be owned by none other than Rupert Murdoch, who recently all but dumped Donald Trump in favor of the governor,” Levin explains. “While obviously not everyone who writes or has someone ghostwrite a memoir ends up running for president, it’s a time-honored tradition among elected officials gunning for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Levin continues, “What will the tome be titled? Not surprisingly, DeSantis and his publisher have chosen to go with the extremely eye-rolling ‘The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,’ which has the distinction of not just being deeply cringeworthy, but is also an indication that the book will be filled with lies. While the Florida official likes to boast that his is the freest state in the nation, that claim doesn’t actually hold up in the face of his attempts to stop people from saying the word gay or talking about racism, or his habit of punishing anyone who disagrees with him. But that’s not the only bit of hypocrisy readers can expect from the book!”

Levin goes on to quote an excerpt from DeSantis’ book. The Florida governor, who defeated Democratic challenger Charlie Crist by 19 percent in the 2022 midterms, writes, “What Florida has done is establish a blueprint for governance that has produced tangible results while serving as a rebuke to the entrenched elites who have driven our nation into the ground. Florida is proof positive that we, the people are not powerless in the face of these elites.”

The Vanity Fair columnist finds it “interesting” that DeSantis is slamming “elites” in light of the fact that he “attended literal bastions of elitism Yale (undergrad) and Harvard (law school)” and “appears to set a record for backing by elitist billionaires.”

Trump has come up with a new name for DeSantis: “Ron DeSanctimonious,” which shows that the former president now views him as a rival. And Trump has been urging DeSantis to stay out of 2024’s presidential race.

The “news” that DeSantis’ book is forthcoming, Levin says with sarcasm, probably “has not gone over well at Mar-a-Lago, where Donald Trump has been sticking pins in a DeSantis-shaped voodoo doll since the midterms.”

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