FIGHT BACK: DeSantis Leads Lonely Battle Against Corporate Wokeism

You don’t see too many Republicans in Washington, D.C. saying much about corporate wokeism, and even fewer are actually doing anything. Instead, you have to look to the far-off provinces of America to find bravery in the face of corporate activism. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has made a habit of standing up against corporate wokeism. First, he went toe to toe with Florida’s biggest influencer, Disney. Now he is tangling with the Tampa Bay Rays, who decided to get involved on gun control, despite being a baseball team. The NY Post’s Selim Algar reports:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stood by his veto of $35 million in funding for a proposed Tampa Bay Rays spring training site after the team publicly pressed for new gun control measures.

Asked about the fiscal chin music at an unrelated press conference Friday, DeSantis said he didn’t endorse routing taxpayer money to professional sports teams — especially those engaged in “activism.”

“I don’t support giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports stadiums,” he said. “Companies are free to engage with or not engage with whatever discourse they want, but clearly, it’s inappropriate to be doing tax dollars for professional sports stadiums. It’s also inappropriate to subsidize political activism of a private corporation.”

The Florida team pledged $50,000 to Everytown for Gun Safety’s Support Fund and dedicated its social media channels “to offer facts about the impacts of gun violence” after deadly recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas.

“This cannot become normal. We cannot become numb. We cannot look the other way. We all know, if nothing changes, nothing changes,” read a tweet from the team’s account.

The funds voided by DeSantis were slotted for a new team facility in Odessa, Florida.