On Wednesday, the political world set itself alight thanks to the comments of Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Rep. Ron DeSantis. Appearing on Fox News, DeSantis made the case for why Floridians shouldnt vote for his opponent, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who won an upset victory in the Democratic primaries.
DeSantis stated:
Florida elections are always competitive, and this is a guy who, although hes much too liberal for Florida, I think hes got huge problems with how hes governed Tallahassee, he is an articulate spokesman for those far-left views, and hes a charismatic candidate. I watched those Democrat debates, and none of that is my cup of tea, but he performed better than those other people there. So weve got to work hard to make sure that we continue Florida going in a good direction, lets build off the success weve had on Governor Scott, the last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state. Thats not going to work.
Gillum, of course, is black. The phrase monkey this up immediately generated accusations of dog whistling from DeSantis the implication that DeSantis was engaging in a subtle form of racism, telling Floridians not to vote for the black candidate. Yes, in the midst of praising Gillum as a highly competent and articulate candidate, DeSantis supposedly just decided to remind closet racists that Gillum is black by using a phrase everyone understands to mean "mess things up."
This is wildly dishonest stuff. Take, for example, this headline from The Hill:

DeSantis: Florida voters shouldnt "monkey this up" by voting for black candidate
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