- Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaign shared a video highlighting his anti-LGBTQ+ bills.
- The video featured imagery associated with right-wing spaces, including clips from “American Psycho.”
- An expert told Insider the video is a “culmination” of DeSantis’ “extremely homophobic” campaign.
Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaign is leaning into his “terminally online” anti-LGBTQ+ crusade with a new video featuring alt-right imagery, a law expert told Insider.
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On June 30, the DeSantis War Room Twitter page reposted a now-deleted video featuring himself alongside clips of Patrick Bateman from the movie “American Psycho,” a movie being co-opted in far-right spaces online.” and Chad, a muscular character associated with incels. A carousel of headlines detailing his “draconian” laws against transgender people in the state overlaid the clips.
“DeSantis Signs ‘Most Extreme Slate of Anti-Trans laws in Modern History,'” one headline reads with a photo of DeSantis wearing a pair of shades.
“This governor does not care,” another headline reads.
The video also featured various clips of Trump verbally showing support for LGBTQ+ people. It included a quote from Trump‘s 2016 GOP nomination acceptance speech following the Pulse nightclub shooting that left 49 people dead saying he would “protect our LGBTQ citizens.” Another clip shows Trump saying he would let trans women compete in Miss Universe.
“To wrap up “Pride Month,” let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it…” the tweet read.
The clips garnered swift criticism from Republicans, including Log Cabin Republicans — an organization representing LGBTQ+ conservatives that have shown support for Trump — calling it “divisive” and “homophobic.” DeSantis’ former press secretary Christina Pushaw — who now helps run the DeSantis War Room page — defended the ad, saying it was actually a statement against “identity politics.”
Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic and former staff attorney at the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, told Insider the video exemplifies the campaign “taking pride in” and “relishing in the hate.”
“This is a campaign that’s extremely homophobic,” Caraballo said. “And this is just kind of the culmination of that.”
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Caraballo also said that this was the first time she had seen a prominent political campaign tapping into the online far-right in this manner, but the portrayal of right-wing memes aligns with some of the other “symbolism” she believes has been previously employed by DeSantis while enacting anti-LGBTQ+ legislation as governor. She pointed out, for example, that DeSantis’ new expansion of his “Don’t Say Gay” bill — which limits conversations about LGBTQ+ people in classrooms — was signed on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia.
“They know exactly what they’re doing,” Caraballo told Insider. “They know that those kinds of actions don’t get reported on by the media and that they typically don’t merit even more than a mention by the people online, and then the people he’s trying to reach know what that means.”
Caraballo said she also found “irony” in the statements decrying the ad from other conservatives, considering the Log Cabin Republicans’ other positions, including its support of denying some gender-affirming healthcare for youth and its opposition of trans women competing in sports that align with their gender. The organization previously threw its support at DeSantis when he signed his “Don’t Say Gay” law.
“Now that it’s gone that extra step where it’s basically targeting even the wealthier white gay Republicans, now they’re saying ‘it’s just going too far,’ and so I think that’s why there’s been a bit of pushback,” Caraballo said. “But you know, there’s been online accounts like ‘Gays against Groomers’ pushing this stuff and being used as a pretext to spread homophobia. This is not going to stop with trans people at all. This is going to go after everyone.”
In 2023, state legislators have so far introduced 560 anti-trans bills — 360 more than the entirety of 2022, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker. Caraballo said a lot of the credit for ramping up anti-trans bills can be traced back to the groomer rhetoric that Pushaw helped spread.
Pushaw also recently posted a waving hand emoji in response to the news that LGBTQ+ Floridians were leaving the state in response to DeSantis’ laws.
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Additionally, violence — from bomb threats to mass shootings — against the LGBTQ+ community tied to extremist groups most often cited the conspiracy theory that LGBTQ+ people were “grooming” children, according to a recent report from the ADL and GLAAD.
“I think there’s been this simmering terrorism campaign against the LGBTQ community for the last year and a half — the bomb threats, death threats, intimidation by extremist groups, militias, proud boys, neo-Nazis, and it’s just been simmering in the background,” Caraballo said. “I don’t think it has gotten the kind of attention that merits what is happening right now.”
The DeSantis campaign and Pushaw did not respond to a list of questions sent by Insider.
