The Disgraceful Attempt to Blame DeSantis for the Jacksonville Shooting

Having learned that a white supremacist had murdered three innocent African Americans at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Fla., Governor Ron DeSantis took every appropriate step. He recorded that the shooter, whom he called a “racially motivated” “scumbag” and a “coward,” had been “targeting people based on their race.” He confirmed that the killer had penned a “manifesto.” He made it clear such behavior was — and would always be — “totally unacceptable.” Next, DeSantis announced plans to suspend his presidential campaign and return to Florida, he pledged funds to protect a historically black college in North Florida, and he resolved to visit the community where it had happened — despite activists’ promises to shout him down if he did.

For this, DeSantis was blamed by the press for the actions of the killer.

Quite how DeSantis is responsible is never explained. Instead, the charge relies upon insinuations, elisions, and non sequiturs. DeSantis is guilty of rhetoric that is never quoted, of policies that do not intersect with the crime, of an attitude that is widely implied but narrowly sourced. At no time is any effort made to connect any of this to the man who pulled the trigger. The state’s new slavery curriculum is mentioned but never connected to anything concrete. So, too, are the governor’s opposition to DEI, his contention that critical race theory teaches people to hate one another, and his disdain for racial gerrymandering — all of these stances against race-conscious thinking and collective racial guilt. The chief political writer at the Associated Press, Steve Peoples, observed on Twitter that “Ron DeSantis scoffed when the NAACP issued a travel advisory this spring warning Black people to use ‘extreme care’ if traveling to Florida” and yet, “just three months later, DeSantis is leading his state through the aftermath of a racist attack.” How these two things relate wasn’t addressed. At the White House Monday night, NPR’s Franco Ordonez asked, “Does the White House see any connection with the changes that the Florida governor has made in teaching about African-American history to the kind of violence that we saw in Jacksonville?” Does Ordonez? What is it?