HEY, KIDS, LET'S GO TO DESANTIS WORLD!(VOX POPULIST) (Florida governor Ron DeSantis)

• Author: Hightower, Jim

Until recently, kids were thrilled when their parents said, "We're going to Disney World!" But that was in the beforetimes, before Florida's autocratic governor put Disney World under the control of his state's thought police, turning it into "DeSantis World."

Having made kid-friendly Disney kowtow to his own magic kingdom of rightwing ideological conformity, Governor Ron is now demanding that the entire Sunshine State convert to the darkness of DeSantis World. A major tactic in his push is to rewrite the state's schoolbooks to "protect" young ones from having to learn that such historical unpleasantnesses as racism and anti-trans discrimination have shaped their society--and are still doing so.

To advance RonThink, he has rammed his "Stop WOKE Act" into law, requiring teachers to--Shhh--soften, or just eliminate, references to America's racial problems. Pretend it never happened is the instruction from Professor DeSantis.

Indeed, one educational publisher obediently followed his dictate, rewriting the uplifting 1955 story of Rosa Parks confronting the flagrant, institutional racism of the public bus service in Montgomery, Alabama. Before...