Ron DeSantis thinks Trump has made trans issues ‘mainstream’

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The dolls are fighting again! Ron DeSantis accused Donald Trump of making trans issues ‘mainstream’. (Getty Images)

Ron DeSantis seems to believe that bragging about how much more anti-LGBTQ+ he is than Donald Trump is “fair game” and we’re sick and tired of it.

The Florida governor and presidential candidate has defended a bizarre campaign ad shared by the rapid response team for his 2024 campaign with the oddly named ‘DeSantis War Room’ that attempted to frame Trump as sympathetic to trans people.

The ad is interspersed with segments showing DeSantis marching through airbases, edited between brief shots of notorious fictional serial killer Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, who has become a twisted symbol of masculinity in far-right and neo-Nazi groups.

It faced a wave of backlash, not only from critics of its messaging, but also for the sheer scale of the minute-long ad campaign.

But, in an interview with Fox News host Tomi Lahren, DeSantis said the ad was “absolutely fair game” and claimed that the indicted former president Trump brought discussions of trans rights “to mainstream”.

“Recognizing Donald Trump as really a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream where he pits men against women in his beauty pageants I think that’s totally fair game because he’s now campaigner saying the opposite, that he doesn’t think you should have men competing in women’s things like athletics,” DeSantis said.

And ultimately when you talk about some of the gender ideology that’s being put out in this country, in the state of Florida, we’re fighting against that.

Despite the fact that transgender people have existed for centuries before Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump were even born, his claim appears to confirm that DeSantis’ 2024 campaign will prioritize his “anti-woke” rhetoric.

Again, we were incredibly tired.

But we’re not the only ones. US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg shared his views on the ad in a July 2 interview on CNN’s State of the Union.

Buttigieg commented on the “weirdness” of DeSantis proving his certain, indeed, real masculinity by performing alongside “greasy, shirtless bodybuilders”, adding that the outright homophobic, transphobic, and bigoted that energy from the ad is disgusting.

I just don’t understand the mentality of someone who wakes up in the morning, thinking that he will prove his worth by competing who can make life difficult for a poor community,” he said.

The openly gay transportation secretary added that he was baffled by the DeSantis campaign’s strategy of targeting an already very vulnerable community in America.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung also commented on the ad, telling NBC News it was a sign of a “flailing candidate in his last throes of relevance”.

But DeSantis’ campaign is still clinging to the scary ad, with spokeswoman Christina Pushaw criticizing those calling the ad “undeniably homophobic,” despite praising Florida’s blatant exclusion of LGBTQ+ people .

Opposition to federal recognition of Pride Month is not homophobic, Pushaw claimed. Nor will we support a month to celebrate straight people for sexual orientation.

“Its unnecessary, divisive, pandering. In a country as vast and diverse as the USA, identity politics is poisonous.

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