Rick Wilson: Gov. DeSantis Is “King of the Culture War”

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Well, next, more on how this information helps dismantle democracies. Rick Wilson is a Republican strategist and a vocal Trump critic. He sat down with Michel Martin to talk about how his home, State of Florida, has become ground zero for the U.S. culture wars. And what that means for the upcoming midterm elections.

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MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Bianna. Rick Wilson, thanks so much for talking with us.

RICK WILSON, CO-FOUNDER, LINCOLN PROJECT: Glad to be with you.

MARTIN: How would you describe where Ron DeSantis, kind of, sits in the sort of, the ecosystem of our national politics right now?

WILSON: Well, I mean, look, Ron DeSantis is the undisputed king of the culture war in America right now. He is attacking a number of axis in Florida, particularly. He is accusing Disney of being a company dedicated to pedophile grooming and seeking to destroy them. He is setting up a system in Florida where people who believe that critical race theory, the imaginary demon of their — is being taught in classrooms and will allow people to while people to sue teachers and schools that, you know, “Make people feel uncomfortable for talking about slavery or racism in America.” As if you can just, like, lie to them and pretend they never happened. And finally, his last act in this sort of culture war trifecta he’s doing is he’s passing one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the country. Restricting abortion at 15 weeks with, you know, the usual — the usual new play of no exemptions for rape, incest, life of the mother. So, all these things that have been happening for Ron DeSantis are built around one central premise. He is not doing this because he believes these things as a governor. He’s doing it because he and his advisers have decided that this is the path to the 2024 nomination for president. They believe the culture war — correctly, by the way, that the only thing the Republican base cares about now is the culture war. All the other ideological predicates of the past of what, you know, when folks like me were working inside the party and doing campaigns from president down to dogcatcher, there was a sort of — whether you agree with it or not, a sort of coherent ideological idea. Limited government, individual liberty, free markets, the world law. Again, maybe they weren’t all evenly applied. But the principle of the Republican party wasn’t, let’s burn down Walt Disney because we think that they’re secretly trying to groom children for a pedophile ring and, you know, under the magic kingdom. This craziness that has infected the party is very much what Ron DeSantis is running on in ’22 and ’24. And very much what motivates the Republican base in this day and age.

MARTIN: What do you think this came from with Ron DeSantis? I mean, he has a very, sort of, classic profile for a political figure but. I mean, he went to Yale — grew up in Florida, you know, went to Yale —

WILSON: Went to Harvard.

MARTIN: — played baseball.

WILSON: Uh-huh.

MARTIN: Like another former president. Went to Harvard Law School, went into the navy, served in Congress. He was always a very conservative member of Congress. But how do you think that this, sort of, fixation on this particular basket of issue started?

WILSON: Well, I can tell you why. He is surrounded by a small cadre of very ambitious advisers. And the chief among those advisers, who dominates every bit of his thinking now, is a woman named Christina Pushaw who comes from this very outright background, who comes from this background where the trolling and the social war stuff is the only thing that matters. And she has become the most prominent adviser around him. She directs every strategic decision inside the administration now. And as she gained power, he shifted from being that, sort of, traditional tea party-ish Republican, who was fairly generic in almost every way. You know, decent accomplishments, decent educational background, you know, limited government constitutional conservative on paper. Once Pushaw came into his orbit, he transformed into this outright trolling culture warrior of the first degree. And it is — you know, in Tallahassee and among his many advisers, there’s been a little grumbling about it but no one can take her out of that role because he views her position as being so vital because it’s raised him $100 million from small door donors. It’s given him, you know, something like 75 hits on Fox News in the last year. It’s given him this enormous central prominence as the — as a person that Trump fears the most who will run against him in ’24.

MARTIN: Could you argue though that it’s working —

WILSON: Yes.

MARTIN: — he’s in a much stronger position politically than he was, you know when he first ran.

WILSON: There’s no question about it.

MARTIN: And so, he’s now a national contender in a way that he was not, as you mentioned. And he was one of, kind of, many.

WILSON: Uh-huh.

MARTIN: And —

WILSON: Listen —

MARTIN: — you know, so it’s working, right?

WILSON: There were a lot of ambitious people. A lot of ambitious men and women who — when Trump was defeated in 2020, who said, I will be the next one. And they ranged from Ted Cruz to Marco Rubio to Nikki Haley to Kristi Noem to Josh Hawley, they all believed they were putting together a — the perfect post-Trump Republican candidacy. They all believed that they could shape and shifts themselves into Trump without all the warts. Trump without all the obvious cognitive and moral deficits. And they all believed that they could go out to the major donor community and to the small donor community and say, I’m the one who can defeat the Democrats. I will bring you everything Trump gives you except the crazy stuff. But it turns out the Republican base wants the crazy stuff. And Ron DeSantis offers it to them because of Pushaw in the most distilled and perfect form. And, you know, the conspiracy theory, queueing on an aspect of the Republican party today requires that their amygdala be constantly poked and stimulated with terrifying imaginary demons. Whether it’s critical race theory or pedophile groomers or big tech or any of these other things they imagine are going to destroy their lives. He has become incredibly adept at framing those things as something that only he will fight — face up against. That’s the same thing we heard in 2015 and ’16 from Trump, only I can fix it. Only I will do this. Only I will be the avatar of your rage and your anger.

MARTIN: So, look, as an increasingly Red State. How is that possible? I mean, is it an increasingly Red State because this is what people agree with, or is it an increasingly Red State because the election apparatus has been manipulated in the way it has been in so many other parts of the country? I mean, I do have to point out that about a year ago, as you and I are speaking now, you know Florida was one of the first States to hastily pass restrictions making it harder for people to vote. So, is that part of the equation, or is this resonating because that’s who Florida voters are now?

WILSON: The voting restrictions that were passed about a year ago were the icing on the cake. And I have some very tough love for my Democratic friends because I worked in Florida politics and I’ve been in Florida politics since 1987 when I was a very, very young lad, just fresh out of school. The Democratic political apparatus in the State of Florida ranges from incompetence to malfeasance. They are not good at the work. They select bad candidates. They run campaigns that are disconnected and discordant with Florida voters. And that doesn’t just mean the stuff on the Far-Right. They miss big notes in the — in Florida politics that they should not miss. I will tell you a quick story. The reason that brand new Puerto Rican voters who came to Florida never got — never performed, as the Democrats expected, was they never talked to them. They never went out and talked to them. They didn’t do voter contact with them. The reason is that, although Cuban voters, the younger generation of Cuban voters are not as conservative as the prior generation. And new Venezuelan voters in Florida, who are much more liberal on a whole bunch of spectra do not vote for Democrats, is because when they fled socialism, the brand of socialism for them is not healthcare and education. The brand of socialism for them is that their grandparents and their parents were kicked out of their homes. They’re — the brand of socialism with them was Maduro, who was an oppressive dictator. And so, Democrats go down there and they defend socialism or they refuse to attack it when Republicans are saying they want to, you know, Joe Biden’s Fidel Castro, get out of here. But they don’t do the work because they’re afraid of their own left flank. Like, I said, my tough love for the Democrats here is based on about, you know, almost 40 years of experience in this political hellscape of Florida. And there’s a class disconnect as well where you look at the folks who have moved to Florida in the last 20 years and they come from places like Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York and they are not all liberal. In fact, many people came here because the cost of living and the burdens of the tax pays in those States were so high that they had to flee. And Florida’s taxes are famously low. So, Democrats who think they’re going to run a campaign in Florida, that’s a campaign based on the blue state mentality are mistaken.

MARTIN: He signed very quickly this legislation stripping Disney of the sort of special tax status because of this very vague law that critics are calling the “Don’t Say Gay Law”, that the bill itself does not say that. But it is sufficiently vague. That people can read into it, you know, what they wanted. Why do you think that the Disney issue could have some repercussions in a way that these sorts of political maneuvers have not?

WILSON: Well, I think there are three significant factors that this very hurried bill did not calculate in. The first factor is that Disney’s — if you collapse Reddy Creek, the Disney — which was the Disney bill does, what you end up with is a massive new debt obligation for the State of Florida and for the counties. Now, that debt is being carried by Disney right now. But if you eliminate it, you end up with this crap where the taxpayers in two counties where Disney is located are on the hook for $2 billion. And that means that the average family is going to pay $2,200 more a year in taxes in Orlando and — in Orlando metro area and it is a huge problem. The further tax liability — the further liability issue here for DeSantis is that the Fitch rating industry has said, if you start breaking up this kind of special bonding facilities in Florida, you — we’re going to have to cut Florida’s credit rating. You’re going to have a harder time borrowing money. You’re going to have a harder time, you know, getting access to credit. And DeSantis did not recognize that this was a possibility. And the final part of it is there’s an economic impact where about 25,000 jobs, and these are highest paying skilled worker jobs, that ramify out from Disney’s presence in that area are going to be in danger. So, Ron DeSantis has decided, I’m going to go to war with the most popular brand in the country, practically. I am going to go to war with an economic engine that drives Florida’s prosperity. We don’t have high taxes here because instead of oil wells in Florida, we pump tourists. And they come from — in Germany, in Brazil by the millions every year and they go to Disney. He’s trying to hurt the Disney brand and harm the Disney operations financially. What he is going to do is kill the golden tax goose. The reason we don’t pay income taxes in Florida is because foreign tourists come to this State and pay billions of dollars a year in hotel taxes, and rental car taxes, and sales taxes in the Orlando area. He is going to do — to harm the State’s economy in a way that, of course, they didn’t recognize. And why? Because of the culture warriors around him, DeSantis and Pushaw, and the rest of those folks around him. They cared about Fox News. They cared about getting on Fox. They cared about raising money from the crazy people. They cared about the social media entertainment ecosystem. They didn’t care about the people of Florida. This is all about his presidential race nationally. It’s all about maintaining this position on the top of the culture war pyramid. And so, the fact that they didn’t think it through is unsurprising. But the consequences of them not thinking it through, you can’t just wish them away.

MARTIN: OK. But for a guy who won an election with like a fraction of a majority, like 0.4 percent, he’s now — from my read, at 54 percent approval which is not amazing but it’s certainly not terrible. And it’s certainly better than a lot of other people, like, for example, Joe Biden. Why is that?

WILSON: The state has — there is a very working-class nature to Florida. And like many places in the country, you have a — some blue coastal communities that are the wealthiest and the most unimaginably luxurious lifestyle you can think of and an awful lot of working-class people. And a lot of this culture war stuff appeals to the working-class voter. And remember, as I said, many Floridians today were Ohioans a few years ago, or even months ago. Given the State’s growth rate, it has changed so radically. Look, I’m a fifth-generation Floridian, which now is like being a unicorn. There are — this State is a new State and it’s full of new working-class voters. And many of these culture war appeals, despite their wrongness in what they’re doing in a modern society, are powerful appeals. You know, I don’t underestimate Ron DeSantis. I think of him as Donald Trump does, as his number one competitor for the Republican nomination in 2024. And that is what he is after. He is after the kind of power that can only be satisfied in the White House.

MARTIN: So, you had a tough-love message for Democrats. You are disappointed, I think, that has taken over the Republican party to the degree that it has. Where does somebody like you go?

WILSON: Well, look, I’m an independent now. I cannot be a member of a party that wants to use the power of the State to harm individuals which is what the Republican party does now. And that was always the warning we, you know, we were conservatives because we believe that the power of the State’s, you know, potential for abuse was so high that we had to check it. Well, that’s disappeared. This country desperately needs, in my mind, the political dynamic of a party that is progressive and humane. And it also needs the dynamic of a party that is constitutional and constrained. I think there is a place for a center-right party in this country. But right now, there is nothing in the center for most voters. And for many, many Republicans who are not, by the way, there’s still a meaningful fraction of the GOP, who are not queueing on crazy people, who do not believe that the world is run by secret pedophiles in pizza restaurants. They’re homeless but they’re not going to go and become, you know, become far-left progressives overnight. The demographic that is most liable to move off of the Republican message right now tends to be Republican women who are more educated, slightly more affluent. Republican men who are more independent leaning. Those are — those people move. We helped move them in the — with the Lincoln Project in 2020. They are moved — they are moved — you know, you can divide them out by the cruelty, and the capriciousness, and the craziness, and the conspiracy side of the Republicans today that they find repulsive. But those people aren’t moving from the Republican party to AOC green new deal progressivism. They’re not moving from Trump to Bernie. They’re moving from Trump to Biden or to the right of Biden. And if you give them those opportunities, they’ll vote that way. If you don’t, they’ll still default back to their Republican base, you know, political instincts, and vote for DeSantis.

MARTIN: Rick Wilson, thanks so much for talking with us once again.

WILSON: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Great conversation.